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HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List
Okay. Before you buy a single plant, let's talk about what you actually need to bring home first. I learned most of this the hard way, so you don't have to.
Honestly, the plants are the fun part and also the part people rush. Get your basics sorted first.
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The Basics (Budget Tier)
These are the things you genuinely need. Nothing fancy.
- A notebook or phone notes app — for your bloom-time list. I keep one on my phone because I got tired of my yard looking amazing in June and dead-boring by August. You'll thank yourself in year two.
- A garden fork or shovel you already own. Don't buy a new one for this class.
- A hand trowel — the cheap Macey's or Costco kind is fine. Mine's been through three summers.
- Plant tags, kept. Ziploc bag, drawer, whatever. Write mature size on the back if the tag doesn't say. I lost three plants to nine other plants my first year because I didn't check mature width. Don't be me.
- A hose with a decent nozzle, one that can do a slow soak, not just a blast. New plants need real water to establish. Then you back off. That's the whole ballgame with xeric plants, and it's where most people struggle.
- Mulch — bark or wood chips, not rock, if you can help it. I'll get into why in the next handout, but the short version is bare gravel bakes the soil and kills the stuff living in it that your plants actually want.
- A cheap soil pH strip kit, if you want one. I'll be honest, I don't fully trust mine. I mostly just plan around "our valley is alkaline and the water's hard" and pick plants that don't fuss about it. That's a legitimate strategy. Testing precisely is a gap of mine and I own it.
Nice-to-Have Tier
If you've got a little extra budget or you're serious about this becoming a real hobby:
- A soaker hose or simple drip line for the establishment period. Not required for one bed, genuinely useful if you're doing a whole strip.
- A wheelbarrow, if you don't have one and you're moving any real volume of mulch. Von built me a raised cedar bed a while back — corners aren't quite square, I love it anyway — and I still haul mulch to it in an old feed bucket because I never got around to buying a wheelbarrow. You can do better than me here.
- A soil knife or hori-hori if you like tools that make you feel official. I have one. I use the trowel more.
- Garden gloves that actually fit. Sounds small. Matters when you're digging in our clay.
What NOT to Buy Yet
Do not buy plants before next week's class. I mean it. I want you making an actual layout on paper first, with mature sizes marked out, so you're not grabbing a flat of twelve things on impulse and cramming them in a row like I did my very first year. Three of them swallowed the other nine by August.
Also — skip the bag of "garden soil" or heavy compost for now. Native and adapted plants mostly want the same lousy dirt they evolved in. I over-amended a bed once with good stuff from the store and lost a whole planting of blanketflower that winter. Humbling. We'll talk soil more in Handout 2.
A Shopping Note
When you do go plant shopping, buy small. One-gallon or even quart-size plants establish faster and cheaper than the big showy five-gallon ones. I'd rather see you buy three small plants than one big impressive one that sits there sulking for a year.
Bring your notebook. Check the tag for mature size before it goes in the cart. Ask what the plant actually wants, not just whether the label says "drought tolerant," because that label covers a lot of ground and not all of it applies to your yard.
See you next week. Bring questions. I remember them and I will absolutely circle back and ask how your yard's doing.
HandoutHandout 2: Drought Tolerant Plant Selection Cheat Sheet
Handout 2: Drought Tolerant Plant Selection Cheat Sheet
Okay, this is the page I want you to actually keep on your fridge or stuck in your garden binder. Everything else from class you can forget. Not this.
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Water: the establishment rule
New plant, first year, needs real water to get its roots going. Then you back way off. This is the part people cannot make themselves do.
- Weeks 1-2 after planting: water deeply, every 2-3 days
- Rest of first summer: deep water once a week, less if we get rain
- Year two: every 10-14 days, only if it's actually dry
- Year three on: mostly on its own, occasional deep water in the worst of August
Deep and rare beats shallow and often. Every time. Honestly, more xeric plants die from someone loving them to death with a hose than ever die of neglect. I drowned a penstemon once watering it daily because it "looked thirsty." It was fine. I was the problem.
Soil: leave it alone
Don't amend the planting hole with a bunch of nice compost from Macey's. These plants evolved in our lousy alkaline clay and they want it lousy. Dig the hole, loosen the sides so roots aren't hitting a wall, plant, backfill with the same dirt you took out. That's it.
I don't test pH precisely — I use cheap strips and mostly just plan around "our valley is alkaline and the water's hard." Works fine.
Buy small
Quart and one-gallon size, not the big showy five-gallon pots. Small plants establish faster, transplant with less shock, and cost a third as much. I'd rather plant three small ones than one big one every time.
Sizing at planting time
Read the tag for MATURE size, not the size in the pot. My first year I planted a whole flat in a row without checking this. Three plants swallowed the other nine by August. Space for what it'll be in year three, not what it looks like on day one.
Plan for August
Anybody can have a decent yard in May. Judge your plan by what's blooming or at least not looking sad in the ugly hot part of summer. Keep a running list — bloom time, height, water needs — so you're not stuck with a yard that peaks in June and then just sits there brown till frost. That gap is the whole game.
Quick reference: reliable performers for our elevation
Plant Bloom window Water once established Yarrow June-Aug Very low Penstemon (varieties) May-June Low, hates wet feet Blanketflower June-Sept Low Globemallow May-July Very low Rabbitbrush Aug-Sept (fills the gap!) Very low Russian sage July-Sept Low Lavender June-July Low, good drainage a must Two opinions I'll die on
- Skip the all-gravel "zeroscape" look. Bare rock bakes, reflects heat back at your house, and kills the soil life underneath. Plants and a little mulch, even if it's messier, do better long term.
- "Drought tolerant" does not mean "no water ever." Read what the specific plant wants. Labels lie by omission.
Bring your yard's sun/shade notes to next class and we'll start laying out an actual planting plan on paper. Not just talking about it.
WorksheetHandout 3: Plant Selection Worksheet
Handout 3: Plant Selection Worksheet
Okay. This is the one where you actually pick your plants instead of just liking the pictures of them. Bring this back next week filled out, even messy, especially messy. Fill it out in pencil if that helps you commit less.
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Step 1: Where is this plant actually going?
Walk your yard before you fill this in. Don't guess from memory, I've done that and it's wrong every time.
- Spot name/description: ______________________
- Sun exposure (check one): ☐ Full sun (6+ hrs) ☐ Part sun ☐ Mostly shade
- Soil type, best guess: ☐ Clay ☐ Sandy ☐ "Honestly I don't know"
- Slope or drainage: ☐ Flat ☐ Slopes away from house ☐ Low spot, collects water
- Near a downspout, sidewalk, or heat-reflecting wall? ☐ Yes ☐ No
If you checked "low spot, collects water" — write that plant's name down TWICE somewhere so you remember it needs different treatment than the rest of your bed.
Step 2: Mature size (learn from my mistake)
I once planted twelve things in a row without checking this. Three of them ate the other nine by August. Do not be me.
Plant name Mature height Mature width Fits the spot? (Y/N) Step 3: Bloom time — fill the August gap
Anybody can have a nice yard in May. I want to know what's happening in the ugly part of summer.
- Plant + bloom month, list at least one thing blooming or interesting in each:
☐ April/May: ______________________ ☐ June: ______________________ ☐ July: ______________________ ☐ August: ______________________ (this is the hard one, don't skip it) ☐ September: ______________________
Step 4: Water needs, honestly labeled
Don't trust the nursery tag alone. Look up the actual plant.
- Establishment period needed (most things, even xeric ones, want regular water the first season): ______ weeks/months
- Water needs once established: ☐ Very low ☐ Low, occasional deep soak ☐ Moderate
A reminder, since I will die on this hill: overwatering kills more of these plants than drought ever does. If you're not sure, back off before you add more.
Step 5: Soil — resist the urge to fix it
Most of what we're planting wants our lousy native dirt, not a hole full of good compost from Macey's. Write down which of your picks are fussy about rich soil versus which ones actively prefer it bad.
