Get helpful tips and tricks for your desert garden from a professional landscape designer.
This low-growing evergreen shrub tolerates a bit of shade.
Red yucca repeats throughout the border to carry the eye down the path.
“When designing desert gardens, you always need a couple of yuccas,” says Rasmussen.
A honey mesquite tree (Prosopis glandulosa) offers a respite from the heat.
Rasmussen always uses large plants and striking combinations to mark ahome’s entryway.
The flowers give way to reddish fruits; the paddles shade purple in winter.
A pink-flowering Mexican oregano shrub (Lavender SpicePoliomintha) provides fragrance, flowers, and waxy evergreen foliage.
Apalm tree-like beaked yucca (Yucca rostrata) supplies a dramatic crowning touch.
In late spring, they bear yellow blooms that attract hummingbirds.
Use Appropriate Desert Landscaping Ideas
Tired ofhauling out the hose?
Combine drought-tolerant plant varieties that can go long stretches without watering.
Here, self-sustaining plants mirror the arched shape of a nearby stucco wall.
Like many desert plants, the two shrubs bear tiny leaves, which help plants retain moisture.
Add Architectural Interest
Stucco-walledraised beds show how desert plants can be combined to create moretraditional gardens.
“The idea here was to use plants to visually shorten the tall walls,” Rasmussen says.
Jeff Clark, a horticulturist at High Country Gardens in Santa Fe, recommends a sun-heated site withquick-draining soil.
Lighten soils with compost and coarse sand or crushed gravel.
Skip the Lawn
Instead of awater-hogging lawn, plant a desert garden suited to natural conditions.
Rasmussen used this desert landscaping idea across a client’s front yard.
He used a bed of chat and strategically scattered lava rocks to tie the plantings to the adjoining landscape.
Quick-growing clumps of Russian sage fill out the background, providing needed height and long-lasting color.
Parry’s century plant (Agave parryi) and yellow barrel cactus mix in varying forms and textures.
Yellow-bloomingdesert marigolds(Baileya multiradiata) add sunny color amid the cacti and sage.
They’ll readily reseed themselves and naturalize among their companion plants.
