aimeekitty, your two biggest issues are going to be the drainage, which is a given. You're in a newer area where, by law, they must compact the soil up to a 98% compaction so seismic waves pass through it quickly, producing less shaking. It's a trade-off. Good drainage and shaking, or bad with less movement. The other is going to be hard frosts. Being at the foot of that slope, and where you are in general, cold air is going to flow into your back yard and pool around the house. Any outlet you can provide for it to flow through the yard and not get trapped there will increase your chances with most plants. Those we've mentioned and not alerted you to cold issues should be fine. Duranta can have thorns so make sure any you buy are thornless. They CAN freeze badly there, so put them where there is good air drainage and reflected heat from hardscape. I use it on a south facing wall in Stevenson Ranch where it is happier than the Hybrid Perpetual the lady who installed the garden used. Solid green foliage is much more durable up there than the variegated types. Spring Bouquet has the more durable foliage of the Viburnum there and it is evergreen. I grow a Pink Snowball which is deciduous and the foliage shows burn half way through summer partly due to heat, aridity, alkalinity and its deciduous nature. If your Mom's spirea is doing OK, consider rooting more if you want more, from her plant instead of buying them. That way, should one not make it, there is still a starter plant to go to for more. Repeat flowering iris and daylilies aren't as vigorous as once flowering, so they don't take over and naturalize like the once flowering. In smaller gardens where everything has to carry its weight and provide some sort of interest, they are a much more reliable and pleasing choice for most people. Like the OGRs, if you had an acre where they can be hidden when "off", they're wonderful, but when they are in your face as soon as you walk out the door, they'd better look great and provide interest all the time or you will soon resent them. I forgot I wanted to also suggest Germander for your garden. Beautiful color in both foliage and flower and being fuzzy, the rabbits won't like it. Teucrium chamaedrys makes a lovely edging or filler plant. Teucrium fruticans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teucrium_fruticans is the silvery, fuzzy one which flowers later in summer with blue violet flowers. Both have grown quite well there and regain their early beauty by being whacked to the ground should they out grow their welcome. If lavenders aren't happy in your back yard, I agree, it's very likely the drainage. You might try digging enormous holes, much larger than needed, use something better composted than green to amend, then plant the crown of the plant higher as is suggested for Camellia and Azalea so when the water level is higher, the crown is up out of the muck. Yes, they will eventually settle down lower, but it has seemed to allow them to mature into more durable plants by the time they settle. You should also look at Santolina, either the green or silver, or both. They should be whacked back severely to renew themselves each spring. NOTHING eats them. They are highly scented. If you can determine where the rabbits enter your yard and concentrate the highly scented plants in that area, you'll "jam their radar", creating a zone they won't enter as the plants keep them from being able to smell predators. It is actually very effective. Anything you can stand that is highly scented (foliage, rather than flower) works well for this. While I can understand the comment about wishing more green shrubs were planted earlier in the garden, please keep in mind with your drainage, plants aren't going to grow as quickly, perhaps eventually not as large, because instead of growing down into the soil, roots have to grow closer to the surface, usually just under the sod, but they will eventually get larger. I know how frustrating it can be to keep seeing bare spaces between the plants, but if you're planning on living with that garden for a number of years, putting less permanent things in where the existing plants are expect to grow into, will make for many fewer headaches later on. Everything mentioned so far not only can be pruned, with few exceptions, they SHOULD be pruned to maintain them and make them grow more densely. If you drive along Soledad Canyon and notice the Leucophyllum along the bike path from Rainbow Glenn east, you'll see how rangy they are from no pruning. Contrast that with how wonderful they look in nursery cans at Green Thumb. Not only water, but PRUNING. All of the shrubs can get rangy unless kept sheared to maintain their density and that dense canopy creates many more flowering shoots, concentrating the blooms and fruit more densely for prettier effects in smaller spaces. Diosma can be pruned, it's just that it has such a nicely pleasing shape and habit, they're prettier if unpruned. The truth is they will probably require some pruning over time. I prefer simply cutting them half or more straight across the top. They grow upright with a fairly flattened surface, punctuated with flowering shoots. If you just cut it all off straight, it will respond by shooting up new flowering shoots and filling in, only shorter. That's what they do with the nursery plants before putting them out in flower. Why can't you? They just aren't that pretty if kept sheared as the mow/blow/go manicurists do to everything green. You'll see many Pittosporum Wheeler's Dwarf and Nandina domestica nana all over and they work well, remaining smaller and more ground cover. The Nandina also adds beautiful spots of red in cool weather. The City has them planted everywhere because they live forever, add color and require virtually nothing. Taller types can get fairly rangy pretty quickly and benefit from being whacked low. I'm not personally attracted to