7 Years In: How Our Small, No-Grass Front Yard Landscaping Looks (With Drought-Tolerant Ideas)!

An update on how our small front yard landscaping ideas with no grass turned out…complete with drought tolerant plants, two seating areas, and a fountain! 🙂

I was digging through our archived photos and realized that with EVERYTHING else (i.e. kitchen, laundry room, walk in closet, built-in closets and our backyard…just to name a few 🙂 )…

…I’d never shown you guys how (years later) our grass-free front yard project looked after growing in!

Oh boy did it grow in! 🙂

I’ll give you my best and brightest list of my favorite drought-tolerant, low-maintenance plants down below as well! All tried and tested by me over 7+ years.

SMALL FRONT YARD NO GRASS LANDSCAPING IDEAS

How We Designed Our No Grass Front Yard Landscaping!

If you missed that, you’ll want to take a quick peek HERE so you can see 1) what we were working with and 2) the thought process behind why we did what we did!

LANDSCAPING IDEAS WITH NO GRASS

“How Do All the Olive Trees Look Now?”

Deep down I think I already knew the “right” thing to do was only to put 3 drought-tolerant olive trees in our front yard, but I was impatient and wanted the private “courtyard” feel fast, and so I finagled 4 in there. 😉

Keeping them trimmed was something I did every few months so they didn’t grow crazy, and they actually turned into beloved “climbing trees” for my daughters!

(Tip: Olive trees are perfect “toddler and young kid” climbing trees because the branches are 1) low to the ground and 2) unique and gnarled enough to be super interesting! Who knew?! 🙂 Now we both do!)

A no grass front yard landscaping idea with four white wooden chairs on a rock patio with drought tolerant plants and olive trees surrounding the path. — Some little sitting areas ended up being perfect as the olive trees grew large! (If you want to see how small they looked when we first put them in, see our original post **HERE**!)

Now, I did NOT do “professional” photos of this front yard. I’m just showing you my quick, off-the-cuff phone photos that weren’t originally intended to be shown on the blog–they were just me snapping some shots of how the front yard/garden looked…

…and it ended up being only a month or two before we decided to sell this “dream house” to follow our real dreams!

(Oh man, I know those last four words will sound cheesy to some but there it is. We did. We went for it, and we’re so glad we did!)

SMALL FRONT YARD FLAGSTONE PATIO & ROCKS

“How Does The Flagstone Patio Look Now?”

This front “courtyard” was not meant to be a perfect-looking, well-groomed area. This was THE PERFECT spot for hot summer mornings as I raised my two young children at home. Since the sun rose shining into the back of the house, this morning shaded area was SO cool and we’d stay out here as long as possible until the heat drove us inside. 🙂

A flagstone path with a beautiful stone fountain in the center of it and drought resistant plants surrounding the path is a great example of a no grass front yard.

It was a place the girls could pick at least 5 different types of citrus right off the trees, both in ground and in pots (even those two small pots flanking the entrance to the sitting area are the delicious kumquat “Nature’s Sour Patch Kids” trees).

Do you recognize the fountain we replaced?

A serene no grass front yard landscaping idea is a small courtyard made of rock and a flagstone pathway with a large stone fountain as the focal point. A black metal outdoor table and chairs with a green umbrella sits on the pea gravel patio. Plants surround the patio.

This is also the #1 place my daughters learned to garden. I gave them each “a bit of earth” (anyone love The Secret Garden like I do?) to do whatever they wanted in it.

We experimented with propagating plants. Even when they had just learned to walk (and before they could fully talk probably!), both girls already knew how and where to pop off bits of succulents and replant them in the ground.

Oh yes, we also grew different varieties of California strawberries here in terra cotta pots…the girls also grew to understand the havoc that snails can do and knew how to help me keep them away from our precious strawberries. 🙂

A no grass front yard landscaping idea is a flagstone pathway surrounded by drought resistant plants and lemon trees that are potted in large planters

NO GRASS FRONT YARD LANDSCAPING IDEAS

“Do You Actually Use Your Fountain & Umbrella Sitting Area?”

We absolutely love that we “reimagined” this low-water, drought-tolerant fountain area! The sound was amazing…so calming. (Did you know the sound of water is scientifically proven to help calm you down?

