If people understood it better, xeriscaping would be practiced more than it is. While gardening with rocks and cactus may be one way of doing it, almost any landscaping ideas or garden style can be xeric. Just follow these seven principles.


You’ve spent a lifetime nurturing your garden. Many a meditative hour has been spent watering by hand, carefully pruning, feeding and weeding.  But with the cost of energy and living increasing and the earth’s temperature rising, the pressure is on to conserve.  You’ve thought of going "Xeric" but it feels like you’re giving your garden and landscaping ideas a death sentence.  You just can’t wrap your head around the idea of rocks, bark, cactus, and pea gravel, with a few ornamental grasses in between. 

You are in for such a surprise!  The same romantic feeling of an English Garden can be achieved through low maintenance, low water use plants that will yield you more time to spend enjoying your garden instead of pulling weeds.

Once you’ve educated yourself on all the benefits Xeriscaping has to offer and you’ve decided to take the leap, you might consider acquainting yourself with the guidelines of your water district for planting and watering.  You could be lucky enough to be located in a water district, such as Aurora, Colorado, that will hook you up with a landscape architect for some design consulting and rebate you for your Xeric square footage.

Now, having made the decision to go Xeric, you’ll need to implement its 7 basic principles.

1)  Planning and Design

As in all landscaping, divvy up the garden’s square footage based on how you want to use it.  Areas to consider are herb garden, vegetable garden, play, relaxation, and gathering, to name a few. Look at some garden and landscaping pictures for ideas.  Once you’ve drawn a graph of your property to scale, sketch out the already existing areas such as your home, driveway, fences, decks, etc.  Next, figure out the sun/shade requirements of planting and begin to decide where you want trees, shrubs, small plants, ground covers and grasses.  Use your plan to accommodate efficient ways of irrigating.

2.  Soil Improvement

One of the most important steps!  Till about 6 inches and add 1" to 2" of compost or aged manure to boost the mineral content of your soil.  Happy plants come from a healthy environment!  (Although there are some native plants that can grow in absolutely any condition.)

3.   Irrigation

Group plants by sun and water needs and use the most efficient system to water them. Check with your local nursery or hardware store for strategies.  Avoid oscillating and other high watering sprinklers that spew water into the air where it evaporates.  You will need to deep water until your plants are established.

4.  Plant Groupings

Plant your garden by zones broken up by plant requirements.  Sun loving plants who require similar amounts of water should be planted with the same.  And the opposite holds true for shade lovers.  Consider gravity as well.  If your landscaping ideas are on a slope, place plants that require low amounts of water higher on the slope than their thirsty friends who should be place in low lying areas for natural drainage.

5.  Mulches

Protect your plants with mulches to reduce evaporation.  Mulches offer additional benefits.  They cool the root zone, keep erosion to a minimum, if that’s a problem, reduce weeds, and give your yard a finished look.  You can also landscape with boulders and steppingstones interspersed with  many available groundcovers.

6.  Turf Selection

Although bluegrass looks great and is a traditional favorite, it requires lots of water.  Consider reducing your turf’s square footage. Supplement your landscaping turf with a variety of groundcovers and use grass alternatives to help further reduce your need for water.  Alternatives can be a variety of grasses, including, blue fescue, buffalo grass, and blue grama grass.

7. Maintenance

Xeriscape can become almost maintenance free, but it takes a year or two of dedicated effort to achieve that.  It will be necessary to get your plants established by regular watering, weeding, fertilizing and pruning.  Just like a traditional garden, some plants will survive and some will need replacing. 

Unlike a traditional garden though, over time, your time commitment to upkeep will all but disappear. That’s when you’ll be able to buy some cushy lawn chairs, sit back and enjoy your tea!

Tags: landscape design | landscape design | zeroscaping | zeroscaping | landscaping | xeriscaping | xeriscape | xeriscape | waterwise | waterwise | drought | drought

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