You can buy soil in bags, and fertiliser that have water retaining thingys in them now. The soil would be good, dig up where you want to plant something, add the wetting soil and plant

I’m not sure what they’re called but there are some water saving crystals that you can sprinkle onto your garden and they are supposed to help retain water.

Have you thought about putting a raised garden bed in? We have one fir our veggie garden. We filled it with soil, mulch, fertiliser, chook poo etc and our veggies are a success

maybe make up a garden bed

We don’t have any lawn but I can try other mulch. The thing is most I’d the yard has orange sand

Maybe get some pots and cheap potting mix and then dig them either into the ground or use the as decoration on top.

My gran would put the lawn clippings around the lemon tree like mulch,it would keep the area under neath more moist so I would try this around the garden ,& putting bath water or any spare water possible would help.