- Plants that want it left alone, poor and unamended: ______________________
- Plants that actually want some organic matter (there are a few, check first): ______________________
Step 6: Buy small
One-gallon or quart size establishes better and costs less than the showy five-gallon pot. Three small plants beat one big one, in my experience and my wallet.
- Size I'm planning to buy: ☐ Quart ☐ 1-gallon ☐ "I'm tempted by the big one, talk me out of it"
Step 7: The gut check
- Does this plan have something surviving in August? ☐ Yes ☐ Still working on it
- Am I amending the soil more than this plant wants? ☐ No ☐ Maybe, going to dial it back
- Have I checked mature size for everything on this list? ☐ Yes ☐ Not yet, doing it tonight
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Bring your filled-in sheet next class. We'll trade with a neighbor and poke holes in each other's plans, gently. That's usually where the real learning happens, not from me talking at you.
HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide
Honestly, this handout exists because I made most of these mistakes myself. If you're stuck on something, check here before you panic and pull the plant.
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1. Plant looks droopy right after planting. That's normal. It just got its roots messed with. Water it in well, then leave it alone for a few days. Droopy the first week is not an emergency.
2. Plant is STILL droopy after two weeks and you've been watering it daily. This is the one that gets everybody, it got me first. Daily water on a new xeric plant in our clay is how you drown it, not save it. I did this to a penstemon and lost it in alkaline clay that was basically soup by the time I figured out what I'd done. Water deeply two or three times a week at first, then start backing off. Check the soil with your finger before you water again. If it's damp an inch down, wait.
3. Leaves are yellow and mushy at the base. That's root rot, not thirst. Same fix as above — you're overwatering. Pull back hard. If it's far gone, it may not come back, and that's a lesson, not a failure.
4. You amended the planting hole with good compost from Macey's and the plant died anyway. Yep. Most of these plants evolved in lousy dirt and don't want the good stuff. Rich soil holds too much water around the roots and rots them. Dig your hole, maybe loosen the sides a little, and skip the amendment. I learned this the hard way with a whole run of blanketflower.
5. One plant took over and swallowed its neighbors. Check mature size on the tag BEFORE you plant, not after. I once put twelve plants in a row without checking, and by August three of them had eaten the other nine. Now I keep every tag in a Ziploc bag so I remember what I was told, versus what actually happened.
6. Everything looks great in May and dead boring by August. This is the "August gap" and it's a real design problem, not just bad luck. Look for things that bloom or at least hold their color in the hot stretch — rabbitbrush, some of the tougher yarrows, globemallow. I keep a running list on my phone of what blooms when so I stop getting surprised by this every year.
7. You went all-in on gravel and now the bed bakes in summer and nothing else wants to grow there. I'm a little contrarian on the all-rock look. Bare gravel reflects heat, cooks the soil, and kills off the good stuff living down there. I'd rather see mulch and actual plant coverage shading the ground, even if it looks a bit messier than a magazine photo.
8. New plant died over its first winter even though it's supposed to be hardy here. Ask yourself if it went into rich amended soil (see #4) or got watered too much late into fall. Both set plants up to rot rather than go dormant properly. Also check if it was planted too late in the season to root in before the ground froze.
9. You bought the big showy five-gallon plant and it's struggling more than your friend's little one-gallon of the same thing. That happens more than you'd think. Smaller plants establish faster and catch up quick. I buy small on purpose now, three quarts instead of one big pot, and I've had better luck for less money.
10. You're not sure if your soil is the problem and don't want to mess with pH testing. Honestly, same. I never got precise about pH testing. I just work off the assumption that our valley soil is alkaline and full of hard water, and I choose plants that don't complain about that instead of trying to fix the dirt. Not glamorous, but it works.
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If your problem isn't on this list, bring it to class. I'd rather talk through your actual yard than guess at it on paper. What's really going on with it?
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay, so that's the third time you've said "just rip out your lawn" in the first five minutes, and I want to push back a little before we even start recording the real intro.
DIANE: Honestly, I mean it though. But fine, let's back up.
