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No Lawns

Please give me ideas.


Hello all,

I'm crossposting over here. I'm having a hard time coming up with any landscape vision for my house. I live in Southern California and my front yard is sunny all day long. We ripped out the lawn and wanted something lower maintenance/lower water use. Was thinking of doing xeriscape but I'm not sure it fits with the style of the house. Please help me with landscaping ideas for the yard and the park strip. I looking for some curb appeal that's also low maintenance.

Also, we redid the roof (light gray) last year (with solar installation) and debating if we should repaint the house, not sure which color to paint it or keep the original color that was there when we bought it. Please give me all of your suggestions.

by okrestaurant9999

3 Comments

  1. jjmk2014

    There is a book called Prairie Up by Ben Vogt that has some wonderful designs for native plantings.

    If you post this at r/nativeplantgardening you will likely get some great ideas from folks local to your area. The wiki for the sub is super helpful too.

    Some native grasses and a couple of well maintained little paths would look great in my opinion. I’m sure there are some showy flowers from your region that could be splashed in there too…

    Then you’d be helping the ecosystem as a whole.

  2. CharlesV_

    Given much of socal is a Mediterranean climate, I think Mediterranean aesthetics look best there. But I’m also not the best with knowing color matching 😅

    For the landscaping, checkout r/ceanothus, r/xeriscape, and https://www.calscape.org/

    Remember that xeriscaping isn’t all rocks. It’s about growing plants that are native to your ecosystem and make the best use of the water you have. Wild Ones is currently working on a garden design for your area, but the garden plans for Arizona and New Mexico might be helpful: https://nativegardendesigns.wildones.org/designs/

    Edit: here’s a neat one I’ve always liked https://www.reddit.com/r/NoLawns/s/5xMOojx72Y

  3. yukon-flower

    Check out local parks. And houses, schools, or other buildings that have converted to native plants. There’s also plenty of inspiration in the archives of this subreddit!

    Your county’s Extension Office has master gardeners on hand who can provide you lists of natives for your region and that will thrive in your conditions (amount of sun, amount of slope, etc.).

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