Beautiful! Are those 'Ruby Star' coneflowers? I have some growing in my xeric bed and I love them. Since you are looking for water-saving plants, I'll list a few that I have growing in my xeric bed. The bed is all the way out at the end of our driveway. My hose doesn't even reach that far, and there's no way I'm lugging watering cans back and forth. These plants have required no extra watering from me, except when initially getting them established. -'Silver Mound' Artemisia - Sedum....lots of it. I have Dragon's Blood, Tri-color, Blue Spruce, Autumn Fire, Autumn Joy, and another I can't recall the name of. I love them. - Lantana (gonna have to cut it back soon. It's taking over the bed! And I never water it.) - Russian Sage - Lavender...3 different varieties. - Blue Fescue - Lavender Cotton (aka, Santolina) - Portulaca - Dwarf Andorra Juniper - 'Old Gold' Juniper And that's just a partial list. A bonus is that deer don't find too many of these plants palatable unless they're starving. Have fun!

Overhead watering is far less efficient than watering directly at the root zone, as with a soaker hose or drip irrigation -- regardless of the time of day, you do lose water to evaporation and air drift/runoff and the canopy or spread of the trees/shrubs can block water reaching the root zone effectively. And some plant diseases are just encouraged by overhead watering like shothole fungus and cercospora leaf spot and therefore should be avoided if at all possible. I'd always opt for low emission, root zone watering before overhead irrigation from an inground system or sprinkler. Established shrubs and trees DO need water, especially if rainfall has been missing or droughty conditions exist. And droughts are relatively common in various parts of this country, especially summer droughts. Drought stress can be a primary cause of plant failure, even with established plants, and will certainly put the plant at risk for secondary problems. Just because a plant has been growing for years in an abandoned situation doesn't mean it is growing at its optimum, which I think most of us gardeners prefer. And not all trees and shrubs share the same degree of drought tolerance. Some require more moisture than others and not providing it when required is just silly and puts the plant unnecessarily at risk. How many folks in Georgia lost plants - and some very well established plants - when they experienced their severe drought a few years back and watering was restricted/banned? I'd take Ken's advice with a grain of salt :-) He seems to think you can just plant anything and never deal with it again with regards to fertilizing or watering, which is a rather broad generalization that may or may not work depending on a whole slew of other variables. Just teasing, Ken......I know how you love to oversimplify :-)

I'm not sure which hedges would be unpalatable to deer, but I know that they hate the smell of mothballs. I run a wholesale nursery, and we had a big problem with deer eating the plants until somebody told me about mothballs. Maybe this info will help you. I'm not really sure how you'd put out mothballs at a residence.

Gone!