Welcome to my site that I want to dedicate to everything xeriscape! This page is being created for multiple reasons that I will outline below. I hope this site is something that you all can take advantage of and possibly help me grow this into something bigger than myself. However, for now I will just be posting about plants, information, and pictures of different landscapes with some detailed information or stories. So on to the reasons I want to build this site.
Number one reason is that I have a love for gardening and anything that can provide beauty in the landscape. I’ve been gardening since I was a small child with my mother, probably around the age of when I could walk and hold a hose. I used to go out and help her maintain the garden beds throughout the the season by watering, weeding, cutting, cleaning, etc. It was something I really grew up enjoying, spending the time with my mother, and just loving the color of all the flowers and designs. Not only would I just admire our garden but others as well. Frequently I remembered that I preferred to walk through the local parks and see their flowers, rather than playing on the playground. I always just found it fascinating how many different landscapes could be created in the same local region. Personally I see it as a form of art and creativity. Today I call it painting with plants.
Number two, solace, inspiration, peace, and remembrance. When I was 31 years old and on my second year of building my first “grown-up” garden that I owned personally, I unexpectedly lost my best friend and mother at the age of 60 that year to a surgery that went sideways. Of course dealing with depression after the events that unfolded and a history of substances abuse, I needed an outlet that provided me peace and a place to collect my thoughts. Gardening not only provided me peace but it gave me a way to remember my mother and the times we shared outdoors. This where I think gardening switched from a part time hobby to my main hobby. Gardening has provided me with so much since then and has allowed me to find a community that differs from one of my past. Sharing my knowledge and ideas with others, has allowed me to see my mother in the world of others.
Number three, water conservation! When I finally was able to purchase my first house in my late twenties, I was living in Aurora, Colorado where we averaged around 15 inches of rain per year. The landscape was drastically different than where I grew up in central Kansas where the average rain was around 30 inches per year. Since I was living in Aurora, CO, I was aware of their water departments dire need for local residents to conserve water resources. After growing grass for two years, I realized how much more water I was dumping on my lawn than I remember people did in Kansas just to keep things alive. This is where I took my deep dive into water conservation tactics in my yard. I found resources like the Plant Select, Denver Botanic Gardens, High Country Gardens, the CSU Extension Office, local water department websites. and many other resources. Shortly thereafter I was on a mission to transform my yard and start my first waterwise/xeric garden. Since then I have learned so much into how beautiful and lush a waterwise/xeriscape can truly look. Now I am on a mission to spread the word and transform my yard and others one yard at a time!
Number four, to share my knowledge and other information I have found useful. This is the last reason I will post, but trust me there are many more I could come up with and more to be posted. Regardless, I wanted to create this page is to share the knowledge I haven’t been able to find elsewhere. This is where I want to share my trials and tribulations of xeriscaping. Some information on this site is also just for my personal record but here for the public to view. Other posts are to help expand on information I find lacking on the Internet itself. I am a visual type of person and love pictures, which also means I love photography. One thing I found lacking was visual pictures of plants and different stages of their life or detailed views. So I hope to provide just that here. My wife and I also love to go and see other gardens and landscapes. So I am hoping to meet and post other people’s gardens in the future and possibly write about their journey as well.
So without further ado, and two years of talking about it, I give to you the Xeric Garden website!
Hummingbird trumpet mint (Monardella macrantha ‘Marian Sampson’), Desert Moss (Arenaria ‘Wallowa Mountain’), Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum)