Please Recommend a Drought-Tolerant Tree for Small Yard
wobsie
15 years ago
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dicot
15 years agogardenguru1950
15 years agoRelated Discussions
need recommendation for shade/drought tolerant lawn
Comments (11)St Augustine is great for shade and should grow anywhere in SoCal. The house below has St Augustine, faces north, and has five live oak trees in the front. The yard down hill to the west has a big tree and the yard to the east has five live oaks. The only opening to the sky is the driveway to the left. If you have more shade than that, St Aug will survive but be a thin grass that allows some broadleaf weeds like henbit and dichondra in. Have you considered using dwarf monkey grass for the really shady areas? It does very well and looks like grass (but it isn't). It never needs mowing and takes darned little moisture. It spreads very slowly but consistently. Here is a picture to show roughly what it looks like invading St Aug. It is the dark green patch. 15 years ago it was about 1 square foot. Now it is more like 10 square feet. Slow spreader....See MorePlease help me pick a tree for small yard
Comments (8)The problem with shantung maple is that there's not really any named cultivars outside of Dallas area that I know of like you'd get with Japanese maple cultivars in many shapes, form, size, etc. You can get nice ones from Metro Maples tree farm (small local tree farm) from there. Fire Dragon, Golden Dragon, Dwarf Golden Dragon, Blaine's Dragon, Skinny Dragon, etc. A major tree grower just started growing Fire Dragon and it should eventually be widespread across the country. Not sure about others. Maybe Dwarf Golden Dragon later on because of its unique lime green summer color that do not burn in full hot weather. I have to admit that after having grown a bunch of Shantung maples from seeds, some are nice while some are not so nice form-wise. People from all over Texas drive to Metro Maples just to get Fire Dragon.......See MoreNeed help creating drought tolerant yard on a budget in Long Beach, CA
Comments (14)Looking at your inspiration photos, it seems that there are groundcover-like materials that can be grown there. I'm not familiar with what they might be so can't make recommendations. But it looks like a fairly lush look is available if one chooses the right material. Before doing any planting, I'd be considering if there is any possible way to widen the entrance walk, which is considerably undersized. The house would look more upscale with a much wider walk and you could probably eliminate one step in the process, making for an improved entry experience. I'd consider removing all of the raised edging. The beds it creates are much too tightly pinched to the house. A 5' to 6' minimum bed width would be more like it. In addition, the edge itself is so thin that it cheapens the overall look of the property. A masonry bed edge should be 8" wide, or wider, in order to be in scale with a house. If the edging didn't exist, it would be easy to place foundation plants where they should go. I find myself wishing the fence that encloses the back yard didn't come so close to the front entrance. By doing so, it messes up possible planting (the blank space between the windows is asking for a small tree) and generally looks a bit utilitarian so close to the front entrance. It would be nice if the back yard entrance could be framed with an arbor, but I don't know if that's possible with the way the architecture is laid out behind the fence. It would need to be explored. In the illustration I'm showing the types of plants that could go in certain locations. It's not means to be comprehensive. It's a start....See MoreDrought-tolerant yard options for dogs and kids?
Comments (17)Nothing that I would recommend, sadly. We ended up turning a bit more of the formerly grassy area into landscaped space (creating tree rings and planting some young trees, etc.) and the rest we have ceded to oxalis and its brethren until we have some time and money to do a more extensive overhaul. At this stage we're thinking most seriously of creating some hardscaped space to extend the living space a bit and then putting down sod in the small space that remains for a play space. We are in Northern CA where grass is challenging and expensive to maintain as far as water use, so want to minimize that use but do also have kids (no longer as young as when I first posted this!) who run and play pretty actively in that space, despite its small size. While the weeds make me nuts, they have actually done a decent job of holding the soil and addressing the mud, for better or worse. With the rainy winter this year, some of the original no-mow grass has returned, too....See Morecalistoga_al ca 15 usda 9
15 years agohoovb zone 9 sunset 23
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15 years agonullzero
15 years agoshadowsmom
15 years agowobsie
15 years agoseedygirl
15 years agodicot
15 years agoCalifia Ecodesign
8 years agoJXBrown (Sunset 24, N San Diego County)
8 years agoparker25mv
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoKim in PL (SoCal zone 10/Sunset 24)
8 years ago
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