6 lawn-free garden designs for hot climates

Removing a turf grass lawn could be the wisest gardening decision to make this year as hot, dry climates become hotter and dryer. Here are 5 no-lawn landscape designs to inspire you to make the change and help preserve increasingly scarce water.

Plus, at the bottom of this page, one very odd front lawn replacement if wild whimsey is more your style.

Bright perennials in full bloom give a cottage garden look

A colorful garden that makes you want to smile. Sea lavender, kangaroo paw, aloes, Russian sage, rosemary plus flat gray dymondia as a walkable ground cover make this lawn replacement both festive in Springtime and easy-care year ’round. Even the durable dymondia bursts in bloom with small bright yellow daisy-like flowers briefly in Spring. The plants were chosen so, when mature, none would overwhelm the others in size.

Small hills to create a “woodlands” garden

A formerly flat green grass space has been transformed with berms (artificial small hills) to add dimension. A suggestion of a “woodlands” has been created with small scale drought tolerant trees and low shrubs. Shrubs were selected for shape and texture, rather than whether or not they bloomed although several are blooming in the second photo. A decomposed granite path–which suppresses weeds–leads through this space to a patio and the front door to this home. It is important that the berms do not channel water to your home — but rather, away from it!

Mexican style plaza suitable for Spanish-style architecture

This garden celebrates “flatness” with a plaza-like central space that is in keeping with the Spanish Revival style architecture of the home. The plaza is covered with weed-free decomposed granite in a golden color, one of several colors available. (The soil at the bottom of this photo shows the natural color of the dirt in this area.) The surrounding agaves and other drought tolerant plants bloom seasonally, relying only on natural rainfall.

Native plantings mimic the desert

A desert plant garden created by an Arizona plant collector/homeowner who loves the idea of sweeps of plants with larger single specimens for visual punctuation. Little known is the fact that small blooming native plants, like the yellow daisies, spring up in the Sonoran desert like a carpet. After blooming they vanish within days until the next year. They are a visual surprise!

Dry stream bed captures rainfall

This mature garden has been densely planted with blue-gray fescue and taller dark green deer grass. Small boulders and rocks have been used to create a garden feature that gives the impression of being a dry stream bed. After winter storms rainfall pools in the center, capturing some water to remain on the site. The agave obviously likes where it is planted because it is huge!

Whimsey by day and lights at night

I think of this lawn replacement as blue bottle wildness/weirdness in an affluent Southern California neighborhood. In addition to the bottles there are whirly-gigs, spinners, plastic butterflies and other garden ornaments in the circular planting beds. Most of the plants are cacti or succulents, except for the tropical plumeria tree in the center, which has blue light bulbs hanging from it. Designed by the homeowner, the garden also has a night time personality. Click on the photo to see the night view in the last photo.

For more information about replacing your lawn and 3 things to avoid go here.