Gee,this is good! Thanks for the information. I am in Ottawa - zone 5 (used to be 4a but has been upgraded). It gets H O T in the summer in the front yard during the heat waves and is quite warm in the afternoons. I am thinking of the following: Progress the project in stages over the spring/summer: First, by the front window - remove the lawn, install patio stones with thyme and other low growing plants between the stones. I want to make a sitting area. Second, work in a scree bed around the perimeter of the sitting area incorporating (please suggest plants here) low growing grasses and plants for this area. Third, mark out a gentle walking area through the remaining lawn (this will either be mulched or stone/gravel walkway) - work on this. Forth, order mushroom compost (about 3 x 3 cubic yards) and cover the bed areas over (I was thinking of covering the grass with newspaper, grass clippings and last years wintered leaves) and then top with the compost. Fifth, plant the plants. I have a lot of perennials and some grasses that I have started. I will be cutting the grass out about a foot and flipping it over all around the garden bed areas (I have done gardens this way before). And finally, sit down, relax and start working on decorating the whole thing. There's a list for this too: Hummingbird feeders and plants that they like will be planted. Bird feeders made from cup/saucers. Butterfly resting areas in the shady nooks with sand in more flatter containers (with drainage/screening so the sand won't spoil). Decorated round stepping stones to incorporate throughout and other ornamental ideas. So I guess I am looking for plant types and more information on what and how a scree bed is designed. I have seen alpine gardens but I need to think hot plants here. Thank you so much for the information to date. I will be checking the resources mentioned, the library and the Master Gardeners in the area. Any ideas or comments are greatly appreciated. Cheers, McPeg

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.

tfswest, I would not trust the water company site info. Our water company had such glaring errors that I wrote them a letter. I never received a reply and they didn't change the page info for many months (at a planned site redesign). A few examples of their errors: --They recommended a plant I had never heard of and wasn't listed in any plant books for this region, much less seen in any nursery. I looked it up online, and discovered it was a native creek-side woodlands plant from the southeast portion of the United States. It didn't even appear to be sold in eastern US nurseries. --The wild lilac (ceanothus) recommendation showed a photo of a Syringa vulgaris cultivar/French hybrid lilacs, a completely different and unrelated species. in fact, they aren't even in the same plant family! --Three other plants listed require regular watering; they were not normally considered drought tolerant by gardeners. --At least one recommendation was listed on CA's invasive plant list, and the state discourages it being grown in gardens. --Two would have probably required a mail order purchase, because they are not generally offered through the nurseries and garden centers here. And one of those liked winter chill--not something generally expected to a sufficient degree in south OC. The two site pages only listed about 16-18 plants total, so there were problems with the majority of their recommendations. I would have given their info an "F" grade.

Forgive the long note with so many photos. It's the commercial artist in me that gives this much visual support. The yard is large and this is just the beginning of developing privacy - so I planted much denser than what I would have anywhere else. A common mistake of many gardeners is not taking the mature size of the plant into consideration. The Dwarf Wax Myrtle are projected to grow 8’ to 10’ which will cover the windows next door. Right now, they are 4 1/2’ tall. Epsom Salt (magnesium) is helping the Wax Myrtles return from having become chlorotic. "Skeleton-Leaf Goldeneye" is the best long blooming, full sun, xeric plant that there is. This transplant helped to set the color that this ‘wall’ would be. So, it became the official the Yellow Bed. In front is “Yellow Gold” Lantana. Another bulletproof plant for us. Recently planted it’s already going like gangbusters. Sedum will bet tucked into several areas once it gets going and I can rob from it. More sedum that I plan to tuck into the wall as I can move it. Oops, didn’t get a photo of the Ghost Plant that I just moved over there. Great xeric succulent that handles freezing weather. Also, recently planted and purchased from the Spring Master Gardener Plant Sale is the xeric, evergreen, Four Nerve Daisy. I’ve been pulling withering blooms for seeds to start so I can spread it this next year. The evergreen Tecoma “Bells of Fire’ will grow to to 6’. It might get transplanted. Not quite sure right now. I want to bring in a taller xeric evergreen, Tecoma "Jubilee” and distance it from this bed so that it will be able to provide some afternoon shade from our blistering Texas Sun. That will tie in the colors of orange across the bed. This was on the property and stunted by the only shade there was. Once moved out into full sun, it started to take off. It’s doubled it size since then and projected to get 4’ tall. A few of the other plants... The Sweet Osmanthus was on it’s own till I transplanted it over there. Many leaves and stems were removed in the process to insure that it would make it. There’s an identical one on the opposite side of the Yellow Bed. Now, I’m contemplating letting it return to a full and bushy evergreen. So, once again, I’m watering it in this first year. In the corner behind is Cestrum “Orange Bells”, another bulletproof evergreen. The Wax Myrtle to the front right will eventually hide it. While planted to become part of the evergreen privacy hedge, it might be pulled out front and enjoyed. I can’t wait to watch the hummers come to it. Rocks were used as a buffer to keep the dogs from pruning it. Also left many large bags of leaves to do the same thing. Gradually, I’m introducing those leaves into the soil that I’m making. Unfortunately, the oak leaves don’t compact like other leaves. But, they are free when I drive around the neighborhood with my trailer and pick them up. There is large bed that is probably the next area to work with. So, I might plant a vine there instead, along in the yellow to orange range. The Mexican Flame Vine is so beautiful with it’s orange blooms as it attracts the butterflies like crazy. But, it dies here every winter. So, I’ll probably start cuttings over the winter. Center: Bay Laurel. To be transplanted out further into the yard this Fall as I make an island bed just for trees. Right: Maxmillian Sunflower. Expecting to see some blooms witting the next couple of weeks. It has got a great trunk on it for having been there such a short amount of time. I stopped watering it some time ago. Will complete in the next note.