Desert Landscaping Ideas for Your Yard
Welcome to the DIY landscaping blog. Here are some more ways to add beauty and visual interest to your yard.I live in Texas, so I’ve become quite a fan of desert landscaping projects. We get more annual rainfall than truly arid places like Arizona, but we are still drier than average. This is why I’ve installed so many desert-style landscape features in my yard. In this blog post, I’ll share some of the desert landscaping ideas and lessons I’ve picked up along the way.
The Benefits of Desert Landscaping
First, let’s talk about the main benefits you get from this landscaping style. The first and most obvious benefit is a lower water requirement. Cacti, succulents and other desert plants are drought tolerant by nature. This helps you save time and money on watering.
In some places, like Nevada and Arizona, desert landscaping is practically the only option. Having grass in such a climate is just not practical — you’d have to run your sprinklers too often.
Another benefit is that most desert plants are low-maintenance. Some people joke that a cactus loves to be ignored. You should never totally ignore your landscaping plants, but there is some truth to this joke.
I have a variety of succulents and cacti in my backyard landscape design, and they’ve reached a state of maturity where they don’t need anything from me anymore. I control the weeds and give the plants a little water during the driest times of the year, but that’s about it. You’ll need to pay closer attention to your desert plant when you first put them in, but after that the maintenance is minimum. This is another key benefit of the desert landscaping style.
Choosing Your Plants
Because you’re reading this article, I’ll assume you live in a climate that can sustain a desert landscaping feature. In other words, you live somewhere with short and mild winters, plenty of sunshine, and hot summers. In other words, a semi-arid climate. With that in mind, let’s talk about your plant choices.
When most people hear the phrase desert landscaping, they immediately think of one family of plants. The cactus. While these hardy plants make a great addition to any desert landscape design, there’s also a wide variety of other plants you can use as well. Depending on where you life, you’ll be able to choose from a range of bushes, grasses, flowers, ground covers, succulents and, yes, cactus species as well.
For starters, I recommend that you start looking into the various species of cactus and succulent plants available in your area, in order to find plant types that appeal to you. Talk to your local garden center or a landscape designer about native species you can use, or non-native species that may still thrive in your climate.
You might also want to check out your city or state government website for information on recommended / native plants. For example, the state of Arizona has an excellent website that lists drought-tolerant plants that are idea for desert landscaping projects.
Another way to research plants is to buy a how-to landscaping book that focuses on your region of the country, or to use a landscape design software program. These software tools have gotten pretty advances over the years, and most of them come with huge plant libraries you can sort through by region.
Here’s a summary of the various ways you can research your plant options:
- Talk to your local garden center about native plants suitable for the project.
- Hire a local landscape designer to help you plan the project and choose plants.
- Get a book on landscaping that focuses on your region and desert projects.
- Check out your city or state website for plant recommendations.
- Get a software program that allows you to sort through a plant database (region specific).
I can’t stress the importance of plant choice enough. Choosing the right plants for your desert landscaping project is the key to success. You need to consider (A) your average rainfall, (B) your average high and low temps year-round, and (C) the amount of sunshine the plants will receive in your desired location. Do the right research in advance, and you can spare yourself the misery of plants that struggle and die.
Brandon’s Lessons Learned
Entire books have been written on the subject of desert landscaping, and I recommend that you purchase at least one of them. So instead of trying to cover every aspect of the process (which is what books are for), I’d like to offer you some tips I’ve learned through my own experiences.
Use an appropriate mulch, gravel or sand as your substrate. Aside from the fact that it looks weird, putting desert plants on grass is impractical. You have to water the grass on a regular basis, but that’s too much water for most cacti, succulents and low-water plants. I recommend using a mix of sand and pea gravel. Red lava rock is another popular choice for desert landscape projects, especially in the Arizona suburbs where it shows up in nearly every yard.
Research the growth rate and the average adult size for all of your plants, but especially the cactus species. Some cacti get pretty large when they mature, so you’ll need to space them out accordingly when you plant them. Some cacti grow extremely slow as well, such as anything in the “barrel cactus” variety. If you want to have substantial plants within a couple of years, you need to purchase more mature plants to start with (more expensive) or select species with a faster growth rate (such as the agave).
Resist the temptation of watering too frequently. If you choose your plants properly, they’ll be drought-tolerant by nature. Cacti and succulents are desert survival specialists. They use deep roots and water retention to survive long dry spells. Watering them too much can damage or kill them. When you’re doing your initial research like we talked about earlier, be sure to learn about the water requirements for your plants. Here in Central Texas, I rarely water my desert landscape — maybe a couple of time a year if there’s a long dry spell. That’s the whole point of a desert landscaping project!
Landscaping Styles | Brandon | 
March 7, 2009 3:58 pm
By Gerry L Kram, April 11, 2009 @ 1:11 pm
I live in Sandy Valley, Nevada. The tempatures here differ (colder and hotter) about 10 degres from Las Vegas. I am considering Lantana plants for use in a raised bed(1/1/2-2″)of sand to be enhanced with compost mulch. I have a black thumb when it comes to tending and growing plants, so I need to plant something that says “thanks for planting me here….just give me a little water (automatic bubblers) and I’ll be in pig heaven. I have a triangluar area that is two cement blocks high, filled with sand and is in the most exposed area possible. It will get full the sun from around 11AM to sunset. It will be fully exposed to winds here in this valley (This year the winds blew the mulch chips out of the beds bording the northwest end of the house practically halfway around both the north and south sides of the house. It will be fully exposed to the cold. Will Lantana thrive under these conditions? From my research, it seems like it will be happy except in the winter when it gets down into the teens and we often find frost covering our desert floor. We are in a bowl of a valley at about 2500′ elevation. I am also considering tam juniper and rosemary and chives for ground cover. But I’d like the color from the lantana as long as it will take next to no maintenance. Helllllllp !!!!!!
By Janet, May 15, 2009 @ 1:07 am
That garden looks so stunning, I have to say that I do like the idea of taking other looks from different parts of the country where one wouldn’t normally find them and using it in ones garden
By admin, May 15, 2009 @ 5:56 am
There are more than 100 different kinds of lantana, so its hard to lump them all together in terms of care. They are tropical and subtropical plants. Temperature-wise, Nevada is a good place for lantana, but you’ll have to stay on top of the watering. That’s pretty easy though. See what species of lantana your local garden center has available, and you can then research the exact care requirements. Good luck.