I like High Country Gardens catalog but it isn't really suitable for our climate here. I live in the Oakland hills and found very few of their plants worked here. It's much better to stay local since we have such great nurseries here. Even the big box stores and some of the drugstores (like Long's) have fabulous nursery sections. Get a copy of the Sunset Western Garden Book; it's the Bible of Western gardeners and has all kinds of useful info in it. Remember you are going to have water in all plants, even xeric ones, until they become established, for at least the first year. Also, the better your soil, the better they will do. Then mulch, mulch, mulch. Soaker hoses work great in mixed plantings and waste so much less water. Use quick couplers to make it easier to switch your hoses around. A groundcover I'm surprised more people don't use is Convolvulus mauritanicus, a morning glory relative. It's amazingly xeric. Not the prettiest groundcover, but very tough and pest-free. Another groundcover that is xeric but won't look good during the winter, is lambs ear (Stacchys byzantia). 'Helen Von Stein' doesn't have the spikey flowers that some folks object to, but the color is a darker green than the standard variety. Any creeping groundcover will need some periodic maintenance to keep them from running over neighboring plants. It's just a fact of life here in the relatively frost-free zones we live in. I'm always fighting my evergreen vines because they keep trying to swallow their neighboring plants! Any vine that grows to 15' in other regions becomes a 30+' monster around here. Lavenders will be very happy with little summer water, as will tagetes lemmonii (bush marigold), hunnemania, dwarf Indian hawthorn, tibouchina urvilleana, any of the new pelargonium hybrids (people call them geraniums, which is botanically incorrect; true geraniums are less showy and thirstier), salvias, cistus (rockrose), roses (once established), artemisia, leptospermum (tea tree) Again, my soil is quite good - we replaced the first 8" of adobe clay with top-quality compost from the Davis St. Recycling Center - and I mulch every year. We like a cottage garden look, not to everyone's taste. I water every 10-14 days, depending on how hot it gets. This photo is from May, when the lavenders, nasturtiums and poppies put on the best show. But I have flowers all year long, actually.

Hello Flutterby ! I hope you love gardening as much as the rest of us do ! GardenWeb is a great research tool for you, as there is lots to learn, and plenty of valuable people here who can point you in the right direction. Depending on what part of town you're in, your soil could be different than others. North usually has a lot of rock, while other areas are great blackland. Either way, a raised bed is definitely the way to go. Personally, I don't think that I would grow herbs in pots (unless they are large) because our hot summers just seem to dry out the pots too quickly. That being said, I don't grow herbs, so I really can't say that firsthand. I do grow hundreds in pots though, and water constantly during the hot months. What grows well here ? Well, I'm terribly fond of salvias, and natives. I venture to say that many here will agree with the native side of that. A good way to determine what will do well in your area is a drive around the neighborhood to see what plants are doing nicely in yards and public areas. Starter plants -- one of my favorite nurseries is Rainbow Gardens. There are two locations in SA. Pretty soon (maybe March) they will start running a weekly ad in the Express News with great plants at great prices, and usually a freebie when you make a purchase. They have an awesome choice of herbs, as well. I also like the Antique Rose Emporium. Many of us also drop by Lowes clearance racks now and then for some really good deals ! Some stores are better than others. I prefer plants rather than seeds, just to get a headstart on things. But I don't usually buy large plants, because of the cost. Stick with 4" or 1-gallon and they'll get to that larger size soon enough at a fraction of the cost. Something else you may want to consider is attending our plant swaps. You may find the San Antonio swap post on the first page of GardenWeb, or it may have gotten to the second page by now. Or look for it also listed on the Texas Exchange sub-forum. The spring swap is March 10. You will learn a lot by attending the swaps and no doubt will go home with some plants. I also attend the Buda swap, which is April 17. I've been going to these swaps since the first one for Central Texas was started over 12 years ago. They are awesome ! You go home with all kinds of plants you couldn't find in a local nursery, and you make the best friends ! Please feel free to contact me directly by email if you want more information. Regarding your other questions, I'll let those with more knowledge about the timeline answer those for you. Mainly, you just need to watch out for those late freezes ! patty

I agree with the advice to hire a local designer. The yard is too chopped up to make meaningful suggestions from the pictures. Based on the "like succulents" comment, I would remove any shrubs that are in the "green meatball" stage which is overly sheared because it was in appropriately planted to begin with and replace with shrubs that are more casual to compliment the tropical palm look. A proper irrigation set up would also be advised when doing the renovation or as a first phase. Also consider using synthetic turf in areas where the old grass died but not as much square footage to save on overall costs. Maintenance should also be a consideration when developing a new design. Homeowners who are not willing to spend time in their gardens should have primarily plants that are diehard and tolerate neglect. Container plants need to be properly watered on their own irrigation station separate from the plants in the ground. The best bang for your buck would be to hire a local APLD certified designer to do at least these three things: 1) Recommend what to keep and what to remove (may or may not need to create a sketch, but could use the aerial photo to create zones or spaces to refer to 2) Develop a plant palette / list of plants 3) Hire them back to perform the placement after demo and irrigation is set up (This assumes no hardscape will be added or modified) Laypersons and contractors who are simply the installers who simply follow a plan of a planting plan don't realize that if the designer were digging the holes for the plants, they would invariably move them to appropriate spots regardless of where they appear on the plan. Field placement is far better than relying on a 2 dimensional plan. But not all designers get to be present during installation. That is one drawback of a design only unless you are willing to do it yourself and hire them back for the install process. If you do hire a designer, make sure the preliminary design is sent to a few licensed contractors who can give pricing and make sure the preliminary design is sufficiently detailed so as to provide meaningful pricing rather than ballpark figures.

I'm not very good at landscaping, but I just wanted to warn you not to plant Queen or Washingtonia palms. Landscapers will try to sell you queen palms, but JUST SAY NO! First off, they are messy, dropping dead limbs and seeds everywhere, which come up all over the place and secondly, they grow so tall that you have to hire someone with a boom to trim them, and then they usually do it wrong. Washingtonias don't drop their leaves, and they just hang there like a dead brown skirt. Ugly. Coconut palms are pretty, but they're not very cold hardy, which is why you don't see many north of 10b. Plus, they drop coconuts everywhere and if you have anything growing under them, it gets crushed. Unfortunately, there isn't much in FL that doesn't take maintenance and isn't going to make some kind of mess. get too big or spread into areas where you don't want it. Choose carefully, and research before you put anything in. Make sure to make note of the mature size of the plant to make sure it won't outgrow the space. You said you like the Pampas grass, so I guess you know that once it gets large, you have to cut it back every year with a chainsaw. There are large native grasses that are much easier to care for, like Fakkahatchee grass. Just be sure to cut off the seed heads before it spreads all over your yard. I will suggest a Jatropha tree or bush (two different species). They are not messy and bloom all year. Their only problem is that they can die back in a freeze, but they come right back up from the roots and grow like mad.