Purslane is great. I also highly recommend 'ice plant' which is flowering now and it's much more tolerant of cold snaps and frosts (it's perennial) than purslane (annual). If you do plant the iceplant remember it will run 18-24 inches from where it's rooted. Trimmings can be quickly rooted in plain water (as can purslane) to add to your garden plantings. Mexican zinnias (low growing continuous flowering neat mounding plant) in creamy white,almost marigold yellow and mixtures of rose,fuschia and pink do great in zeriscape if you prep the soil under and around them with just a bit of water saver beads. Don't use too much or it will heave the soil as the beads expand into globs of water holding gel. Look up plants recommended for zeriscaping for zone 7-8. After the droughts we've had down here you'll find a lot more selection of plants with lower water needs at your local garden centers.

Carol, you're a hoot! Like most of you, with the exception of things that are newly planted (we planted two new trees this year to replace two that we lost in a storm over the winter) and my potted vegetable garden which is on the deck and in bright sun for most of the day, we don't water daily or on a routine basis either. The veggies do get watered daily as a rule, but I also try to capture rainwater which I then use to water them - a trick we learned from some friends in GA who lived through the drought involving Lake Lanier. It's easily done by directing water from the gutters into 55 gallon trash barrels. If it's been a week or two with high heat and no rain, we look to see who is wilting (OTHER than ME) and we water if the plants are showing signs of significant stress, but honestly, that doesn't happen very often and we only give a good soaking to those beds that are looking haggard. But when we water, we do soak them thoroughly, and we do it either in the very early AM or late evening. One thing we did a couple of years ago that has made a tremendous difference was to invest in SoilMoist and add it into our beds around every plant. This is a synthetic additive that holds a tremendous amount of water (200 times its weight) and then releases it during times of drought, when the plants need it most. Adding it after the fact is a major chore because you can't just spread it around the garden or rake it into the soil around the plant -- you need to get it down near the roots. That meant either digging down along side the plant or lifting the plants out completely, adding the SoilMoist, and then replanting. It took us an entire growing season to get started with it. Now when we plant, we add a couple of tablespoons or more for something larger like a tree and we add it in the bottom of the hole with the compost and manure. Putting it where it can help larger shrubs and roses can be challenging and very time consuming if they aren't easily lifted. When we were dealing with some of the huge roses and shrubs, we dug down next to them using a heavy duty long handled weeding tool and sometimes a bulb planting tool to make a narrow tunnel next to the plant so that we could be sure to get the SoilMoist deep enough. I've been told that it does have a "life span" but so far, it seems to be doing the job and has shown no signs of losing it's water retaining ability. Other than the trees, which need watering a couple of times a week at least, and some new things we planted, which were watered liberally until they got established, (and the vegetables on the deck), I don't think we've watered more than 6 times this entire season. And once even a new plant becomes established, it often only needs watering when the entire bed does -- the SoilMoist is that effective. Mulching also makes a big difference. We use shredded leaf mold for mulch and that also reduces the amount of watering needed as it provides protection from the sun and slows drying considerably. Best of all, it composts right in the beds and becomes the darkest humus you've ever seen (except for that gorgeous black dirt in Minnesota). We make our own mulch. We get several truckloads of leaves dropped off in the fall by a landscaper friend who only brings leaves from properties that he maintains so we know that they are going to be free of serious pest problems (like nasty blights) and unwanted chemicals. Over the course of the fall, we run them through the Mighty Max and then we let them compost over the winter, covered by tarps. Then we run them through Max again in the spring. This gets put on the beds as a mulch and in the fall, we top them off again and add a bit of manure as well with another couple of inches Having done it both ways in the same garden, I can tell you with certainty that the combination of the SoilMoist and the thick mulch really makes a dramatic difference in terms of watering. Our gardens are pretty extensive and people often ask us where we hide the irrigation heads. (We don't have an irrigation system at all.) We have only a half acre but the entire thing is a series of garden beds. (We do have a token bed of "grass" and yes, it did turn brown during the recent dry spell we had -- it isn't blessed with the benefit of SoilMoist or mulch LOL -- but the rest of the beds were only watered in some cases once, some cases twice, and some cases not at all. Before we started using this regimen, we were watering some part of this garden daily and we were losing plants despite our best efforts. Now, even the weeds look like they're right out of Jurassic Park. Cathy (MA)

