How To Plan A Waterwise Garden Or Xeriscape

Why Xeriscaping Matters Now

Water supply pressure across the West isn't an abstraction anymore. In August 2026, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation finalized new operating guidelines for the Colorado River system covering 2027 and 2028, following record-low elevations at Lake Mead and Lake Powell after decades of drought. For homeowners, that shift is prompting a closer look at how much water a landscape actually needs.

Xeriscaping offers a longer-term answer. Instead of treating conservation as something you bolt on after the fact by watering less and hoping for the best, it designs a landscape around the water realistically available in your climate from the start. Done well, it produces gardens just as full, colorful, and alive as a traditional landscape, built to perform under the conditions the West actually has. See what that looks like in practice: Get This Look: Waterwise Yard Ideas.

Gardening With Water Conservation In Mind

The American West is known for hot, dry climates, but regions across the country are experiencing more frequent droughts and hotter weather. Fortunately, it is possible to have a beautiful garden without a high water bill to maintain it. In fact, one of the most effective ways to conserve water at home is with waterwise landscaping.

Beautiful xeriscaping is not zeroscaping. Zeroscaping strips a yard down to rock and gravel with nothing living in it. Xeriscaping puts plants front and center: flowering perennials, foliage, seasonal color, and texture, chosen because they perform with the water your site actually has, not despite it. The result works in every direction: for your water bill, and for the soil, pollinators, birds, and wildlife that share your yard.

Sustainability Begins In Your Backyard. The six principles below show you how to get there.

Six Principles Of Xeriscaping & Waterwise Gardening

1. Plan Your Water Use Zones

Whether you're starting from scratch, or renovating an existing landscape, part of the planning process involves creating water use zones (also called hydrozones). This planning helps you put water where it will do the most for your home's beauty and comfort.

Identifying your water zones also helps you group plants with similar water requirements together, for easier garden maintenance and happier plant groupings.

There are three water use zones:

• Zone One (Oasis Zone): Closest to your house and/or the easiest access to water.
• Zone Two (Transition Zone): Middle ground including the approach to your home, moderate water access.
• Zone Three (Xeric Zone): Outermost area of your property, without access to supplemental water.

Zone One (Oasis Zone)

The oasis zone is the area up close to the house, where the landscape is visible and accessible from your home. If you plan to use regular or high moisture perennials, this is the zone for them, since they're closest to your water sources.

Oasis Zone Tips:

• Plant groundcovers, ornamental grasses, and small trees or shrubs to give your garden curb appeal and year-round structure.
• Plant annuals and container gardens near your home for added interest.
• Consider fragrant plants like Lavender or Agastache along walkways to enhance the entrance to your home.

Zone Two (Transition Zone)

The transition zone occupies the middle ground of the property, especially along walkways, driveways, fences, and other areas visible as you approach the house. Use waterwise, lower-maintenance plants here. You may also add areas of sustainable lawn for walking and playing.

Transition Zone Tips:

• Some homeowners forego an oasis zone and bring the transition zone right up to the house. With our very xeric and waterwise plant selection, you can design a beautiful garden while banking additional water savings.
• If you're growing a lawn, opt for a low-water lawn alternative.

Zone Three (Xeric Zone)

The xeric zone is the outermost area along the property boundary and other out-of-the-way spots with no access to water. This is where it matters most to choose plants that won't need supplemental water in your region. Mass planting and naturalizing plants are ideal here, including our desert landscaping plants.

Xeric Zone Tips:

• Use very xeric and waterwise plants that won't need supplemental water.
• Wildflowers, ornamental grasses, and trees and shrubs soften the look of fencing at the edge of your property.
• Or plant a "living fence" that offers privacy and buffers sound and views.
• Choose easy-to-grow plants for these areas.

"The mistake I see all the time is mixing plants with really different water needs in the same bed, like planting a Hosta right next to a Salvia," says Kristina Bentz of High Country Gardens. "You end up watering the whole bed to keep the Hosta happy, and that extra water is exactly what can end up rotting the Salvia. Group your plants by how thirsty they actually are, water each group accordingly, and the whole garden becomes a lot easier to take care of."

2. Choose Waterwise Plants For Your Growing Conditions

Perhaps the most important principle in any garden design is understanding your own site's needs. The arid West is where xeriscape gardens first achieved popularity, but their reach now extends to gardens across the country. No matter where you live, your growing conditions should drive your plant choices.

We were founded to provide gardeners with a diverse and ever-expanding palette of waterwise plants, well-suited to the unique challenges of Western gardens, and to gardens nationwide. We offer over 400 premium perennial varieties.

"Gardening in the West can be tough, with huge temperature swings from day to night, rocky or infertile soils, scorching temperatures and droughts that can stretch longer each season," says Lauren Carvalho, Horticultural Manager at High Country Gardens. "Choosing plants that are up to the task and resilient enough to withstand our climate's increasing extremes can make all the difference. It starts with understanding your site, being realistic about its challenges, and then leaning into those conditions with problem-solving plants."

Learn More: How To Choose Waterwise Plants

3. Choose Practical Low-Water Lawn Alternatives For Turf Areas

Traditional, thirsty turf grass isn't the only option anymore. For areas where you want a durable space to walk and play, grass can still work, but prioritize llow-growing, drought-tolerant alternatives over water-intensive Kentucky Blue Grass and other turf-type grasses. You'll save time and money through reduced watering and less mowing, or none at all.

If parts of your lawn see little foot traffic, replace them with groundcovers that never need mowing. Herbaceous and woody groundcovers are excellent low-maintenance, low-water lawn alternatives, especially on hillsides, along walkways, and anywhere you want more color and texture. Ready to take out more of it? Here are six ways to remove your grass lawn.

