This is a good thread. We have more annual rainfall than you Californians, about 40", but have long summer droughts and very heavy soil, somewhat compensated by the garden's being on a slope. We get snow most winters--last winter was a wet one, with five feet of snow that melted however promptly--but temperatures rarely fall below 20F, tending to stay in the thirties and forties much of the time during winter. I grow my plants as others have described here: roses and shrubs underplanted with subshrubs, perennials, bulbs, and self-seeding annuals. We don't water plants after the first year. Last year we went four months with one centimeter of rain: most things survived. We keep a heavy mulch on our beds. My plant list: Bearded iris, which I DO like; this is unkillable if you don't overwater it. Also I. orientalis, more commonly known as I. ochroleuca. Snakeshead iris, an iris relative, is good. Lavender, mostly lavandins (L. angustifolia x L. latifolia) and L. angustifolia and close relatives: these are hardy and don't mind heavy soil. L. stoechas may need looser soil; my finely cut tender lavender died to the ground last winter but is coming back. L. lanata is supposed to be tender, but I've never seen cold damage on mine: it has brilliant silvery foliage and violet flowers, and does well in hot, dry places. Artemisias of every kind, perovskia. I hear some of these can be invasive; in my garden I think they employ all their energies just staying alive. Caryopteris is good and handsome; sometimes it seeds. Thymes don't hold up well, but I think they might do better at the feet of roses with some protection from sun and wind. Mother-of-thyme (Thymus serpyllum) does very well this way as a ground cover, as does the caraway-scented thyme, the botanical name of which escapes me. Common culinary sage does well for me and is a handsome plant that the bees love; if it's particularly happy it will self-seed. The form with purple leaves dies out, but the yellow-variegated kind does great without summer water: mine stays prostrate. I'm beginning to discover the ornamental sages. I was recently given S. microphylla and S. 'Indigo Spires'; the giver tells my they both do well in a dry garden, but I'm watering mine as they're in their first year. S. guaranitica is a magnificent plant, but it gets big (think two meters tall and wide, though somewhat open in growth) and needs a little shelter from sun and wind, but it's not fussy. Rosemary in its many forms. It can be killed by a very wet winter, but I just plant a new plant: like most of these aromatic plants it's very easy to grow from cuttings. It stretches out and roots as it goes. Dahlias and kniphofias (red hot poker) are surprisingly modest in their water needs, at least if they're in heavy soil. Spring-blooming bulbs do their growing in winter and early spring when there's water, then go dormant in summer during the dry period. Daffodils, tulips, crocus all thrive here. Many of them need winter chill, and critters like them, except for daffodils, which have the enormous virtue of being poisonous. Common daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) grows everywhere. In California I'd be checking out the native bulbs. More aromatics: every kind of Nepeta; lavender cotton (Santolina) in all its varieties; Phlomis, to which a friend recently introduced me; this year I'm trying hyssop in the open garden. Field poppies, the annual red poppy that you see in Impressionist paintings; that stately weed mullein (it does take up a lot of space its second year). Then there are the drought-tolerant shrubs, but that's another discussion. Gardening is always an experiment. Our garden is influenced by our deep and heavy soil and by our usually generous annual rainfall. Since we don't water in summer we usually can grow plants like rosemary in heavy ground, but if we do get a lot of rain in late spring or summer, rosemary can die. A dry garden in summer means that we usually don't have to worry about our tall bearded iris rotting or losing our daffodils. We have enough winter chill for temperate climate plants. There are so many factors that influence a plant's growth that it's worth trying ones you like. Melissa

