Actually, I should clarify. I don't hate grass per se, I just hate being expected to grow a lush green lawn in an arid climate that's really not conducive to the stuff.
So when I bought my house 20 years ago, I decided that I wanted to xeriscape the front yard.
Those of you who live in more moist climates might not be familiar with the word xeriscape. Essentially it's landscaping using low water plants - but I tend to think of it as the quest for socially acceptable weeds.
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| A Portion of my Xeriscape last July |
Some plants have been more successful than others, and I fear the success of some has been the demise of others!
Anyhow, I thought I'd give you a little tour of my xeriscape with notes on what has worked and what hasn't. I have the hunch these sorts of things are very climate dependent, so what works in Denver probably wouldn't work in San Antonio, etc, but here's a brief look at my successes and failures.
Silver Stone Sedum -
Success but it takes over
Success but it takes over
Silver stone sedum is by far the most prolific plant in my xeriscape. A small clump of it arrived with some iris from a friend back when I first started the garden, and well... it certainly propagates well! Seriously, you just break off a stem and stick it in the ground and it will root and spread.
The problem is that it tends to take over, so I'm having to dig out chunks to make room for the other plants. But it does send up long spires with brilliant yellow flowers every June. The photo at the top was taken when they were just at the end of their blooming cycle - all of the yellowish browinish stuff sticking up was bright yellow just a week or two before (so much for timing my photos well!)
Sedum Angelina - Success!
This stuff is really pretty and it's very easy to grow. I love the yellow/orange color of the tips, and it propagates well by simply sticking a hunk in the ground. It needs virtually no irrigation, so it's a big win!
Creeping Phlox - Success-ish
This is one of the first plants that I added when I started my xeriscape a dozen years ago or so. It has done well, although unfortunately it seems to be creeping onto the sidewalk rather than spreading into the surrounding dirt - so I need to see if I can find a way to relocate a portion of it without killing it. But it blooms nicely every spring and adds some welcome color, so hopefully I can find a way to get it to spread into new territory.
Marigolds - Success!
Marigolds are an annual, but they reseed easily and seem to do well in our climate. They bloom most of the summer and only need the occasional squirt of water. Yes!
Purple Iris - Success
Purple iris were one of the first flowers I planted when I started the garden. A friend was thinning hers so I got a bunch for free. Recently I've noticed that they haven't been blooming as much and I concluded that they needed to be thinned. So last fall I attempted it with about half of them. It's too soon to tell if it worked or not, but most of them are coming up so hopefully that means I didn't kill them!
Dianthus - Success
Dianthus do well with very little water or care, and they bloom several times throughout the summer. I only wish they would spread quicker, but I'm working on gathering seeds and seeing if I can get some seedlings going - minimal success there, but not giving up!
Ice Plant - Failure
Lots of people in Denver seem to be able to grow ice plant, but I haven't been able to crack the code. I've tried 3-4 times and at best I can keep it alive for a year or so. I'm not sure if it needs more soil amendments or more water or what. It also might be that it got covered with bindweed and that killed it. But in my book, it's three strikes and you're out so I have officially given up on ice plant.
Nasturium - Total Failure
This stuff looks so pretty and in theory it's easy to grow, but I haven't been able to keep one alive for more than a few weeks. My hunch is that it needs more water than it's getting and/or it can't handle the hot weather. I think it's in the same family as cabbage and other cruciferous veggies, all of which I have had terrible luck with. Not sure what it means, but I don't feel real inspired to try again.
Echinacea or Purple Coneflower - Failure
At one point I had 3-4 of these plants in various places throughout the yard but they all died. I think that they didn't get enough water. Sigh.
Perennial Candytuft - Success!
This stuff totally rocks! There was a bit of it in the front planter when I moved in 20 years ago and it's filled in really nicely. Last year I took some cuttings and used root hormone to get them started and they all lived! Hooray! So I've got little bits of this throughout the garden and I hope to start some more cuttings this year. They bloom in the springtime and the rest of the year have a nice evergreen groudcover look.
Creeping Bellflower - Success-ish
They tend to take over
This stuff is a success if your definition of a success is that it grows and spreads without much water. It even chokes out bindweed - of course it also chokes out just about everything else too! It grows from big bulbs and the "creeping" part is a bit misleading - "galloping" might be more accurate! Anyhow, mixed feelings on this one, but it does take up space and bloom - both good qualities in my book!
Shasta Daisies - Failure
but maybe worth another try.
These did really well for about 2 years and then they died. I'm not sure if it was the water situation again or if they just got overrun by the creeping bellflowers. Anyhow, they might be worth another try.
Garden Cosmos - Success - I think
I've only tried these for one season but so far I think they are in the win category. They do really well in full sun with minimal water and poor soil! Whoopie!!!! I'll be planting more this year!
