Whether you live deep within the arid desert of Arizona or in lush and humid Miami Beach, xeriscape (zeroscape) plants have many charms and advantages for your landscaping design.  I personally love them because rainfall is not ever a sure thing, no matter where you live, and every season has periods of relative drought.  During a dry spell, it’s comforting to look out my windows at a few hardy plants that continue to thrive with or without my watering them.

Varieties of agave, cactus and yucca are among my favorites for xeric plants.  Within each genus there is so much interesting variation in color, texture, size and shape that the three of them are really all I need to punctuate and decorate my lawn with plants I know will make it come rain or shine.

Agaves: about 200 species are currently available, a dizzying array of choices surely, but, again, I have my favorites. For a regal impression on the landscape, nothing in my view beats agave americana. These stunners occur in huge rosettes up to five feet tall and six feet wide in a lovely range of colors (shades of green, variegated types of yellow striping, white striping) and always assume a commanding presence in a landscape. Serrated  leaves with sharp pointed tips protect them from the ravages of my dogs and horses, an added bonus for my quirky lifestyle.

And what can be said of cactus plants?  Like agaves, they are succulents and are available in a mind-boggling array of different species from the tiny, to the short and squat, to the imperially tall and majestic.  For my tastes and uses, I prefer the smaller species that make gorgeous flowers in raucous colors from hot pink, hot lavender and hot peach or orange.  These include lobivia, echinocereous, and matucana and I have some happy specimens of each that I can rely on whatever the weather decides to do.

And, finally, the yucca, my third plant soldier in the war against too little rainfall. Yuccas all have woody stems and long pointed leaves and are incredibly hardy and somewhat forbidding.  My true love among yucca plants is the Spanish bayonet.  Its architecture is beautiful, it grows to four or five feet tall if you let it and it produces beautiful soft white flowers at the top of the plant which are absolutely gorgeous next to the dark green long sword-shaped leaves.
I couldn’t recommend any plants more highly, but I will add one proviso: handle with care, because all of these lovelies can and will stick you—even draw blood—at the first careless touch of a finger.

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