Austin Xeriscaping: ✅

After several months of planning and executing, my Texas natives cacti/succulent garden is complete!

Living in Austin has made me extremely water-conscious, so I’ve embarked on a journey to grow only native (for the most part), drought-tolerant, heat-tolerant, deer-resistant, pollinators that thrive in our variable climate.

This bed started out at as overgrown wildflower bed (see last two pics) that was completely taken over by reseeding cosmos. It’s also home to this unsightly electrical box that I wanted to do something creative with.

All the things I did:

1. Installed stone edging around concrete slab

2. Transplanted existing plants

3. Capped four sprinkler heads

4. Removed as much existing mulch as possible

5. Turned over topsoil and mixed in amendments- sand, turface, pumice, limestone, expanded shale, and decomposed granite (the soil was very rich and dense)

6. Laid 40+ bags of decomposed granite

7. Mapped out/planted/staged everything

8. Installed Chihuly-esque artwork

I sourced all sorts of cacti/desert plants last summer with this vision in mind, then mixed in some other grasses/succulents/plants that provide color and flowers throughout the growing season. If you’re curious about all the plants I used, I can write out a list for y’all- just lmk. Special shoutout to my potted opuntia that lived in its pot for 6 years before I gave it the honor of going in the ground first.

Also, big thanks to East Austin Succulents, The Natural Gardener, The Great Outdoors and the Austin Gardening Reddit community for helping guide this technical process with some solid advice!