Hens & Chicks - Success but of the slow motion variety
Hens & chicks are one of the first plants that I think of when I think xeriscape. They do really well with very little water, and they're pretty cool looking. They even send up these long crazy spires when they bloom. The only problem is that they are really slow to fill in, so you have to have a great deal of patience... not my strong suit!
Flowering Oregano - Success
I planted some oregano in my vegetable garden years ago and the stuff has spread incredibly - I've actually had to start digging it up because it was sort of taking over. But... since it did so well and even came up in the cracks of the driveway I figured it could probably withstand the neglect it would receive in the front yard, so I transplanted a few hunks into the xeriscape and it's done really well. It flowers all summer long and while the blooms are tiny, they are pretty and it attracts lots of bees.
Autumn Joy Sedum - Success
This is another one that's successful but slow. I planted some over 10 years ago and while it has done well, it hasn't spread much. I've been trying to separate off little hunks and move it around to other parts of the garden with so/so results. Still a win though because it blooms in the fall and adds color to the garden at a time when it would otherwise be pretty blah.
Yarrow - Success
OK, to be fair, last year is my first attempt at growing yarrow but it's done really well! It spreads nicely and seems to thrive with virtually no water. Yippie! I have both a yellow and a red one, and I've got a packet of seeds that claims it's mixed colors, so I'm hoping to add some more this year.
Purple Salvia - Jury's still out, but it's not dead yet
I planted 2 purple salvia plants about 3 years ago and I'm still not sure how they're doing. They haven't spread or grown much, but they're also not dead yet, so hopefully that's a good sign. This picture is not mine, mine are, ahem, much punier than this one. We'll see... hopefully it will turn out to be a keeper.
So there you have it - a brief tour of my xeriscape plants. I'm sure I've left some out, like most of the spring bulbs, but you get the idea. So tell me, what is the gardening climate like where you live? Which plants have worked for you and which haven't?
Wow, it is interesting to read what worked and what didn't. I had a big fail with cosmos seeds last year. The purple Iris is stunning.
ReplyDeleteDid your seeds fail to sprout or did the plants just not do well? I started the seeds indoors last year, but I'm hoping at least some will direct seed this year. Fingers crossed!
DeleteI'm going to have to check into the flowering oregano. I've never had oregano that flowered (well, not big blooms like that). We've always had Greek oregano that my mother-in-law gave me. It was self contained in one bed, I think, because the bed was shady. However, it accidentally got pulled up last year when someone, who shall remain nameless, pulled it as a weed.
ReplyDeleteBTW, loved the post. I always like seeing plants.
I think it's Italian Oregano, but I'm not sure. And I'm chuckling over the accidental pulling of your poor oregano plant. They say there's a sure fire way to identify which plants are weeds and which are not. Just give it a firm tug - if it comes out easily it was meant to be there, if not, it's a weed! :-)
DeleteGood for you for getting rid of your lawn, and planting flowers that work well in your climate. I have a friend from Uruguay who's always trying to grow exotic plants outside because "that's what I grew at home", we live in Zone 6.
ReplyDeleteYour front yard looks nice, a garden is constantly evolving, so it should never really be finished
Marieann
Well,"finished" is not a term that could be applied to many things in my life, and certainly not my garden! I'm betting those plants from Uruguay aren't doin' too well in zone 6!
DeleteHerbs such as sage and thyme should also thrive. Lamb's ears have lovely silver velvety leaves, also drought tolerant. For annuals try sweet alyssum and California poppies - both should reseed.
ReplyDeleteYour perennial candytuft will respond nicely to clipping back as flowers fade. More cuttings to root - and rooted plants to share / swap with neighbors.
Creeping bellflower, Campanula rapunculoides, is a first class thug. Probably too late to evict / get rid of it by now.
If your rain is more reliable in autumn then plant the perennials in late summer. Even plants that are drought tolerant need moisture to become established.
Oy... the creeping bellflower. They were here when I bought the house, and I've dug up countless wheel barrows full of those tubers, but it's never enough. I have to admit that in my list of the things I'd do if I had a time machine, stopping the previous owner of this house from planting those ranks pretty high. "Wait! Stop! Think what you're doing to future generations!!!"
DeleteAnyhow, lamb's ears are on my list of plants to try - one of my neighbors has a bunch so I'm hoping I can get some from her. And are California poppies the ones with the bit orange paper-like flowers? If so, they're on my list to try also!
I think you did well to do your own and you do have a lot of success with them! I wonder too if it is different in Denver compared to here because you get much more severe weather than we do so what works here might be too harsh to work there.
ReplyDeleteIn answer to your question, what I understand about the weeds is that they become abundant when we get our monsoons in the summer months with all the rain that comes. I've seen a few weeds here that I have picked but nothing abundant. It also could be too that there is concrete under some of the xeriscaping here. We tried to put up a free standing bird feeder and could not get it into the ground more than 2 inches until we hit concrete.