Many thanks! Actually, being on a hill with our clay soil works to our advantage. Most of the beds had the first 6-8 inches dug out (we tossed it in the furthest part of the backyard; the slope gets steeper down there) and replaced with good compost. That compost is pretty much eaten away by now, but with the clay base and slope, it really encourages the larger shrubs to make deeper roots. Not all plants do this, but roses, citrus, cestrum, bougainvillea, and most trees will deep-root when conditions are right. The slope means it's almost impossible to overwater. Five of our beds are xeric; they are never watered at all and just live off runoff. Oh, one other important lesson: Don't fight your site. If you've got lots of sun and alkaline soil, creating a woodland garden is going to be a killer, in resources and time. If your site has too much shade and deer abound, trying to grow roses will only be an expensive frustration. A good gardener is always trying to 'push the envelope' a little, but one can only go so far. I am a big, big believer in foliage. Because we can live in our gardens almost year-round, CA gardening has to be geared towards looking good all the time. The only way you can do that is with foliage. Very few plants flower all the time - OK, my pink cestrum and purple lantana come reeeeaaally close, but even they take a few weeks rest every once in a while. With foliage you can achieve the balanced, visually pleasing look of the three "layers" aka height: High, Middle, and Low. More than anything else, this is the hallmark of a successful design. Everything can be different, and yet relate to everything else around it. This is a north-facing, shaded bed. I am more pleased with this bed than any other, although I have reworked parts of it a few times. Just in the front half of this bed, there are thirteen plants easily identifiable in this photograph (there's more you can't see) - but only two plants are in bloom. Yet it is a rich, visually satisfying design of texture, shape and color. The photo was taken in 2008, I'd guess around very late Feb.

Oklahomarose, I tried Fescue ...once. I'm originally from Southern California, and although summers there are hot & dry, it didn't (used to be anyway) this hot! They have been in a terrible drought too. But, we would wear a long-sleeved shirt or light jacket in the mornings until ten and then don summer clothes until around 5 and then long pants and a long-sleeved shirt or light jacket again in the evening. Some nights, we even built a fire in the fireplace. My father grew Fescue out there. Too much work for me to get it going and not as tough as I need. I'm the freak around here. The feed store guy in town told me they didn't appreciate me moving here with my "Funny California ways of doing things." Oh well. I am growing St. Augustine grass on the South side of the house in part-shade with my Brown Turkey Fig. Both came from Louisiana where I lived for ten years before moving up here. I was told they would freeze here, but they are doing fine on the South side. I have to water them every day, but it is such a lovely lawn and I so enjoy those sweet figs in late summer. I love that area now. Cool and green. This past Fall, went drove to South Carolina to see the new grand baby. I cleaned out my daughter's flower beds for her and brought home all the Centipede Grass to try here. I planted it under the Weeping Willow on the North side and five clumps or seven survived the winter. I think that was pretty good since it wasn't even established yet before the cold hit. Those clumps are doing fine. Bermuda won't grow well if at all under trees, but the St. Augustine and Centipede do. I have cousins who live in Washington state, and they are ALWAYS trying to get us to move up there. They are gardeners too. I FEEL your pain and anxiety. ~Annie

I lurk here, a lot. I don't usually have much to say, although I do enjoy your posts. I posted on GJ for a long time, but that was a long time ago. Things evolve, a bunch of new ones join up, and the forum changes. It is the way it is supposed to be, I think. I am coming out of lurkdom to tell you that I do have some of those tires in my garden. They are painted all sorts of garish colors, and I actually grow vegetables in them. My DH cut them for me, and spent time turning them inside-out for me, and I am not going to hurt his feelings now by not using them. Besides, we have the most unbelievable black gumbo soil here. None of this nice sandy loam for us. God gave us soil that has absolutely no air in it, slick as boiled okra when it is wet, adobe when it is dried. So, we grow in raised beds, and these cute little beds are perfect. Fill them with good topsoil, good compost, and we can grow anything. A tire will grow 2 or 3 nice tomato plants, a couple of peppers, a package of lettuce seeds, or beets, or carrots, or maybe an eggplant or a couple of zuchini plants. I can weedeat the pathways to keep them neat. The tires do hold up very well to the punishment of the weed whacker, and they will last longer than all of us will. I guess I could paint them all green so they wouldn't stand out so much, but it's just a vegetable garden. And my grandkids love them. They each have a little salad garden in their own tire! LOL Janie