How are you defining usable space, ita? A place where you can put a couple of lounge chairs and a table? A place where you can toss the frisbee around with the dog?

Xeriscaping tends to vary depending on where you are, because the plants that do well vary depending on where you are. The immaculate green lawn look doesn't do well in a lot of xeriscaped areas because it really requires a combination of water and sunlight that isn't all that common. But you can put down non-turf ground cover that may be quite usable, depending on your needs.

Intriguing.

Sure, until the lobster people drag you there for a sacrifice to their horrid crustacean god.

Is anyone familiar with xeriscaping?

I know Penny's done it. For me, I'd probably build a wood deck, pour an adjacent concrete part for the grill, and xeriscape the rest of the lawn.

In honor of Earth Day, How to Destroy the Earth. (Shrift, make note for future reference...)

The neighborhood is sort of slowly coming up (it's the neighborhood that did the playground: www.stadiumplayground.com ) and spotty in places.

It's not really rougher than where I live now, though I think it is slightly less convenient to things like the beltway and such.

Is anyone familiar with xeriscaping? I'm assuming you end up with a more low-maintenance yard, because watering's not a big deal. But do you tend to end up with a garden (full of plants, but nowhere to lounge) instead of usable space?

My mom does it, mostly. Not necessarily lower maintenance for the people. For the water, sure. The pruning, oh the pruning! And the weeding of stuff you don't want during the rainy season (tumbleweeds!) My parents have underground drip waterlines for stuff, but I think most everything is local or comparable climate-wise. The back yard has plenty of lounging places. It's got a couple of patios (one limestone slabs, the other brick under the mexican elder tree.) I think the bird of paradise (it shoots seeds at you in the summer) covers part of the limestone patio.

It's been a while since I've seen it in summer....

Sure, until the lobster people drag you there for a sacrifice to their horrid crustacean god.

So that's why they are demanding US dollars.

So that's why they are demanding US dollars.

Sure. Horrid crustacean gods are very big on the international currency market wheelings and dealings.

(sarameg, nothing you say is tempting me any less.)

Sure. Horrid crustacean gods are very big on the international currency market wheelings and dealings.

I dunno - with the decline of the dollar due to huge US budget and trade deficits that appear to have no end in site, it'd be in the lobster people's best interest to invest in Euro or Yen.

Of course, if they already own dollars, pulling some money out of dollars could cause a big decline in the value of their remaining dollars. Japan is stuck in this bind too.

After watching the amount of watering a lawn requires in the tropics, I can't imagine why they're such the default, even in places like LA. Other that, when well watered, they're soft enough to just lie down on without equipment.

So it's the frisbee throwing sort of ground cover I'm curious about.

Decks are alien to me. Really cool, but seem weird.

Sara, that sounds lovely.

Our house in Jamaica has a half-sunken patio (the lawn slopes up from the front of the yard, but the house is all one one level - there's a concrete walkway around the entire house, which widens into a patio about as big as my apartment in back. Doors open from the annex (a conjoined apartment mostly used by my father as office space) and double doors from the dining room onto it. They've torn up the storage ... thing (easily twice my apartment) and the badminton court now, and replaced those with grass now.) Someone not my father does the yard work.

My parents have gone the no grass route with their yard. There was a small plot of lawn when they moved in, which they let become a meadow and eventually planted herbs at the end of. Chamomile and creeping thyme make good groundcover that you can walk on, not sure about lying down. They've got a deck in the back. They're big on landscaping with native plants, but also grow things to eat which are not native and require more water, but they do drip irrigation to lower their water needs.

I also have friends who basically paved over their backyard entirely (around the deck and shed, anyway) and garden in containers. Weeding is minimal, that's for sure.

I have insidiously planted mint in our backyward so it will spread over the yard after we move out. The landlord will just mow it, like he does the rest of teh weeds that make up the lawn, but at least it will smell nice when he does.