Northwest Xeric

Asclepias tuberosa, Salvia microphylla ‘Hot Lips’, Yucca ×schottii (tall), and Yucca rostrata (short) furnish the dry garden with hot colors and spiky textures. Photo: Mark Turner

Marietta O’Byrne rolls her empty wheelbarrow to a stop. She waves her red-handled secateurs at the gravel mounds and pathways that delineate what she and her husband Ernie have named their chaparral garden. She says, “Most Northwest folks think of California-style gardening and say—‘We can’t do that.’ ”

However, on this hot Oregon summer day, the graveled beds around her feet prove otherwise. I’m here at the O’Byrne’s home and business, Northwest Garden Nursery, to find out how they grow xeric plants on the rainy side of the Cascade Mountains. Marietta explains, “It takes a little cultivation and some hardy plant material, but you can have a dry garden in the Pacific Northwest—gravel, not much water, and relatively low maintenance.”

This morning, flowers of Penstemon heterophyllus ‘Electric Blue’ and multi-colored P. ×mexicali hybrids bloom in profusion in the 800-square-foot area. Stately Verbascum bombyciferum ‘Arctic Summe...