Landscaping San Diego: Low Water Use Concept Book – A Dry Streambed Can Add Interest to a Drought Long suffering Landscape in San Diego
One of the keys to a successful low water design is making certain that there’s still interest in the front yard. Because curb appeal is so crucial and can greatly affect the value of your home, a considerate design is crucial.

Most San Diego front yards are presently controlled by an emerald swath of grass. However, it is terrible for the water bill and requires a lot of maintenance.

One of the first things that come to mind, typically in a negative way, is to use rock. This brings up horrifying mental pictures of 1970’s brick red crushed lava rock yards. The more modern and masses more fascinating alternative is the dry streambed.

Here are a few things to think about when planning a San Diego landscaping dry riverbed:

Instinctively, we know when we are looking at something designed by nature, but what are we actually seeing? Listening to nature can make all the difference between a dry streambed that looks nasty and one that increases the curb appeal of your home.

This sounds clear but is the most overlooked component of a well-designed dry riverbed.

2) Water sculpts real streams. In times when the stream is high, it carves away at the stream bank, leaving behind larger stones that are carved into the banks, not placed next to them! As a stream goes around a bend, the water at the outside edge of the stream has to move faster, so that side is usually carved, while the slower moving inner edge is where silt and sand is deposited. Think about this and use larger stone where the stream is carving and little pebbles on the inside bend where the stream is depositing.

3 ) As the water flow lessens through the spring, the heavier cobbles drop out of the flow, getting deposited towards the outside of the streambed while the middle of the stream is still flowing.

Instead they are buried partly. For a natural look, boulders should be buried a minimum of 1/3 of the way in the ground.
.