While Xeriscaping is most often thought of as a design style, it’s actually a set of principles and methods for creating water wise landscapes and gardens regardless of style. Still, when a client tells me they want a xeriscape design, most times they really mean they want something that is of the desert Southwest nature. So today, more often than not, it is referred to as a style.

Xeriscaping Principles And Methods

For the sake of the perceived meaning of xeriscaping, most of the pictures, ideas, and plans in this post represent a southwest desert landscaping style. However, for a technical understanding and the true benefits of xeriscaping, it’s first important to get an understanding of the true meaning and applications of xeric principles. See Xeriscaping Principles And Ideas. You will also find more good pointers and different ideas at Xeriscape Colorado and Xeriscape NM .

While the phrasing may be different from explanation to explanation, the basics of xeriscaping are all the same and very simple to use. Grouping plants, creating rich organic soil, terracing, and other low water use practices are simple common sense but aren’t considered into most landscape or garden design. With today’s awareness for the need of green earth friendly living, xeriscape principles should be a consideration in all new landscaping and garden designs.

Xeriscape Ideas And Pictures

Again, while xeriscaping can be applied to most any landscaping or garden design style, it is most often applied to Southwest, Desert, Santa Fe, and Arizona styles. See –

Xeriscaping Ideas And Pictures
A collection of Southwest desert Santa Fe landscape design photos, ideas, and plans.

xeriscaping ideas
A collection of some of my own design ideas and plans.

Xeriscaping Plans
A collection of some the best xeric, desert, Southwest, and low water use design plans and ideas from other designers and sources on the web.

Southwest Landscaping Ideas

See Desert Southwest Landscaping ideas for a collection of other designers and plans applied to xeriscaping landscapes and gardens.

There’s a lot more to this design than I was able to mention in the video so it’s also a good opportunity for me to explain a little more about the design and what went into it. Because it is, we’ll call it Xeriscaping a Circular Driveway on a Slope.

If you are actually landscaping a slope or need ideas for a hillside, you may want to also visit landscaping on a slope or hillside. You’ll be able to see more examples of sloped landscapes and get ideas from designers other than myself.

This video looks at a design that we created for a circular driveway on a slope. We used simple terracing with retaining wall blocks to fix drainage issues, create planting areas, and to unify the entire landscaping and garden design project. You should get some good ideas from it.

While the main design focus for this plan is for a circular driveway, landscaping a slope, and xeriscaping, the ideas can be applied to other design styles.

The planting ideas in this design are of a xeriscaping Southwest design nature. The plants are the dominating factor that gives this design a Southwest style and flavor. Simply changing the plants could change the entre feel and atmosphere of the design. So feel free to change any of this to fit your area or needs.

Pre-fab retaining wall block walls are an inexpensive do it yourself project. A landscape design project like this is very do-able for the average homeowner. You can also take specific landscape design ideas from this plan and fabricate ideas to fit your own landscape.

This is a very clean simple design that you can get a lot of ideas from. However, for even more ideas for sloped or hillside landscaping, see landscaping on a slope. There you’ll find a lot more examples of sloped, terraced, and hillside landscaping ideas from various professional landscape designers.