the Pittosporum and usually warn to keep all of them away from the house as they contain an oil which burns rather hot if the house burns. You don't need fuel as there is plenty already. The Nandina nana can be quite beautiful. I use it along a sidewalk in a very narrow strip with Santolina and lavenders in Old Orchard. It gets hacked when it grows on the walk and in spring, otherwise, they just do their thing and look pretty. Lantana can be a very effective ground cover there except when hard freezes hit. It loves the heat, is quite drought tolerant, stinks so the vermin usually avoid it and will flower any time it's hot. The low growing white and lavender are very effective and benefit from being cut low when needed. Santa Barbara Daisy is another "weed" which will grow with wild abandon there and can cover a lot of open ground. It will reseed itself and can easily be pulled and needs scraping off at the ground annually. It will fill a LOT of holes! You may want to check the free ads there for a source of horse manure. Don't worry about weeds as there are PLENTY of seeds there already; they blow in on the wind; come in on your gardener's tools and feet; on the rabbits that visit and even on your shoes when you walk around. The bacterial action of the digesting manure releases Humic Acid which helps to condition the soil, and the earthworms which will crawl across flaming asphalt to get to it will churn things up greatly. Keep it around the drip zone of the plants and between them, not against the trunks and crowns and keep it damp. In this heat, you can digest an inch of the stuff with regular moisture, to a thin layer of earthworm castings in about three months. I did it for years in Scenic Hills. You might also consider picking up Grow Power Plus and Grow More Organic All Purpose at Green Thumb, mix the two together so it's 15# of Grow More and 20# of Grow Power Plus, broadcast it everywhere by hand, then rinse it all off the foliage on top of the mulch. Not enough nitrogen to hurt anything, yet enough to feed the soil bacteria and get things cooking. It helped break up the red clay in Northbridge in a season, permitting things to grow which hadn't gotten bigger in years. All of it will help with your drainage over time and keep things growing healthily until then. If you have dogs, they will LOVE eating the organics. There is no difference to them between blood and bone meal and dog food. Neither product has insecticides or fungicides in them. I've used them in my gardens there for years. In all my years of gardening there, the only white fly problems have been in sheltered situations which promoted their growth. Bacopa in a nook where they dryer vents, sheltered by the garage in Old Orchard and in a walled back garden in Northbridge where no direct sun or wind hit it on Begonia were the only spots. Generally, if it is windy, hot, exposed, you aren't going to have many insects other than possibly spider mite because of the aridity. Scale can also be a problem there and it is a witch to get rid of. Florida Scale can attack Pandorea there. Systemic rose and flower food has seemed to work on it. Don't worry about the white flies on hibiscus, you won't have them due to the climate, and the hibiscus will likely freeze out before it's an issue anyway. Lavatera don't seem bothered by them there, nor here and they do provide enough color and fill. I grow Kew Rose out front in the upper terrace behind Mary Rose and they are similar in color. As is their habit, it gets quite rangy and requires hacking back to the nubs each year. It went from a one gallon to over seven feet in each direction in one year. The drainage is very good and it's protected from the wind by a six foot wall. Dwarf myrtle is the one you want. You can keep it six inches tall seemingly forever or allow it to get huge like the six foot tall one out back here which is the lone survivor of the sixty year old hedge of it. The stuff roots very easily so you can make more if you want and it will self seed easily in mulch. It germinates at a client's house up there from plants in the neighbor's yard. It is EXTREMELY difficult to give you accurate ideas of what to expect these things to mature to due to drainage alone. What grows feet each week in Old Orchard with the sandy soil and excellent drainage, grows inches in the same time in her daughter's garden in Stevenson Ranch. The climate is a bit more severe there and the soil is highly compacted making things struggle more. If you get some mulch down, preferably horse manure, use the fertilizer combination suggested above and keep it all moist, things will begin responding much more quickly and mature to larger sizes than they would otherwise. You'll also make the soil conditions more favorable for the things you've had difficulties with already, permitting you to expand what you plant where, with time. The Chinese Snowball can grow there with afternoon sun protection to prevent foliage burn, but it may not be happy. The best two I've seen in gardens here in Southern California were the one in The Homestead Acre in Chatsworth Park South planted on the north side of large trees so it received dappled sun, and the one Laurie Chaffin grew at Pixie Treasures in Yorba Linda, which also had protection from the hottest sun. Both enjoyed excellent drainage. I've actually had very good luck with Hydrangea quercifolia Pee Wee in Old Orchard where it gets shielded from the brunt of the hot sun by the block wall and the drainage is excellent. http://www.mobot.org/gardeninghelp/plantfinder/plant.asp?code=Z460 It flowers nearly all year and gets a bit of autumn color, though never goes fully deciduous. The warning about Hebe and drainage is right on. They hate soggy soil. Kim

