Low-water landscaping
Posted by George J Janczyn on June 26, 2009
Revised: July 1, 2009 (additional pictures)
We took a walk around our area yesterday to see what neighbors are doing in the way of landscaping that looks nice but appears to be relatively low on water requirements. Below are a few that I like.
As full disclosure, I’ll show my house first. It was nothing but gravel when we bought it, we added three trees, a Melaleuca, Crape Myrtle, and a Rhus Lancea which you can’t see in this shot. There are some ugly patches that we need to work on.
Our place is pretty plain compared to the others
I watched them plant this years ago. Very nice.
Nice slope but still a bit of thirsty lawn
These owners made a beautiful composition.
Very pleasant arrangement.
Any idea what the foreground plant with white flowers is?
This looks like a recent makeover; probably was a lawn.
Nice plant choices; I'd skip the birdbath
GrokSurf's San Diego 
lostlandscape said
Good to see some successful yards employing drought-tolerant strategies. Most of the yards look pretty established, so the owners are ahead of the curve. The white-flowered plant is a matilija poppy, most likely Romney coulteri. It’s a great native that is happy with zero added water, but it doth have a reputation for being hard to establish and then impossible to contain once it settles in…