"They work hand in hand," Tandy says. "People need to look at a home's architecture when they landscape."
So, when a Toluca Lake couple hired Tandy to help them with their lawn-to-drought-garden makeover, Tandy carefully considered the home's Tudor style.
Cactus, for instance, would not suit the home's pitched roofs and storybook details.
"That would look strange," she says. "It isn't compatible with the house."
The couple wanted to reduce their water bill and create a pretty, low-maintenance yard but were afraid it would "look like the desert," Tandy says.
In the designer's mind, however, the yard needed more than just a drought-tolerant update.
"It was a boring front yard," she says. "You couldn't tell where the door was. The approach to the house was bad."
Drought-tolerant flowering cherry trees add texture and give the garden a pop of color against the home's gray palette. So do flowering plums along the side of the yard, blueberry bushes close to the house, pretty purple Mexican sage and Chinese fringe, all of which require little water.
"It's all about plant selection and color palette," says Tandy. "We kept to a green palette, not an arid-looking palette."
This price tag included boulders, trees and hiring a stone mason to update the front porch. "Trees can become a secondary source of the budget," Tandy says. "If you're willing to wait, you can plant one gallon plants. Pinch things back as they grow; it forces them to grow fuller and more rapidly. That's one way to cut cost."
In the end, the homeowners got the pretty English garden they wanted, without the high maintenance and water bills, which they say dropped by about $100. A significant portion of the landscape is, in fact, not planted. "The key to drought-tolerant landscaping is to mix your plantings with the right amount of hardscaping and permeable hardscaping," Tandy says. "Anyone can do it. It just takes a little research."