This is such a huge subject! You should start with an honest assessment of your lifestyle. Your landscape should only be as big or complicated as you will enjoy maintaining or paying someone else to maintain.
Groupings of perennial color (sometimes evergreen, but not always), ornamental grasses, and a few specimen shrubs like yaupon, mountain laurel, or crape myrtle. Every square inch doesn't have to be plants either. Columns (that were expensive to build) don't have to be covered with a tall shrub or vine. Rather than cover aspects of your home, try to feature them.
Start by listing a bunch of plants that would grow well in a West Texas landscape and then "cut and paste". It's important to note that some plants require different levels of sun exposure so make sure you know if your area gets a lot of sun or barely any because that will determine which types of plants you can put in those spots. Once you've determined which plants you can do, place the bigger specimens, add the color, then lastly draw in the bed edge to accommodate the plantings you want. Too often builders put in the brick bed borders first and then we have to fit the planting in. That's backwards.
We help people with landscape ideas every day! It's best if you bring in pictures on your phone so we have a better idea of what plants can go where!
Print Friendly