If you use certain california natives, they need watering attention the first year til they get established and then can be left alone if you choose the appropriate type for your location. (I've built my yard using no irrigation system except manually watering, labor intensive at first but now only occasionally). Could you use irrigation on whatever current landscaping you intend to keep, and then with the new stuff just group them together so you could manually water? Even a hose with a sprinkler type attachment could water that "zone". Hard to make suggestions without knowing the sun/soil/type of look you are after etc.

The problem is its a hotel so I don't have time to manually water them. If it were my house that would be the approach I would use. I already manually water the succulent planters in front of the main entrance every 2 weeks. Was just wondering if there was another solution. Having a solar powered head that you could control independently with a smart phone would be awesome but I don't think it's been invented!

Wow a hotel!! then I would definitely choose plants that have the same watering needs. You could even use less plants, and accent with many beautiful types of rock gravel, even boulders in between. Perhaps look at other hotels with the look you are after for inspiration. I looked at a lot of Arizona type landscaping. You could post your question in that forum also (I love succulents but always kill them!) Houzz has a ton of landscape photos for inspiration as well, and ideabooks. Good luck!

It depends on how the irrigation is laid out. The succulents need to be on a different circuit than the grass. Then its just a matter of setting different programs for different cicuits. If the grass is on the same circuit as the succulents then whomever installed the plants and/or irrigation needs a stern talking to.

Well it's me trying to change it so I'm the one causing the problems hehe. But yeah when it was laid out 15 years ago we didn't have the water shortage we do now. I'm trying to get rid of all the annuals they planted as well as restore areas where they had a ton of jasmine planted but for some reason they ultimately ripped it out and replaced it with lava rock. It looks hideous. In some areas I tried using plants that could tolerate irrigation but were still drought tolerant. For example agave attenuate or foxtail agave. Is it really true that any summer or spring sun loving plant will tolerate winter shade and still look presentable ?

If you change the landscaping, you have to do so for the entire irrigation circuit or change the plumbing. It's usually better to just change the whole area.

I wouldn't say any. Some summer sun loving stuff will just rot away to nothing in cold winter shade and rain.

The soil makes a lot of difference. The best soil type for retaining water is loamy, with a little bit of clay.

You can't substantially change the soil on a site. You can add some organic matter but that's about it.

Sounds like you want to reduce the water that comes from some of the sprinklers on a shared circuit. First you should maximize your day interval. In my experience you can cut your lawn watering frequency to once every 3rd day, more than that and the soil gets too dry and water runs off etc. You should also have 2 start times an hour apart - splitting the total watering time between them.

Ideally you have separate circuits, but without that you can use different spray heads on the same circuit, some spray heads have higher flow rates than others, so use low flow on your xeriscape and high flow on your grass.

I have never combined drip lines and Sprinklers on the same circuit, there may be water pressure issues besides the obvious difference in desired run times. If you can get a drip line with all 4 gallon per hour drippers then it might put a useful amount of water out in 15 minutes.. versus the usual 1 hour for 1 gph drippers

Well I went and checked the timer and he had it on 7 days a week! I changed it to Mon, Wed and Friday. Do you think 10 minutes three days a week is sufficient for the grass?

Probably a minimum, It depends on the sprinkler output. 1-2 inches a week is an estimate. You can place several containers on the lawn to see the output for 1 cycle.

I have low flow heads, so my summer runtime varies from 11 - 25 minutes per cycle depending on exposure etc. for the 4 zones in my lawns (when we are not in a drought).

At this time of year watering needs are much less than summer, mine are off completely.