When you work with the elevation of the soil, consider how to manage runoff so you can capture more rainwater and have less runoff. Hills and mounds add interest to the landscape. You can use a hose to run some water where is usually drains and see how you can mounds the soil to slow it down and have it soak in.

I used fortnight lilies, society garlic, and various gazanias in my parking strip. It's kind of mundane, but the soil is terrible there and those plants can grow anywhere. My more special plants are in front of the house.

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Here is a link that might be useful: drought tolerant plants

My son and his gardening wife lived in Santa Cruz and were blessed with a hell strip. I ran a drip line under the sidewalk from her front yard planting, the original lawn had been removed. I ran a drip line with internal emitters spaced a foot apart, the length of the strip. She filled the strip with Mediterranean plants, full enough to eliminate almost all weeding. The only negative was if you parked along the strip, the passenger side of the car was difficult to exit through the plants. Al

Thanks!
I wondered if we ran drip lines if I would just grow healthy crops of weeds.
We plan on breaks in the planting to allow for passengers exiting cars-and cut down on the massive amount of hellstrip plants...corner house...

I would choose carefully, since so many mounding water-wise plants grow into monsters and have to be shaved down.

Hoovb's blog had a feature with aloes in a hellstrip. It looks good, does not grow too tall, and requires very little water. A few ten-foot long areas filled with aloes might look nice.

Mounds tend to go away here. I have built a few, and most of them looked like you'd find a body if you poked around in there. If you build mounds, I would suggest some shoring on the sides to prevent the disappearing mound problem.

Good luck with your big project. It sounds like it is going to be very well thought-out. It's a shame cities do not put the sidewalks adjacent to the street.
Renee

Here is a link that might be useful: Piece of Eden Hoovb's Blog

Hell strips generally are not wide enough to support a berm, or mound. The raised area has to have a wide enough flat area adjacent to the sidewalk to keep any planting from lapping over the sidewalk. I think a minimum of 4 feet width would be needed. Al

Our hellstrips are nearly 6ft wide. Lucky us! The pictures of aloes are very pretty and are going into the idea file.

The very subtle mounds are being attempted as I type. (I am slacking off and expect the scouting party soon) This is in the yard, not the hellstrips. We have a lot of soil that has been pushed around and piled up from the hardscaping and re-grading. We gave some away, but the idea of lugging the remainder somewhere is daunting.

The most interesting part of this project? All the neighbors strolling by offering their comments...LOL

I put in a thin layer of cement to keep the weeds out and the dog poop out.

A six foot wide hellstrip is almost a yard!
Any good ideas from the neighbors? I'll bet they are happy to see you working on the yard.

With 6 foot wide hell strips, you can easily mound up to about 6/8" at the center and still keep flatter areas 6 inches wide adjacent the curb and sidewalk. I also would consider running 3 parallel drip emitter lines throughout the strip for best plant appearance. For areas to be walked on, you can't beat ground covers such as Dymondia, which fills in thickly and easily takes light foot traffic. Al makes a good point that it is better to keep plants lower at the curb side so you dont block car doors swinging out, or only use tougher plants there that can takes some abuse without being smashed if your corner lot sees heavier parking.I like using lots of lower growing but spreading succulents for mass coverage at hell strips. Some of the easiest might include Bulbine frutescens and B. frutescens 'Hallmark', Cotyledon
orbiculata and C. macrantha, Senecio mandraliscae, Sedum 'Angelina', Aeoniums of all types,
particularly A. arborescens, canariensis, haworthii,
clumping Aloes such as maculata, nobilis, and many others.

For foliage contrast to succulents, I like using things like Festuca glauca, Coleonema 'Sunset Gold', dwarfed growing Phormiums such as Jester, some of the hardier sun tolerant landscape bromeliads such as Puya mirabilis and
Dyckia platyphylla. You could also combine some foliage
color with things like Libertia ixioides 'Goldfinger' or
Aristea inaequalis or Cordyline 'Festival Grass'. South
African bulbous things like Sparaxis, Freesias, Ixias,
Watsonias, Dieramas, Tulbaghias, all work well in sunny
hell strips as well.

Some full proof flowering herbaceous things to consider might include Alstroemeria 'Ligtu Hybrids', Anigozanthus flavidus cultivars such as Harmony or Tequila Sunrise, Lobelia laxiflora, and virtually everblooming flowers such as Valerian/Centranthus ruber, (but keep this last one dead headed before it turns to seed or it will self sow everywhere). I've combined some of the smaller growing Protea family members in wide hell strips as well. If you don't mind a few shrubs to 4~5' tall, look into some of the Grevilleas, Leucospermum cordifolium cultivars, Leucadendron salignum 'Summer Red', Isopogon formosus to name a few. Some of the South African restios such as Chondropetalum tectorum or Thamnochortus are also good.