The proper look of paradise

Slowly, slowly this is happening. This year, two dry gardens have opened to the public, funded by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the agency supplying 60% of the water used in the area. In October, the state's leading horticulturists will gather in Arcadia for a three-day symposium on Mediterranean gardening.

Every movement needs a label. Xeriscaping (from Greek xeri for dry) has strong currency but conjures up images of cactus gardens. Native plants have ardent supporters but only have begun their journey from weed status to nursery plants. The banner "Mediterranean" embraces the broadest palette of plants and styles.

The name, it turns out, is for more than a sea. It is also a climatological term, a unique subset of temperate zone climates, coined after Russian-born botanist Wladimir Koppen, who divided the world's regions according to temperature and rainfall in the 1920s. California is one of only five regions in the world where the combination of a temperate zone latitude, a west-facing coastline and cold off-shore ocean current produces a climate with winter rainfall and prolonged summer drought. The four others are in southern Australia, central Chile, the western cape of South Africa and around the Mediterranean basin.

Look at a map, and it becomes clear why so few of the Americans who migrated to California grew up gardening Mediterranean style. These regions constitute only 2% of the world's land mass and have produced a unique school of plants. Typically, the foliage comes in a subtle array of gray, blue and olive hues that best reflects the sun. Rather than winter dormancy, they become dormant in summer, slumbering through the heat. They might even drop leaves to conserve water. No one could miss their aromatics, from the spice of eucalyptus to the perfume of rosemary to the scent of California pines.

Books dedicated to the practice began appearing in 1990, led by Hugo Latymer, a British nurseryman based in Mallorca on Spain's Balearic Islands. Soon, Californians were in on the act. San Francisco physician Peter Dallman produced the authoritative reference on regional floras, "Plant Life in the World's Mediterranean Climates," and Upland author Jan Smithen began selling water conservation as good taste in the 2002 book "Sun-Drenched Gardens: The Mediterranean Style."

For many houses, the emerging look righted a wrong. A hacienda with a lawn can be like El Sid in a Santa suit. When Doug and Marka Meyer, an architect and businesswoman respectively, bought their 1922 Moroccan-style house in Larchmont six years ago, it was surrounded by lawn, concrete and bonsai trees. They studied the Moorish facade and decided to set it off with a series of symmetrical beds that framed the house. They then chose plants that worked with the Mediterranean style: palms, South African tea trees, agave, lavender, rosemary and a full complement of drought-tolerant herbs, including oregano, thyme and sage. "We cheated on the palm," Marka says. "It should have been a date palm, but the space wasn't big enough, so we used a Queen."