Xeriscaping Plants

Perhaps you've decided to be more environmentally friendly and incorporate xeriscaping into your landscape. Besides conserving water, you've no doubt discovered another advantage of xeriscaping is to save time and energy. Since you'll spend less time watering and maintaining a lush, water-sucking lawn, you can spend more time doing other things. Some people believe, however, that xeriscaping also means no-scaping. Meaning, you can't have trees or shrubs or flowers and, instead of a lawn, you'll only have rock or gravel.

Not true. In fact, true xeriscaping means that you can grow all types of plants while conserving water. How? By choosing the proper plants. Here are some tips and guidelines about xeriscaping plants and how you can grow them within your xeriscape:

• Take a hike—literally. Take a walk or hike in a local park or nature trail and see for yourself which types of plants are growing naturally without benefit of watering, mulching, or planting. Take along a camera and snap pictures of the native plants. Identify them either online, at your local library using botany books, or show them to your local nurseryman for identification. If you like the plants, choose to plant those varieties in your xeriscape.
• Look around. Visit your local cooperative extension for suggestions about what types of plants to grow in your xeriscape.
• Do some research. Think of climates that have drought conditions and then research the types of plants that grow there. Climates such as Australia, Africa, and the Earth's deserts are abundant with many varieties of beautiful plants. Research online those locations, or visit your library for books about the types of plants that grow in those locations.

No matter the types of plants you choose to grow in your xeriscape, always try to use recycled water to water them. If you must use water, choose a drip irrigation method or soaker hoses, since they use the least amount of water and focus the water right where the plant needs it—at its roots.