I'm not sure why yours died, I thought they were indestructible too. I originally bought three gallon sized plants and planted them in a spot with full afternoon sun and morning shade on the west side of a building and they flopped pretty bad. I dug up one and replanted it, I think in spring, down in the hot dry median and it got much bigger by the second year and it now puts out a lot of runners I am not too crazy about. It is almost 5 feet tall and wide (it would be even wider if I didn't stay after those suckers). They seem to move fairly easily (top might die back but it comes back from the roots) so thats another reason I think of them as indestructible. I saw some planted in another hot, full sun exposure median by the street at a commercial building here in the city but they are that more improved vertical kind. Much nicer and smaller plants. So, I am not sure except maybe its a matter of getting them well established on the roots first and then they take off? I do remember mine didn't get all that big the first couple years + there was that ugly flopping and they didn't seem to mind watering much. I thought of a couple other examples that take the heat and drought with very little or no extra watering and winter well here in Oklahoma. Salvia Greggii Scutellaria drummondii (nice neat small leaved mound, covered with purple flowers easy from seed) Apache Plume (gorgeous round shrub about 4' to 5' high and wide covered with ornamental pink featherlike seedheads all summer and white flowers simultaneously, needs zero watering and very cold hardy) TLC in Okla. City carries them and so does High Country Gardens.

I'm gardening in Santa Monica and going for a more drought tolerant garden while keeping roses in the mix. I haven't been checking the forums for a bit and I'm sure I'll echo many recommendations already made, but I like the following so far: Lavenders of all sort, but especially Fern-leafed in tighter spots. Eschscholzia in a myriad of colors. Platystemon californicus. Annie's carries this absolutely charming California native. It has lovely light yellow flowers that close up at night. It looks great right now for me. I really love this annual/companion. It's definitely for the front of the border. Penstemons in darker purples, blues -Marguerite BOP amongst others- and red. They can fill out nicely. Salvia of all sorts. I like gregii hybrids for sunnier spots, but check out the selection at Annie's. It is terrific! Cerinthe. I love the blue-grey-green foliage and purple flowers. It's very easy from seed. Centranthus or Jupiter's Beard in pink/red and white is all over my garden. It spreads almost to the point of invasiveness, but it looks good with little water and the volunteers are easy to rip out. I like the way certain ornamental grasses blend with roses. Smaller Pennisetum, Calmagrostis, Bouteloua, and Deschampsia varieties can be blended with roses and other drought tolerant plants fairly easily. Nicotiana mutabilis is very low maintenance and low-water for me. It looks great Spring-Fall with tall stalks of multi-colored flowers. Limonium -statice or sea-lavender- comes in all sorts of colors besides purple and is very easy to maintain with little water. I like the apricot and white varieties a lot. I really enjoy variegated Euphorbias like 'Blue Glacier' and 'Tasmanian Tiger.' They can lend much needed foliage interest and form very shapely mounds. Columbines fare a bit better in light shade for me, but I love to grow them. I have a Rosa rugosa alba in light shade under planted with black/dark purple columbines that looks wonderful right now. Eriogonum or buckwheat can be mixed at the front of drought tolerant borders with great success. I like E. latifolium and E. grande v. rubescens a lot. The former has terrific light pink flowers if I recall correctly and the latter red. Some dwarf Correa varieties look great with roses. The common name is Australian Fuschia. They bloom in winter/spring and require little water. Consider South African bulbs that go dormant in the summer when there's little or no rain here anyways. Ixia, Aristea, Ferraria, species Gladiolus, and others can be unbelievably beautiful and very drought tolerant. Lewisia looks terrific in Spring in containers or in areas where it won't be covered up since it is quite short. Check out Annie's Annuals in Richmond for plenty of ideas if you haven't. I can't tell you how many wonderful plants I've seen on their site that I wish I could have ordered without thinking about it. Being able to go in person removes the need to save on shipping and you can see their demo gardens with mature examples of most of their offerings. Jay