Xeriscaping and Drought Tolerant Yards
I Replaced My Lawn With a Xeriscape.
Here Is What Actually Held Up.
Real notes from a yard conversion, plus the succulent growing guides behind every plant that went into the ground.
Plan the Whole Conversion on Paper First.
The Playbook Is Free.
The Lawn to Xeriscape Playbook walks through measuring the yard, grouping plants by water need, choosing between gravel, ground cover, hardscape and turf, and building a budget before you buy a single bag of anything.
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The Project
Why the Lawn Came Out
The grass took more water, more mowing and more money every year than anything else in the yard, and it still looked tired by August. So it came out, section by section, and was replaced with gravel, drought tolerant ground cover, a small patch of artificial turf and a lot of succulents.
The lawn was the most expensive thing in the yard and the only thing nobody ever used.
Everything on this site comes out of that project and the years of growing that led to it. What survived, what burned, what cost more than expected, and what would be done differently the second time around.
The Guides
Start Here
Five guides, in the order most people need them.
01
Xeriscaping and Drought Tolerant Yards
Design ideas by yard type, plant choices by exposure, and what the whole conversion actually costs.
02
Choosing Your Succulents
The types worth planting, the trailing ones for pots, the rare ones worth hunting, and the ones that are safe around a cat.
03
Watering and Light
The soak and dry method, how often is too often, how much sun they really need, and how to fix a leggy plant.
04
Pots, Soil and Setup
Planters that actually drain, bagged soils compared against a homemade mix, and repotting without snapping roots.
05
Planting and Propagation
Planting start to finish, three ways to propagate, and rooting cuttings in about three weeks.
The Turf Section
The Part of the Yard That Still Had to Look Like Grass
Gravel and ground cover handled most of the conversion. One strip did not work as either, the piece by the door that gets walked on daily, so that section went to artificial turf instead. Turf is the wrong answer for a large open yard, for anyone who wants pollinators, and for a shady side lot where moss and ground cover do better. For a small high traffic patch it holds up.
Artifiturf is the supplier used for that section. Pricing runs by the square foot, so measure before you request a quote.
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The Plants
Where the Plants Came From
Local nurseries carry the same six varieties everywhere. For the ground cover mix and the trailing types in the pots, the plants came in by mail from Succulents Box, which sends live plants and a monthly box if you want to keep adding to a bed slowly instead of all at once.
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Do the Planning Before the Spending.
The playbook is the same worksheet used to plan this yard, including the surface comparison and the cost per square foot ranges.