Scruffy curbside lawns resulting from years of drought pushed several homeowners in west Rapid City to abandon their Kentucky bluegrass for something a little more heat-tolerant. The resulting neighborhood boulevard project will save not only money, but also time spent on maintenance.

About 10 days ago, Millie and Ron Roland, Linda Swan and Michelle Lipp put the finishing touches on their Brookside Drive boulevards, which had undergone an extreme makeover from that of a straggly mix of grass and weeds to a more natural-looking yard of heat-tolerate plants.

With 25 years of landscaping experience, Swan, a certified nurseryman, offered her help to design, advise, prepare the beds and plant the flowers and shrubs. She came up with the landscaping blueprint that the homeowners followed as they revamped their new garden beds.

The Rolands spearheaded the project after becoming fed up with the look of the boulevard, which took constant weeding and needed constant watering to keep it green-but to no avail.

"It just looked awful. We decided to do this and checked it out with the neighbors," Millie Roland said. Four more homeowners decided to tear out their old boulevards and convert to the new landscape, too.

Along with the heat-tolerant shrubs and fragrant flowers, the Rolands' low-water and low-maintenance boulevard will bring a unique touch to their front yard.

"My grandmother had a farm in North Dakota just north of Lemmon," Millie Roland said. In the north-central South Dakota town, its petrified wood park is an iconic landmark in Perkins County. Tons of stone-hardened wood were used extensively to create fences, walls and even a small castle.

"A lot of that petrified wood came from grandmother's farm," Millie Roland said.

The Rolands decided to set 24 pieces of petrified wood from the farm and heavy stones salvaged from a creek crossing throughout their new xeriscaped boulevard. The mixed pieces will give them a feeling of the farm as well the unique beauty of these ancient stones.

Michelle Lipp's and the Rolands' properties both face south, absorbing a lot of heat in summer and winter. "In the winter, we don't even have to shovel our walks," Lipp said.

On a late summer day, it is positively toasty.

"They're not called hell strips for nothing," Swan said as she stood up from digging holes for the new flowers. She pointed out some boulevards across the street, where a mix of grass and weeds was turning a light shade of yellow in the heat.

"You just can't keep these watered well," she said of the boulevards.

Swan and her neighbors have spent several weeks working to this point. The first week, they used an herbicide to kill off the grass - yet left the soil beneath viable. After ridding the ground of its grass coating, they rented a tiller to loosen and prepare the soil. They then began to purchase their new plants.

Swan said fall is the best time to begin a large project like this. In the coming weeks, moderate daytime temperatures and cool nights will help the plants overcome the stress of transitioning from pot to flowerbed and adjusting to new soils.

"It's much better to do this sort of project now than planting in June because we get so hot," Swan said of spring climate conditions. With the colors of bright yellows, reds and purples, Swan said each of the xeriscape gardens will have the same bushes like juniper and Russian sage to tie the new boulevards together.

"Our evergreens are all the same and they're completely low-maintenance," she said.

Holes dug for plants should be about the size of a dinner plate, yet not too deep-as they can fill with water and drown the roots. Check with nursery clerks for transplanting information. To create a weed barrier, Swan lined the garden plot with black fabric and secured it with pins. The fabric will hold the mulch in place and keep the weeds under control, Swan said.

"And all of the flowers will attract butterflies," she added.

The design for Lipp's boulevard calls for plants filled with bright colors such as fuchsia, silvers, blues and hot pinks. Ground bushes, exactly like the ones planted in the other boulevard, will tie the landscapes together.

"I definitely think this will spread up and down the street," Lipp said of the low-maintenance xeriscapes. Interest had people slowing their cars as they drove by the Saturday morning gardeners on the street.

"We've had a ton of people stop and ask what we're doing," Lipp added.

Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com.