JESS: Back up. For people just joining us, this is the podcast for Drought Tolerant Plant Selection, the class starting up through Utah Community Learning. I'm Jess, I run the podcast side of things for basically every class we offer, and this is Diane, who is teaching this one.
DIANE: Hi. I'm not a professional. I want to say that up front every time.
JESS: You say that every time and then you know an unreasonable amount about penstemons.
DIANE: That's different from professional. Professional would mean I haven't killed a lot of plants. I've killed A LOT of plants.
JESS: Okay, tell the yarrow story. People like the yarrow story.
DIANE: The mailbox yarrow?
JESS: The mailbox yarrow.
DIANE: So my grandma grew yarrow, this scrappy little thing, grew it her whole life without trying. And I found out my cousin in Idaho still had some going in her yard, from the same stock probably, and I drove up there for something else entirely and came home with a chunk of it in a bucket wedged in my back seat like it was a passenger.
JESS: Like a hostage situation.
DIANE: Kind of. And I stuck it by my mailbox because that's the worst dirt in my whole yard, just to see. And it's been there three summers now on basically zero attention from me and it's doing great. Meanwhile I have babied other plants to death in better soil.
JESS: That's basically the whole class, right there.
DIANE: Honestly, kind of. People think drought tolerant plants need coddling to get going and then once they're established you can just water them whenever you feel like it forever, and it's the opposite. Establish them right, water them well those first few weeks, and then you have to make yourself back off. That's the hard part. Backing off.
JESS: Give me the one thing. If somebody's listening right now and they're not taking the class, they just want one tip for their yard this week, what do you tell them.
DIANE: Stop amending your soil so much.
JESS: That's it?
DIANE: That's a big one. People dig a hole, dump in a bunch of the good bagged compost from Macey's or wherever, and stick a native plant in the middle of it like it's a little island of rich dirt in a sea of bad dirt. And the plant's roots just stay right there in the nice stuff instead of spreading out into the real soil, and then the whole thing rots or just never gets tough. These plants mostly evolved in lousy dirt. They want the lousy dirt. I learned that one the hard way with a whole planting of blanketflower I lost the first winter because I'd been too generous with it.
JESS: You say "learned the hard way" about basically everything.
DIANE: That's how I learned everything, though.
JESS: Okay so what are we actually covering, session one, for people deciding if they want to sign up.
DIANE: Session one is mostly us figuring out what your yard is actually dealing with. Sun, slope, what kind of soil you've got, because up here it's almost always alkaline clay whether you've tested it or not — I haven't tested mine properly in three years, I just assume alkaline and hard water and plan around that.
JESS: Confession corner.
DIANE: It's fine, I own it. And then we start looking at plant lists that actually match Utah County, not some general drought list from a magazine that assumes you're in a totally different climate.
JESS: And there's a project, right? People make something.
DIANE: By the end of the whole series everyone's got an actual planting layout for a real spot in their yard. Not just notes. I want people leaving with something they could hand a neighbor and say "this is what I'm doing." I'll have handouts, they'll probably be color-coded, I'll probably finish them at eleven-fifty the night before, that's just how I work.
JESS: Truth in advertising.
DIANE: Always.
JESS: Okay, quick plug before we let people go. Next session?
DIANE: Next time we get into the biggest myth in the whole subject, which is that "drought tolerant" means "no water ever." It does not. I'm also going to make my case against all-rock yards, which I know is a little bit of a hot take around here.
JESS: You're gonna make some gravel-lovers mad.
DIANE: Probably. I just think if you bake all your soil to death under rock you don't have much of a yard left, you have a parking lot with plants poking out of it. We'll argue about it next week.
JESS: Perfect place to leave it. Thanks, Diane.
DIANE: Thanks for having me back. Go check your soil before you dump compost in it, that's your homework.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —wait, say that part again, about the pH strips, because I feel like people are going to want that.
