"Well-maintained Kentucky bluegrass, which is the common turf used in Utah, takes about 18 gallons per square foot," per year, he said. "Drought-tolerant plants can take around 3 gallons per square foot annually."

Some native plants, in fact, "would require no additional watering."

Yards with good xeriscaping won't look like a sun-baked desert. Low-water landscaping "can be lush, green, beautiful, colorful, have wonderful scents, attracts birds, butterflies," he said.

Among flowers that are valuable for xeriscaping are desert four-o'clock and penstemons, he said. "There are fragrant evening primrose, Utah ladyfinger . . . the list goes on and on and on."

Fred and Linda Oswald, 1837 E. Princeton Ave., are veteran xeriscapers, having started with their parking strip seven or eight years ago. Interested in conserving water, they liked the sorts of plants that grow naturally in the West.

Linda Oswald got started when she took plant study courses at Red Butte Garden. "I got more and more interested in horticulture. Then I took courses through USU," she said in a telephone interview. The Utah State University courses were taught at such places at Farmington Botanical Center and other nearby locales, so she did not need to drive to USU's Logan campus.

She earned a certificate in ornamental horticulture, but "I could never quite figure out a way to make a living at that, so it just became my avocation," she said.

A scientist at the U.S. Forest Service lab in Provo taught a series of workshops and inspired an interest in xeriscaping. "She would provide native plant seeds, and we would learn how to grow them," she said.

Their attractive yards supports yucca and many other native plants. "I have various pentstemons, I have an evening primrose, I have globe mallow, and then there's some shrubs — Apache plume, rabbit brush, save, grasses."

The soil uses a somewhat sandy product. The yard is thriving.

"It's really beautiful, and it changes all the time," she said. Some bulbs will bloom in the spring, others produce flowers until the frost.

The Oswalds live near a park, and people like to wander over from the park to admire their yard, she noted.

Sometimes she removes plants and gives them to acquaintances to start their own natural settings, as she doesn't want to throw any away. "I'm to the point where I'm taking things out," she said, "because it's solid plants."

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com