Succulent Garden - A Perfect Southern California Landscaping Solution

What has your lawn done for you lately? People with no imagination create a lawn, maintain it, mow it, fertilize it year after year and barely notice it otherwise, much less use the space to enhance their living. Instead of being the traditional turf pass-through front yard, this front landscape is functional, beautiful, and most importantly, low maintenance. It is a no mow, no lawn, useful, attractive succulent garden landscape.

This urban track home has a grade change from the street to the house. We enhanced this change with a short stucco wall to separate the private and public areas. The wall separating the higher private area creates a separate courtyard entertaining area and gives more privacy making the space much more functional than an open front lawn.

Landscaping is more than just the plants. The base of the courtyard is made from “I” pattern concrete pavers which are set in place and not mortared. This makes them permeable, meaning rainwater can penetrate the soil and isn’t just sheeted off to the sewer. Permanent raised planters, bench seating and retainer wall are all made from concrete. These elements define the space and give it solidity. The boulders nestled among the plants give a natural look.

The sleek clean modern style of the container gardens provides display space for unusual kinds or specimen plants. A custom wall piece made of living plants is an unusual and unexpected focal point of the long stucco wall.

The homeowners find passersby frequently stop at their front yard to admire the landscaping from the street.

The plants used in this succulent garden are mostly unusual: Aloe bainesii, variegated Agave attenuata, Agave desmettiana, Aeonium cyclop, Euphorbia, Cercidium “Desert Museum”, Melaluca incana, Aloe cameronii, Aloe plicatilis, and many others.

Tips: Laying landscape fabric under the rock mulch will eliminate most of the weeds. This is important in order to minimize maintenance for this type of garden.

In winter, succulents are dormant and need little or no water.

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