This patio was SO peaceful! Even when friends came to visit, we’d often have coffee or tea out here…it felt as European as you’ll get in the California suburbs. 😉

Even when we were inside the house, we could slide open the downstairs windows (or the upper ones above that went to our master sitting area!) and hear the fountain from inside the house…

Words can hardly describe how much you can’t put a price on that! 🙂

In the photo below, you can see the mass of empty pots to the left. The girls and I were always propagating, or moving plants into larger pots, or moving things around… Those of you who love the luxury of having the inclination towards and time to garden will understand how it’s so much fun! (And a good workout!)

A fountain sits in the center of a flagstone patio and rocks with plants surrounding the path is a perfect no grass front yard landscaping idea.

Looking back at this years later, with one daughter approaching her pre-teen years, I can say that this is one of the first locations where the girls and I learned to work together, communicate, and have fun at all our different levels.

That’s probably one thing I dearly enjoy about gardening as a mom…there’s always something for someone to do and participate in, no matter their age, and that’s just a wonderful gift to be given (and to give)…

…because so many activities in our adult lives are not something kids can always participate in.

I can’t count the number of times the girls and I sat out at this outdoor table doing an art project, or potting plants…

The whole purpose of your outdoor spaces is to achieve your life priorities! (Not just to look pretty on the outside).

A no grass front yard courtyard with flagstone patio and rocks. The patio has a beautiful stone fountain in the center of it and plants at the base of the fountain. There are large potted plants on the edge of the patio area and a black metal table and chairs sets to one side.

The below no-grass front yard area went through SO many variations and designs through the years.

Because of our particular location on top of a little hill and facing directly into the sunset, this was a rough place to grow any plant that didn’t crave full, hot, direct sunlight.

The olive trees of course loved it. My sage and rosemary plants loved it (but I took out all the sage during one season–so it’s not pictured here–because it loved it TOO much 🙂 ).

Drought tolerant plants are planted in a small no grass front yard with a a flagstone path to the side of the plants.

The best drought-tolerant plants that worked for us here in southern California, with our sun and temperatures about 30-40 minutes from the coast were:

Olive (both trees and the Dwarf Olive bushes!)
Citrus (we grew multiple lemons, tangelos, blood oranges, Mexican limes and Bearss limes, kumquats)
Bird of paradise
Jasmine
Rosemary
Germander (SO good and happy here!)
Bougainvillea
Sage
Agave attenuata
Yucca
Succulents (various ones like various amounts of shade and sun at different times of day, just depends on their exact location and what’s giving them shade at what time!)
Sego palm
Queen palms

All were not just drought-tolerant but LOW MAINTENANCE! (I am intentional about what kind of plant maintenance I want. 🙂 )

While these grew well in the perfect conditions for me personally, I won’t add them to a “drought tolerant” list because they do need/love water or moisture:

Strawberries
Strelitzia nicolai (Giant bird of paradise)
Rubber tree
Feijoa sellowiana (we learned to love these in New Zealand but they don’t fruit well in California because we don’t have the moisture, but I planted 11 of them and would wet their leaves anytime I was out there and they gave us plenty of delicious feijoas for our family 🙂 )

Below photo: From the comfort of our shady sitting area, we could say hi to neighbors walking by with their kids or dogs.

It was a lovely place to sit!

Can you believe it turned into all this in just a few years after looking like THIS to begin with?!?

Four white chairs set on a rock patio surrounded by drought resistant plants is a no grass front yard landscaping idea.

These photos were taken in autumn so leaves are starting to turn yellow and fall, plus it’s in the harsh afternoon sun at this point (like I said, if I was shooting this more professionally I would have done it in spring/summer and at a completely different time of day for the lighting, not to mention a different camera! So there’s the “professional” part of me that needs to add that caveat because I am not necessarily “proud” of the quality of these photos but I am SO proud of this entire front yard-to-back-yard space

A cement path leads to black metal gate with an arbor over it. Jasmine grows up the arbor.

If you walked through this side gate where we put an arbor and grew jasmine (which was SO full and luscious and fragrant at its best times of year! not when pictured) it would lead to our backyard trampoline, zipline, outdoor kitchen and pool areas!