Cameron, that is just beautiful! Thanks for sharing. I also like that garden look - the graveled paths with evergreens and short hedges. Tres Monet! The gravel holding moisture makes very good sense. I am sure that is one reason why the gardeners of old used gravel in their gardens. Many of the woody-type Herbs, like sage, lavender, rosemary, and etc., love pea gravel as mulch. They like moisture, but good drainage. Growing up in Southern California, gravel and accent rocks were used a lot in the family gardens. Besides the woody herbs, Aloes, Agave and Succulents of all types grew splendidly in it. It is very dry there in the summer. After May, it seldom rains until late August. The native soil there has a lot of volcanic ash and pulverized granite in it, so it dries to a powder in the hot summer months. I remember watching it 'poof" up as I walked barefooted in it. My little feet would be covered in a grayish or yellowish dust all summer. (LOL) I graveled the spaces between my pavers by the patio and everything grows best in that gravel. All the flowers drop their seeds and they grow readily and best in the gravel paths. I have to dig them up and move them off into the flowerbeds. It does seem to hold the moisture really well. I bought some of that cloth to lay down in my path from the patio up to the arch by the greenhouse. I thought I would set the pavers on top of that and then fill in between with chipped wood mulch for now. I eventually plan to cover that with pea gravel. I like the way it looks. It prevents erosion too. I am setting bricks along either side of the path. It looks so good already. Can't wait to get it all finished. The bricks are from the property of an old house that we are in the process of tearing down. (awful work in this heat). There are literally tons of bricks set in paths on the property, so I am digging them up and hauling them here to use for paving and edging my flowerbeds. I want to eventually gravel all the paths between paver-stepping stones. I am slowly adding boxwood and other evergreen edging plants. I like the neat and tidy look and it's so nice to look out and see green in the winter. One new plant I bought last year that I really like is the Bluebeard, Blue Mist Spirea (Caryopteris × clandonensis (Blue beard, Blue-spirea, Blue-mist shrub) . It freezes to the ground in winter (here) but comes back up in spring and grows really well and fast. The plant has silvery foliage and I just adore the beautiful fluffy blue flowers it produces in late summer. Looks more like an herbaceous flower rather than a shrub. It reseeds itself, and that is good as it needs to be replaced about three to five years. That is a real plus for me. It gives me more plants! They are easy to pull if you don't want them. So far, I haven't gotten to the point. ;) Bluebeard is a VERY drought tolerant plant. They are deer-proof and the flowers attract bees and butterflies. Me like! Cameron, I LOVE your seat and container plants on the side there. That is so charming! Are those small trees Crepe Myrtles? I have one Blue Spire Juniper and it has done really well in our drought. Of course I do water it, but only once a week. It has grown a good 2 ft since planting last September. I planted some Native Carolina Sedge grass by it and it is doing really well too. They mutually benefit one another. The chickens don't eat the Sedge grass and the voles seem to leave it alone too. (fingers & toes crossed so far) I am going to transplant some of the native Prairie grasses growing up in our meadow, down into my garden. Their roots grow way down and can take any kind of weather Oklahoma gets plagued with. The Little Blue Stem and Love Grass in particular are on my list of favorite grasses, but there are others too. They will go out in the North Garden where I am planting junipers and other drought tolerant evergreens that don't require much if any watering. I planted a silvery blue juniper (forget the name just now) that is a bit shorter and has a more slender spire than the Blue Spire, but has the same columnar growth. The Loblolly and Virginia pines are both doing well, and the newly planted Taylor Juniper. Gravel and pavers out there would be awesome! It's a matter of cost for me. I can only do a little at a time. Anyway, love what you have done, as I love all your beautiful garden areas and home. Thanks for all the suggestions. I have most of those same plants...hmmmm. It has caused me to rethink on it. Noted! ~Annie Here is a link that might be useful: Blue Mist Spirea

a. the tall skinnny evergreen might be sky pencil holly b. salvia greggii & knockouts (already mentioned) are perfect, i think, for those areas - both are relatively zero-maintenance - you'd only have to "climb up there" once a year c. i agree with the comment that the stonework/concrete will increase the ambient heat - native & drought-tolerant is the way to go if you want low-maintenance d. i've got some purple heart, if you want some - they do spread, but not in an invasive way - they're native to mexico & can handle the heat e. there's someone on our forum who describes their style as "native texas cottage" or something similar - who is that? not exactly an english garden counterpart, but similar - is it the orderly, geometric, trimmed "english garden" that you like, or the overflowing, miss marple "english garden" that you prefer? - that would help us make texas-friendly suggestions f. your structure would look wonderful with a local native flowering vine - have you already told us what part of texas? - that would also go a long way in lowering the ambient temp

Smart Mara, real smart .... lol Bossy, my version of your veggie garden blooper is planting a shade loving plant in a beautiful shady spot in late summer only to realize to my dismay that by late spring the sun is moving across the sky in a completely different place making that same area very sunny. Whoever said we learn best from our mistakes was right! Mara, if you keep on trying you're gonna' get that blue stem grass right. A gardener's motto should be: Never give up!