Ground cover and pavers with an accent of drought type of flowers!

Ken

So cal waited years too long to go drought tolerant. Too too many huge lawns.

I found my succulents did much better in the garden beds. Some of them flowered for the first time. Ferns like water.

We don't have grass anywhere on the HOA property, the lakes and streams are required to be a 'closed design' with its own waste treatment/filtration system underground - the maintenance guys monitor the water levels so that they can divert some of our grey water into this system. Most water districts and cities were told by our state government that we needed to reduce water usage by 25%, some were more successful than others at reaching this reduction goal (evidently there are rich people who felt a $20K+ monthly water bill was a small price to pay...but we'll put that matter aside for now...lol) but overall as a community my HOA did well, with a few small changes to the watering/adding bark mulch for the landscape plants and trees and residents doing their part to reduce the total water use we hit the 25% consistently and a few months we got to 30%. But our trees and plants are all mature established plantings in ground in terms of the common area landscape. I've found that having plants in containers requires a lot more water to keep them alive and happy, especially when we hit the hottest months (roughly May through September) so after laboring to remove the English Ivy that had invaded the beds around my patio, along with some rather large rocks that were under the dirt and/or hidden by that ivy, I planted a couple different types of jasmine staked on trellises (pink and star), some dwarf blue fescue, and two rose 'trees' (standard roses grafted and pruned to resemble trees). I added a couple of those 24" tall metal garden fences to keep the dog corralled on all sides (she's 14lbs, a low-rider and the fence is just tall enough for her to be unable to jump), some lovely grey flagstone step stones from the patio edge to where the spigot for my hose is located, and that was that. Some of the other residents have gone the container route to try and create a living privacy screen since the HOA cc&r's prohibit permanent fencing, but very few have successfully kept all of their plants alive this past year so many are trying to start over with a trip to the local big box home improvement store garden department. At least the majority of the plants sold at such stores here are suited to the climate zone, though some flowering types like camellias, gardenias, peonies - too much work and need more shade than I can provide them, but people here will stick them in pots and hope for the best. Just because it's not a California native doesn't mean one needs to automatically exclude anything provided that it's drought tolerant and you have the right place to plant it.

They're all perfect in their own settings, but we went with the vertical garden. Great designs, Studio H2o!

Thank you Intex team, always a pleasure designing with you guys!

;)