Pour one out.

Although stone walls are a handsome and practical addition to any garden, they sometimes read as rigid and stiff. So when San Francisco-based landscape designer Piotr Mazurek saw a 30-foot-long wall in a client's Sausalito backyard, he knew he "needed to soften it with living things." Choosing a silver-blue palette, he went to work planting no-fuss succulents that spill naturally over the structure to replicate the feel of a waterfall. There's Dichondra argentea 'Silver Falls', X Graptosedum, and Sedum morganianum (donkey tail)--all lined along the edge of the bed and tucked into the wall's crevices in a fast-draining, cactus-friendly soil mix. Then Mazurek added brightly colored accents--including purple-flowering basil, red-mottled bromeliad, and variegated yucca--to round out a look that's playful and full of riverlike movement, but without the pricey water bill. Garden Fantasia; gardenfantasia.com.