I’ll start with the confession: I sometimes take “drives” around cities and towns on Google, using Google’s street view. It gives me a chance to look at how people garden in places I may not have visited. I also look for examples of lawn replacements where green grass in front yards has obviously been removed and drought tolerant plants installed instead.
Most recently I “drove” around Tucson, Arizona and El Paso, Texas and, instead of lawn replacements or dry, sun-baked lawns, I saw a lot of non-gardens in front of homes. What I consider non-gardens are front yards with a random bush or two here or there, nothing seemingly planned or cared for. These spaces may have rock mulch, but as often as not, they don’t. And they are not native plant gardens either. Lawn replacement wasn’t even an issue in those places.
Both cities have low annual rainfall –10 inches for El Paso, 12 inches for Tucson–which puts them both clearly into a desert climate category with most of the rain coming during the summer monsoon.
With a little planning, however, non-gardens can be transformed into attractive spaces that will please the eye and increase property values.
Full disclosure: These examples below are lawn replacements. Instead of starting with non-gardens these homeowners removed thirsty front lawns temporarily creating “non-gardens”.
Here are two examples I particularly like. Neither require much maintenance at all after they are established. (And for 4 more landscaping ideas for hot gardens, go here.)
Lawn Replacement garden #1
These homeowners stripped out the grass and planted a border of non-thirsty desert plants in a curving shape around a plot that looks like bare earth but is in fact decomposed granite. The decomposed granite protects the underlying soil from erosion during heavy rains and is excellent for weed control.
Among the plants in this border near the house are several varieties of Agaves plus Lantana with orange blooms. Lantana flowers for months on end and needs very little water. The Agaves can survive with almost total neglect.
In the foreground are Aloe, iceplants (Delosperma) and a lone clump of Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima) in bare soil that once had wood mulch on it. The bare soil looks washed out and uneven in contrast to the decomposed granite surface.
Lawn replacement garden #2
This second garden is also drought tolerant, although it definitely needs more watering than the one above.
Despite the fact that many of the plants are desert natives, they give the impression of being abundant in an almost “English garden” style with mounds of green plants with leaves of contrasting colors and shapes. Because this photo was taken in late summer only a few blooms are left on plants. Among the plants are the almost leafless Palo verde trees (Parkinsonia x), deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens), and the Mexican Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia mexicana) with its long-lasting orange blooms.
The garden design also includes berms, shallow “hills” created artificially, to give more privacy to the home. One good thing about creating berms is that in the process of building up the pile of earth you can add nutrients all the way through to the old bare earth below. These berms are covered with wood mulch to provide both cover for the bare soil and food for the plants. The homeowners have chosen a light color decomposed granite for the paths. It also comes in a variety of other colors.
Here is a second view of the home. I’m not sure what the plant in the front by the rock is, but it looks as if it is failing.
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I live in El Paso, and, believe me, there are LOTS of “non-gardens” both in front and back of houses. Our house, which we bought a bit over a year ago, had one of those “non-gardens” in front. It does have river rock mulch – stones are too big, though, so it will eventually be replaced with smaller rock. The only plants in front that the house came with is a white vitex, a half dead cenizo (which is now flourishing after regenerative pruning) and some scraggly heavenly bamboo up against the house (which will be pulled up at some point). After finding your fabulous blog and doing a lot of research and musing, I’ve planted lantana, red yucca, Russian sage, salvia and a desert bird of paradise. Except for 3 salvia that didn’t make it through the summer and were recently replaced, everything is thriving. Can’t wait to see how they begin to fill in next year. More lantana and some ornamental grasses, and perhaps a crepe myrtle are on the agenda for later. I sooooo appreciate your blog because I feel more confident now in the choices I am making.
Thank you for the kind words! I love heavenly bamboo in winter with its red leaves and berries, but there seems to me to be an awkwardness about the plant structure. In my “drive” online around El Paso I saw one smallish front yard that had three Mexican Bird of Paradise in it–leafy green leaves and blooming like crazy. It really stood out. As an added testimonial about the toughness of a Bird of Paradise plant, the California Department of Transportation has planted it along the 15 freeway between L.A. and Vegas. And CDOT simply plants and forgets so we can assume it is durable as well as attractive.