Weird. From what I also understand, people who want to go natural and not use the chemical weed killers will use a 100% concentration of vinegar that they will spray on weeks. Seems to be effective in killing weeds.
Only 2 more letters for the challenge!
betty
Betty, much of the land in my area is just a few inches of clay over layer of limestone. So your concrete might really be limestone or something similar.
DeleteInteresting about the concrete or limestone... whichever it is. I would guess that Prescott probably gets much less moisture than we do, since our climate is generally classified as semi-arid, not full desert.
DeleteI wondered what you'd come up with for X! Great post. An elderly lady at our church who loves to garden has given my daughter plants with animal names--we just got Hens and Chicks in the fall so are waiting to see what they do. Lambs Ears are fun and she also gave us Donkey Tails, which I am completely unfamiliar with.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of Donkey Tails. I'll have to go check with the Googles on that one!
DeleteGreat use of X. Beautiful flowers and plants. We used to have Autumn Sedum and the stinkin moles ate them.
ReplyDeleteBummer! The squirrels sometimes eat hens & chicks when I've tried to spread them around. At first I thought it was neighborhood kids digging them up, then I finally realized it was the squirrels!
DeleteGreat X word! So interesting to see what people are writing about in terms of X. Great photos. Makes me miss not having a garden :-(
ReplyDeleteWell... I've gotta say - CatMan and I went for a bike ride today and ended up at one of our state parks where we were chatting with a couple who are living the RV life - and the idea of not having a yard to deal with is sort of inviting!
DeleteI think your yard looks great. We have a humid subtropical climate in this part of the state, where lots of things that can be grown as ornamental in more extreme climates become badly invasive species here: privet, chinaberry, bermuda grass, honeysuckle, wisteria,and trumpet vine, to name a few. We don't water anything but the vegetable garden, but we mow and prune about 2 acres around the house just to keep the invasives (mainly privet and chinaberry) from taking over. We would love to have a wild, unmowed yard full of native species, but it's not possible. Love the 'Chillax Dude' picture. That's one relaxed kitty.
ReplyDeleteGosh - I've never even heard of privet or chinaberry - but I'm guessing chinaberry is a bit like chokecherry which we do have here. I always think it's funny what defines a "nice" yard in different parts of the world. Here, if it's green, it's wonderful! But in places that get more water than we do, the challenge is keeping things from turning into a jungle!
DeleteI'm not familiar with chokecherry, but privet makes a really good hedge if kept pruned. It spreads voraciously by roots and also by seeds through birds. Chinaberry is a fast growing tree that is rather pretty. Several years ago we tried letting a part of yard go 'natural' (mistake!) for 2-3 years. As a result we had to get someone with a bulldozer to clear the chinaberries and privet : (
DeleteHa! Well... landscaping with bulldozers - sounds like a new trend! If they're anything like our Siberian elm, I feel for you!
DeleteWe also have dry weather and heat here, but I'm not familiar with most of the plants you've mentioned.
ReplyDeleteBut there was a huge bank of purple irises in my backyard and I've transplanted them to various parts of my front yard and these are a big success. Except they have died out in the back yard. But I've heard you need to "divide" them occasionally. (One has turned into a white iris, which is fun.)
And I planted a rosemary bush near the front door. I'd read that they grow up to six feet in diameter so I made sure to plant it three feet from my house and sidewalk. Unfortunately, it appears to be fifteen feet in diameter and possibly still growing. Some folks around here say it does work for them, so planting it next to the house may be protective in some way (it might not handle cold well). Honeybees love it.
For most of my other plants I've tried to go native. Pink skullcap does well and transplants well (small, evergreen, small hot pink flowers). Chili pequin is beautiful (bright green leaves, small white flowers, small red berries), but I don't want to eat them. Somehow birds can handle the heat, though. And all kinds of salvia work great here.
I got a Texas mountain laurel to live for many years, but then it died not long after my old Arizona ash died--perhaps it likes more shade than it was getting after that.
I have had a lot less success than you but am planning to start trying to take back my yard again now that I'm retired.
I am soooo jealous of your rosemary bush - nothing goes better with roast meat than fresh rosemary. I grew a huge plant one year, but it didn't survive the winter. They say you can bring them inside for the winter - but that only applies to people who don't have a crazy cat who will eat it and make himself sick!
DeleteI need to do some research on native plants. I'm pretty sure rabbitbrush is native to this area, and it would look nice up against the house where there's currently just a mess of bindweed!
Ah, so it is cold that's the problem with rosemary.
DeleteBe careful about planting things right next to the house--then it's hard to get to it if you want to paint or something. I've now decided that I prefer a walkway, maybe even a wide one that has room for chairs, between my house and the "foundation" plants.
