Assess Your Accomplishments

Now that your landscape has been installed, it's time to assess your accomplishments. Take a tour of your yard and look at every detail. Remember to take pictures of your new landscape so you can chart its progress as it grows and matures. If you chose not to install all of your landscape at once, this is also a perfect time to begin planning for the next phase.

Just after installation, your new plantings will look small and your yard may seem like a sea of decomposed granite. This is natural for a newly installed xeriscape. It will take a few years to grow in and achieve the ultimate effect you visualized while preparing your landscape plan. Try to avoid the urge to purchase and install additional plants. Instead, consider seeding bare areas with seasonal wildflowers until your plants become large enough to hold their own.

It is important to note that some of your plants may not make it to maturity. A certain percentage of plant mortality is normal within the first few months of installation. Plants installed during the summer have a lower chance of surviving because extreme heat can stress plants, regardless of how much water is applied. If you have installed the plants carefully, and if you follow good maintenance practices, plant loss can be minimized.

If you do lose plants, try to determine the reason. Before replacing any lost plants, review available reference materials to determine whether or not they were planted in the right location. You may want to consider replacing the lost plant with a species that is better suited to the conditions present in that specific spot.