DIANE: Oh, honestly, I don't have a great answer. I bought one of those cheap probes you stick in the dirt, didn't trust it, so then I bought the little test strips instead. Trusted those SLIGHTLY more. But if you want me to tell you our soil here is a precise 7.4, I can't do that for you. I mostly just plan around the assumption that Utah County dirt is alkaline and full of hard water minerals, and I pick plants that don't throw a fit about it.
JESS: So you're not testing every bed before you plant.
DIANE: No. I know some of you are going to go home and want the exact number, and that's fine, go get it tested if it'll make you feel better. I just gave up chasing precision on that one a while ago. There's other stuff I'll die on a hill for. Soil pH isn't one of them.
JESS: Okay, well, speaking of hills you'll die on — last episode you mentioned overwatering. I want to get into that today because I think that's the one people are least going to believe.
DIANE: It's the one nobody believes until they've killed something themselves. I'll tell you exactly how I found out. I bought this penstemon, first year we were in the Greenwood house, gorgeous little thing, and it looked thirsty to me. Every day for like two weeks I'm out there with the hose. And this is in heavy clay, alkaline clay, the kind that holds water FOREVER once it's wet. I basically drowned that plant in slow motion. Root rot. It just melted.
JESS: And it looked thirsty the whole time.
DIANE: That's what got me. Wilting can mean thirsty, or it can mean the roots are sitting in soup and can't breathe. I didn't know the difference yet. Now when a new plant looks droopy I stick my finger down in the dirt before I do anything. If it's damp a couple inches down, I leave it alone. Establishing a xeric plant takes regular water for maybe the first season, sure, get it going. But then you have to back off, and that's the part people can't stand to do. We want to keep helping. The helping is what kills them.
JESS: That's the practical tip, right there, for anyone listening who isn't even taking the class. Finger test before you water.
DIANE: That's free. Anybody can do that today. Don't even need a class for it.
JESS: I do want to ask about your grandmother's yarrow, because I heard about this from somebody at church and I need the real version.
DIANE: Oh, Grandma's yarrow. Okay so this is real, I got into family history around the same time I got into the yard, and I started noticing these old recipe cards and letters my grandmother kept, and she'd mention plants people GREW, not bought at a store. Yarrow. Hollyhocks along a fence line. And I thought that was kind of neat, that some of the same tough old plants she grew are the same ones surviving our dry summers now.
JESS: So you tracked some down?
DIANE: My cousin in Idaho still has a patch of it growing wild by her shed, been there for decades, probably came straight from Grandma's yard originally. So last summer I drove up, dug out a chunk with a trowel, hauled it home in a bucket in my back seat the whole way down through the canyon. Just sloshing around back there. Von thought I was nuts.
JESS: And it survived the move.
DIANE: It's thriving on total neglect right by my mailbox. I haven't watered it once since I put it in. Everybody in the ward knows about Grandma's yarrow at this point, I've told the story so many times.
JESS: I love that. Okay, before we wrap — anything you want people chewing on before next session?
DIANE: Yeah, next time we're getting into the actual planting layout, hands-on, bring a rough sketch of your yard if you've got one, even on a napkin, I don't care. We're going to talk bloom times, because I am obsessed with what I call the August gap.
JESS: The August gap.
DIANE: Anybody can have a pretty yard in May. Everything's blooming, everybody's a genius. I judge a plan by what's still doing something in August, when it's hot and ugly and everybody's over it. That's the real test. So bring your sketch, we'll start filling that gap in.
JESS: Perfect. See everybody next week.
DIANE: Bring water for yourselves too, not just the plants. That room gets hot by afternoon.
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay wait, say that again, because I don't think people are going to believe you actually planted them upside down.
DIANE: Half of them! Not all of them. I want that on the record.
JESS: This is Utah Community Learning's podcast for Drought Tolerant Plant Selection, episode three. I'm Jess, I produce these things, and this is Diane, who apparently plants bulbs like she's late for something.
DIANE: I WAS late for something. It was church. I had forty crocus bulbs, twenty minutes, and I was "almost done," which if you know me means I was not almost done. So I just shoved them in. Pointy end up, that's the rule, and honestly I could not always tell which end was pointy by minute eighteen.
JESS: And?
