Plant Selection and Solutions for Drought Stricken States

Lisa's Landscape & Design ♦ 12/07/2011 ♦ 2 Comments

Now I know it is a bit late and for the life of me I am unsure of why I didn’t post these here this Summer and focused on my fb page, but… I wanted to share these video’s with you (in plenty of time for Spring planting) and refer you back to my facebook page at Lisa’s Landscape & Design to demonstrate how fantastic the list of plants I have compiled on that page really are.

This first video was taken in August, and if you are here in Central Texas, you know what our August was like…so ck it out:  

Now this next one was taken in mid September, I have to admit I was a little surprised myself after returning from a trip to Maine (fabulous food, fantastic weather, friendly people, flowers everywhere, only to return to a “lovely room of death”) after a week and 1/2 of NO water in my yard and record high temps, I fully anticipated the worst…but this is what I found

This is the second of this series and this is of my front yard, same date..also no water for two weeks:

Now I think a picture speaks a thousand words and for anyone who struggled this Summer keeping your lawn alive, you see I have none in the back yard, and am about to remove a lot more out front)  but what I do have are a tons of flowers with bees, butterflies, dragonflies (called them Snapdragons in the video, lol) 2 apple trees, 2 pear trees,3 pomegranates, two peach, a nectarine and a plum tree, dozens of Rose bushes (yes dozens..I have a bit of a problem) and total satisfaction with the least amount of effort.  Here is a solution for your crazy strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street (**note the photo below shows I have removed the rest of the nuisance strip grass and replaced it with river rock**)

and here is the continued solution using river rock… 

Now you may be thinking that my yard looks like this because I am a landscape professional, but the real truth is that I am a mother of two children with Autism, a wife, and homemaker first, a gratefully successful business owner next, and BELIEVE me when I tell you I am tired…the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is work in my yard. So I created a palette of plants for the lazy gardener (me) who wants his/ her yard to work for them, not the other way around and the secret to that…wait for it…NATIVE PLANTS and COMPOST!!  The ONLY fertilizers I use are compost and liquid seaweed, that’s it.  I compost heavily in the Spring, and I mulch heavily in the Fall.

Plant what grows here already and Mother Nature is your friend, fight her and you will pay the consequences with time, water, unnecessary chemicals, and a lot of hard work for little reward.

So before you begin to plant in the Spring or Fall, remove some of that water hogging sod and make some new beds by preparing your Earth with compost and good rich soil, choose from the selection of plants, trees, herbs and vines that are native or adapted to your area, then send me your video next year of the fantastic success you have had with the least amount of effort!

Happy Gardening!!

Lisa LaPaso

Lisa’s Landscape & Design

“Saving the Planet One Yard at a Time”