Interesting idea. I actually did unearth a sidewalk next to the foundation on the south side of the house. I think it got buried because of foundation issues - dirt had to be piled there to try to encourage water to run away from the house not toward it. I'll have to mull that suggestion over...
DeleteHa! I unearthed a sidewalk-like pathway which I quickly learned gets covered by St. Augustine grass just quickly taking possession!
DeleteVery Pretty,
ReplyDeletejust popped in from the A-Z challenge to say Hello
Kim in Australia
Hi Kim, Thanks so much for stopping by. Only 2 letters left - hooray!
DeleteSo fun to find out which plants work where. And though adequate rainfall isn't usually an issue here, I kinda hate grass too. It looks fine, but requires so many chemicals and lots of maintenance that I'm not willing to do. Pretty sure my neighbors hate that.
ReplyDeleteI'm in central Ohio, zone 6 and I haven't grown most of these, but of the ones I have coneflower does best for me. It continues to return and reseed in new spots - I love it. Oriental poppies have also worked well and reseed for me, but not other poppy varieties. And it finally seem like the foxglove is living and reseeding, after several failed attempts. I also love zinnias, but they're annuals I have to grow from seed ever year.
My dianthus lived for 5 years or so, but didn't always thrive. It finally bit the dust last summer. I grew nasturiums from seeds once that did well, but at least one other try wasn't great. Oh, and I like them, but I've never had much luck with cosmos. I prefer zinnias instead.
I grew a pot full of beautiful zinnias one summer - but it did require almost daily watering to keep them alive. The sure were pretty though. I'm not familiar with foxglove or oriental poppies so I'll have to go look them up. And there is some kind of orange coneflower that seems to do well here - it grows wild along the bike path. I collected a few seeds once and tried to start them, but alas, nothing took. I'll have to do some research and see if I can figure out what they are because I'd love to have more variety.
DeleteI think cosmos really like hot dry weather, so you may just have too much rain for them to thrive.
The A to Z Challenge is definitely educational for me. I had never heard of xeriscape before I read your post. It seems kind of neat. I'm not sure if it would work here, though. We've never done anything to help the grass along, and it's very thick, lush, and green.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to figure out which flowers work in our yard, and where they're happiest. I just got a purple iris on Sunday that I planted this evening. It's gorgeous, so I'm really hoping it makes it.
Ha! I'm not surprised you've never heard of it since it's a concept that totally doesn't apply in your climate. I'm always soooo jealous of people who live in areas where water actually falls from the sky on a regular basis. Of course, there is the humidity - that's something we almost never have to contend with. Plus, we get over 300 days of sunshine every year. I'm quite sure that if you get more rain, you also get less sunshine! Guess everything's a trade off! :-)
DeleteI feel your pain with the bluebells....they were here when we moved in and are pretty, so I left them alone at first, but then they started to get out of hand. The past few years I've been working to keep them from taking over, but it's almost impossible to get all of the tuber. I live nearby in Lakewood and have shasta daisy, lambs ear and other perennials to share if you are interested... now is the best time to transplant. Do you have access to my email? Let me know.
ReplyDeleteYou're so sweet! I actually have ready access to both plants. I just have to find some time to dig up some more grass and get them planted!
DeleteAnd the bluebells - aaarrrrggghhh! I literally dig them out by the wheel barrow, but you're right, there just doesn't seem to be a way to get them all. Sigh.
The creeping phlox grows wild where I grew up. My mother called it Mountain Pink. It grows in the little hollow of soil just behind the edge of rock outcroppings, and hangs over. It wants to grow bump up against something rocklike that it can sprawl over and hang down from.
ReplyDeleteIf you want it to grow into your yard and away from the sidewalk, put a rock or a paver up against the other side of it. It loves a rock garden or a stepping stone path it can fill in the cracks between.
There are a lot of other campanulas besides rapunculoides. My favorite is C. poscharskyana, but C. persicifolia is pretty common. They're most of them easy to grow from seed, and the seed is easy to get from British catalogs like Thompson and Morgan.
Hmmm... interesting information on the phlox! Perhaps it's just following its nature to grow onto the stone, or in this case the sidewalk! I wonder if there's a way to cut back the portion that's on the sidewalk and get it to root so I can transplant it elsewhere.
DeleteAnd... um... I'm gonna need a translation on that final paragraph. I think you're talking about the creeping bellflower, yes? Assuming that's correct, do the other varieties take over or are they more polite?
What a great post, especially for your Colorado readers (me, for instance) who deal with wild weather and clay soil. I am definitely planting some Autumn Joy Sedum based on your success. Thanks for sharing the plant names, photos and details about your growing experience -- I know how much work that entailed. I loved seeing your xeriscape garden, too!
ReplyDelete