Soggy spring is brief: For garden longevity, plant a Xeriscape

Garden envy. We all have it, looking at yards that seem more glorious than ours.

If you spend your days tilling, toiling, weeding and watering, while those other gardeners have time for hobbies, entertaining and let's face it, a life it's no wonder you entertain wild thoughts of covering your yard in stone.

Don't give up. You're not an unworthy gardener. You just haven't yet caught on to the secret of having a beautiful, low-maintenance Colorado garden: Xeriscape.

LAKEWOOD, CO - SEPTEMBER 26: The xeriscaped gardens at Kendrick Lake Park and Gardens in Lakewood on Thursday, September 26, 2013. (Photo By Cyrus McCrimmon/ The Denver Post ) (Cyrus McCrimmon, THE DENVER POST)

That term, coined by Denver Water, doesn't mean a barren patch of rock. But it does mean recognizing that astonishingly moisture-rich springs like 2014 are rare events on the Front Range.

The low-water landscape is also low-effort. So once you've tried it, you'd better have a plan for using your extra time.

"My life is complicated with kids and a job. It made sense that my landscape was little work; that other type of landscaping was W-O-R-K, what with mulching and watering a lot," said Pat Hayward, executive director for Plant Select, a program that helps develop and market water-wise plants for the intermountain West. She lives in the foothills of Masonville, just northwest of Loveland.

"When we don't have to use as much water or work as hard," she said, "why wouldn't you want to do this?"

Perhaps it's the allure of the lush, dense landscapes that national magazines flaunt in their pages. Gazing at the cool greens and tropical blossoms, it's hard not to lust after that same look in our harsh, arid land.

"My experience is that we need to permanently shift how we think about water," said Alison Peck, owner of Matrix Garden Design in Boulder.

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Soggy spring is brief: For garden longevity, plant a Xeriscape