December 28, 2024
Drought-tough Cottage Design with Native Plants
Alexa Volpe never realized that gardening could be so hard until she and her family moved to rocky terrain in San Antonio.
Bent on turning her routine lawn-and-shrub yard into a fun destination and home to lots of butterflies, bees, and other wildlife, she dug into native and adapted plants.
“I would describe my garden as a xeriscape cottage design. And I wanted something that was really lush and green and had interest all year. But I also wanted it to be drought tolerant,” she told us when we stopped by in May 2024.
Director Ed Fuentes and Logan Stephens moved everything indoors when the sun came out, turning the garden into a steam bath! Texas weather has been another challenge for Alexa, who grew up in an Italian gardening family in Florida, where you put something in the ground and it grows.
“But here in San Antonio, we have to be able to garden between these extremes, you know, the drought and the heat, and then these cold snaps that we get that can be very taxing on our plants,” she told us. In this partly shady spot along her fence, perennial Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blue’ and lantana, along with annual self-seeding zinnias, fit the bill.
Since they moved to San Antonio about five years ago, Alexa’s given the backyard an inviting personality. She removed lawn grass and expanded the rock terracing for clusters of perennials, succulents, wildflowers, and edibles. Shallow water bowls layered with stones offer refreshment to small birds, bees and lizards without fear of drowning.
Since their yard sits atop the Edwards Aquifer, the soil is pretty shallow and rocky except in spots where builder’s clay was hauled in during construction. But the aquifer also dictates water-conserving plants in a water-challenged region.
Alexa’s taken a cue from plants around town that seeded themselves in pavement cracks, shopping center strips and dusty roadsides. She layers for texture, foliage, and flower color, and is sure to include butterfly and moth host plants.
On our visit, she was delighted to show us black swallowtail caterpillars on her dill—various instars from teeny tiny to adolescent. She also tucks edibles into the landscape, but these portable garden beds are just steps away from the kitchen for quick harvesting.
Often she takes cuttings or collects seeds in the wild or in friends’ gardens.
Native rock rose (Pavonia lasiopetala) embraces a shimmering little bath for birds, bees, wasps, and lizards. Rock rose blooms spring to frost and even this December! Along with softwood cuttings in spring, it generously reseeds.
She tucks in whimsical miniature vignettes to enchant the kids.
At the back of the fence bed, she went with a mulch trail, defined with limbs from pruned trees—a fun little backyard woodland walk for the family.
Alexa’s daughter nurtures her own little spot of favorite things, snuggled under the boughs of a shaggy ashe juniper (mountain cedar).
Alexa’s first vignette is a tribute to her grandfather, Benito Beraglia, who passed away a few years ago.
“We walk by and we think about him,” she mused.
She’s taken her vision beyond the back gate to her children’s school, helping create a pollinator garden. Then she volunteered to work with her HOA’s public spaces. As she passes along native plants and waterwise tips, she notes that we can make a difference with gardens that wildlife enjoy as much as we do. When she spotted two little finches speedily plucking seeds from her salvia, “It felt incredibly gratifying,” she said. “It just was a beautiful culmination of all that work.”
Alexa’s go-to plant list
CTG’s various resources, including Plant of the Week
Garden Style, San Antonio, a project of the San Antonio Water System
Native and Adapted Landscape Plants, a City of Austin Grow Green guide
Thank you for stopping by and Happy New Year!
Watch Alexa’s story.