4. Start With Healthy Living Soil

The key to any successful xeriscape is healthy living soil. When planting at a new home, where topsoil has been removed or damaged by disturbance and compaction, living soil must be built from scratch. On established sites with good soil, that health simply needs maintaining.

Tips for improving soil health:

• Add organic matter to the soil at planting time in the form of compost and/or organic fertilizers.
• Inoculate new transplants with beneficial mycorrhizal root organisms.
• Continue to feed the soil regularly with compost and organic fertilizers. This supports a healthy microbial population that breaks down organic materials and releases nutrients to the plants.
• Avoid synthetic insecticides and fungicides on the soil, which harm the soil's web of life.

Learn More: Building Your Soil Health Naturally & Organically

5. Irrigate Efficiently & Harvest Water

For new transplants, even xeric ones, regular watering during the first growing season is essential to grow a strong, deep root system. But don't overwater and stress young plants.

Watering deeply, for longer periods, and letting water soak deep into the ground encourages plants to grow deep root systems, which makes them more resilient and drought tolerant over time.

Frequent, shallow watering keeps roots shallow too, leaving them too hot and dry. Watering deeply in the first season when soil is dry, and as needed during long dry stretches for established plants, saves water in the long run.

Mature plants suited to your average precipitation level need very little supplemental water, one of waterwise gardening's biggest advantages. That said, several factors still matter: your climate, soil conditions, the plants' water needs, and how much precipitation has occurred naturally. Plants may still need supplemental water during dry spells.

Tips for efficient watering:

• Use soaker hoses and drip irrigation to apply water directly to the root zone, rather than letting it run off or evaporate from sprinklers.
• Know your growing conditions, and adjust your watering schedule accordingly, watering only as needed. Well-drained soils need a different schedule than heavy clay soils, and full-sun gardens need a different schedule than shaded ones.
• When growing trees and shrubs, move drip emitters further from the trunk to apply water at the drip line.
• Keep your irrigation systems tuned and maintained at the start of each season to avoid leaks.

Practicing Water Harvesting

• If legal in your state, use rain barrels and cisterns to capture and hold water that drains off roofs or gutters.
• Harvesting water from roofs, sidewalks, driveways, and other hard surfaces and directing it onto your landscape is a practical way to supplement irrigation from your well or faucet.
• Harvested water is especially useful for irrigating shade trees, which need infrequent irrigation once established.

6. Practice Sustainable Gardening Care & Maintenance

A well-planned xeriscape following the principles above will naturally be a low-maintenance garden, one piece of what we mean by Pillars Of Sustainable Gardening.

As you maintain your garden for years to come, use organic products and techniques whenever possible. This is the surest way to build a balanced, healthy landscape that sustains itself and thrives in harmony with its environment.

Examples of sustainable xeriscape maintenance:

• Avoid the lush, thirsty growth that comes from over-fertilizing with harsh chemical fertilizers; use organic composts and fertilizers applied in the fall instead.
• Don't cut back your perennials in the fall. Wait until early to mid-spring to improve winter cold hardiness and shelter beneficial insects over winter.
• Avoid herbicides or pesticides, to give pollinators in your yard the best chance of survival.
• Plant a wide variety of species, including native perennials, to encourage a healthy, balanced population of beneficial insects as a defense against harmful pests.

Mulching is an essential sustainable gardening technique in arid regions, especially in the Western US. Covering the soil's surface with mulch will:

• Help retain valuable soil moisture by shading the soil from the hot sun.
• Save water, so you irrigate established plants less frequently.
• Capture rainwater and reduce runoff by letting hard rains soak into the soil instead of running off into streets and drainage areas.
• Reduce weed growth.
• Add organic matter to the soil gradually, improving it from the top down.
• Moderate soil temperatures for better root growth.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is xeriscaping?

Xeriscaping is a landscape design approach that plans around a site's climate, water availability, and growing conditions from the start, rather than adding conservation on top of a traditional design after the fact. It shapes plant selection, layout, soil health, and irrigation around the water a site realistically has.

Is xeriscaping the same as drought-tolerant landscaping?

Not exactly. Drought-tolerant landscaping usually refers to plant choice alone. Xeriscaping is the fuller framework those plants live inside: how a property is divided into water-use zones, how soil is built and maintained, and how irrigation is applied, in addition to which plants are chosen.

Does xeriscaping mean using rocks instead of plants?

No. That sparse, plant-free approach is often called zeroscaping, and it's a different, more limited idea. Xeriscaping is built around plants selected because they perform well with the water a site has.

Can you xeriscape anywhere?

Yes. Xeriscaping developed in the arid West, but the underlying principles, matching plants to a site's actual water availability, grouping plants by need, building healthy soil, watering efficiently, apply anywhere water conservation matters.

How do xeriscape gardens save water?

Mainly by matching supply to need. Grouping plants with similar water requirements into zones (oasis, transition, xeric) sends water where it does the most good instead of irrigating an entire property uniformly. Deep, infrequent watering rather than frequent shallow watering reduces waste further, and established xeric plants often need little to no supplemental water at all.

How do I replace my lawn with a xeriscape?

Start with an audit rather than a full removal. Identify the areas of lawn using the most water for the least benefit, an underused side yard, a hard-to-irrigate strip, a slope, replace those first with waterwise groundcovers or a low-water lawn alternative, and expand from there.

What are the best plants for a xeriscape?

The right plants depend on your specific site, since soil drainage, sun exposure, elevation, and nearby heat sources like walls or driveways matter more than any general list. Explore the Plant Finder to find what fits yours.

Learn More: How To Choose Waterwise Plants

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