Desert Landscaping

Desert Landscaping Guide

The desert conjures up images of hot days and cool nights, along with images of cacti and sand. The desert can experience such a range of temperature changes and your desert landscaping needs to be hardy enough to tolerate these extremes.

Evergreen shrubs and trees survive well in high terrain deserts, because they withstand the heat and tolerate the cold. Many cactus plants are cold hardy, which is why they survive in the desert. This surprises many people, because they think of cactus as hot area plants.

If you have a home in the dry area with extremes of temperature and want to do some desert landscaping around your house the best place to buy your plants is from your local nursery. The nurseryman understands the complexities of desert weather and orders plants that will do well in your desert landscaping. Locally grown plants will obviously thrive and grow in your area.

Desert Landscaping: Water With Care

If you stick to plants that are native to the area in which you live, watering your yard shouldn’t be an issue. However, if you want to grow flowers, vegetables, or other plants that don’t normally grow in the desert, you need to make sure that you provide a source of water to your desert landscaping. Before you design your desert yard, check with your local authorities to make sure that there are no watering restrictions in your city or county.

Once you have established how much water you require have a watering plan. The easiest way to water your lawn and garden is with a timed sprinkler system. Set your timer to go off in the very early morning hours, so that the water can seep into the ground before the sun rises and causes it to evaporate. Choose a drip irrigation system to water your shrubs and ground covers and you will see minimal waste.

If you want to cut back on the amount of watering your desert landscaping requires, fill your yard with gravel or rocks instead of grass. This low maintenance alternative to grass looks attractive in a desert setting. One caveat to rocks is that light colored gravel will reflect the sun’s heat, causing your yard to seem even hotter each afternoon.

So in conclusion, if you live in a dry and arid climate then your desert landscaping is going to take a little more planning than some other parts of the country. Desert landscaping will have to work with a plan that includes only plants and trees that can survive with much less water than some other plants. There is no point in planting something if it can not sustain itself afterwards. So take some time with your desert landscaping plan and make sure that you have done everything suited to the climate.