DIANE: About a third came up anyway. In March. I'll take it. That's a win in my book, because the bulbs that came in weird sideways or upside down, they mostly figured it out themselves. Plants want to grow. People forget that. We treat them like they're fragile and helpless and honestly a lot of them are just waiting for us to get out of the way.
JESS: Which is basically the whole class, right? Getting out of the way?
DIANE: That is the whole class. Today especially. We talked about matching plant to spot instead of forcing a spot to fit a plant, and somebody in the room asked me the best question, which was basically "how do I know if I'm babying something to death."
JESS: And what's the answer.
DIANE: Water it enough to get it established, then back off. That's it. That's the whole secret and nobody believes me. I've told this story in every session I've ever taught but I'm going to tell it again because it's true every time. Early on I had a penstemon, brand new, little quart-size thing, and it looked thirsty to me. So I watered it every single day for two weeks straight.
JESS: In our soil.
DIANE: In our heavy alkaline clay, Jess. That plant did not have a chance. It drowned. Not from neglect, from love, if you want to be dramatic about it, which I do. And that's the thing I want people to actually take away today if they take away nothing else — over-watering kills more of these plants than the drought ever does. New plant, water it in good, keep an eye on it the first season, and then trust it to be the tough thing you bought it to be.
JESS: Okay, so here's my job, give me one practical thing somebody listening in their car right now could actually use. No class required.
DIANE: Buy small. If you're standing at the nursery deciding between one big showy five-gallon plant or three quart-size ones for the same money, buy the three quarts.
JESS: Why?
DIANE: Because the little ones establish faster. Their roots aren't all coiled up and stressed from sitting in a pot too long, and you're not paying for size you're going to have to help it recover from anyway. I would rather have three scrappy little plants that figure out our dirt on their own terms than one expensive one sulking for a year. That's not me being cheap, well, it's a little bit me being cheap—
JESS: —a little bit—
DIANE: —but mostly it's just what actually works here. Small, cheap, patient. That's the whole strategy.
JESS: I love that "patient" made your list of gardening advice, because you are famously not patient.
DIANE: I am working on it! The yarrow doesn't care about my personality, it just needs me to leave it alone.
JESS: Speaking of the yarrow — people keep asking me about "Grandma's yarrow," is that a real thing or is that a Diane bit.
DIANE: It's very real. I dug up a chunk of it out of my cousin's yard in Idaho, my grandmother originally grew it, drove it home in a bucket in my back seat like it was cargo, very carefully, and now it just lives by my mailbox getting completely ignored. Nobody waters it, nobody thinks about it, and it's doing great. Which for me is the highest compliment I hand out.
JESS: It's kind of a nice thought though, right, the same plant surviving generations later.
DIANE: I think it's neat. I'm not going to get poetic about it, but there's something to the fact that the plants tough enough for my grandmother's dry ground are the same ones tough enough for mine. Some things just work here and keep working.
JESS: Okay, last thing, what's coming next session, because people always ask me this at the end and I never have a good answer until you tell me.
DIANE: Next time we're doing planting layout, actual hands-on, everybody's making a real plan for a real spot in their yard. Bring measurements if you've got them, bring a photo if you don't. And I'm going to make everybody think hard about August.
JESS: Why August?
DIANE: Because anybody can have a pretty yard in May. I judge a whole plan by what's still hanging in there in the ugly hot part of summer. That's the test.
JESS: Alright, that's episode three. Thanks for listening, and Diane—
DIANE: Point end up, everybody. Try, anyway.
Videos worth your time
Hand-picked by your instructor, with notes on what to watch for.
- Top five drought tolerant plants for beginner gardenersWalking Talking Gardeners
Watch for the five specific plant picks and note how the instructor balances heat tolerance with winter hardiness.
- Xeriscape 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Waterwise LandscapingResource Central
Pay attention to the core xeriscaping principles explained early on since they set up everything else in the class.
- How to choose drought resistant plantsCrocus.co.uk
Listen for the explanation of what actually makes a plant drought resistant before you start picking species for your own yard.
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