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Books : Home & Garden : Gardening & Horticulture : By Climate : Desert
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An illustrated guide to growing plentiful fruits and vegetables in the driest of American climates.
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A complete and beautifully illustrated guide to creating a garden in the face of water shortages and dry conditions.
A garden that can withstand summer drought and requires little watering is the dream of every gardener who is conscious of the need to conserve water and who wants to create a garden in harmony with the environment. That dream can become a reality with the help of this indispensable new reference book which provides concrete solutions to the questions and hurdles faced by gardeners coping with dry conditions.
Abundantly illustrated with more than 400 original color photographs, this is a vital book for novice and experienced gardeners alike:
• Includes an A—Z list of more than 500 drought-resistant plants with details on the plant's scientific name, geographical origin, height and width, exposure and hardiness, foliage, ideal soil conditions, and related or complementary plants.
• Provides techniques for soil preparation, planting, and maintenance of gardens and landscapes.
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For old hands or inexperienced newcomers, A Desert Gardener's Companion is the essential reference for creating and maintaining a bountiful and environmentally sensitive Southwestern gardens. Master Gardener Kim Nelson provides a wealth of information in an easy-to-use seasonal format, covering what to do week-by-week in the desert climates of Southern California, Arizona, southern Nevada, southern New Mexico, and West Texas. Nelson covers everything from planting agave americana to mulching melons to adding zinc chelates to desert soils: one hundred sixty specific topics in all. Delightful drawings by noted nature artist Paul Mirocha demonstrate proper planting and pruning techniques, suggest complimentary landscape groupings, and illustrate specific low water-use plants. No other single volume provides as much useful advice about selecting, planting, and caring for such a wide variety of plants and gardens as Nelson packs into A Desert Gardener's Companion. Her informative and entertaining prose reflects her years of successful, hands-on gardening experience in both Southern California and Arizona and her wealth of knowledge gained as chair of the Plant Clinic at the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension in Tucson.
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These exotic natives of the Americas are among the most striking of drought-tolerant plants, and they make wonderful accents in the landscape, providing excellent contrasts to flowering perennial plantings. They can also be massed effectively, and many of the species are small, ideal for use in containers.The authors point out that innovative nurseries and gardeners in cool, humid regions have shown that many of these plants may be suitable for areas with climates very different from their native range. Full information on cultivation and propagation is provided.
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Prepare to prune and propagate to cacti perfection with this fantastic pocket-sized guide. One hundred and one nuggets of practical information take you stage-by-stage towards a broad understanding of the care of succulents and their spiky partners.
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Gardening is now the favorite outdoor leisure activity in America. Homeowners realize the health benefits available from gardening and the potential increase in their home's property value.
Regional gardening titles offer the most useful advice because they provide credible information on the plants that perform best in specific states. Gardeners want information they can trust and use successfully in their own gardens.
The Arizona Gardener's Guide is a full-color plant selection resource guide written especially for Arizona gardeners. It includes the top 175 landscape plants as recommended by one of Arizona's most respected horticultural experts.
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Newcomers to the Southwest usually find that their favorite landscape plants aren't suited to the hot, dry climate. Many authors offer advice on adapting plants to the desert; now Mary Irish tells how gardeners can better adapt themselves to the challenge.
Drawing on her experience with public horticulture in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Irish explores the vexations and delights of desert gardening. She offers practical advice on plants and gardening practices for anyone who lives in the Southwest, from El Paso to Palm Springs, Tucson to Las Vegas.
Irish encourages readers who may be new to the desert—or desert dwellers who may be new to gardening—to stop struggling against heat, aridity, and poor soils and instead learn to use and appreciate the wonderful and well-adapted plants native to the desert. She shares information and anecdotes about trees, shrubs, perennials, agaves, cacti, and other plants that make gardening in the Southwest a unique experience, and provides further information about plants from other desert regions that will easily adapt to the Southwest. In addition to descriptions of plants, Irish also offers tips on planting, watering, pruning, and propagation.
For anyone who has struggled to maintain a patch of green or blanched at their water bill after unproductive irrigation, the answer to an attractive landscape may be as close as the desert around you. And for anyone who has bought a catalog guide to desert plants and not known which to choose, this book can set you on the right path. Mary Irish shows how to take heart in available plants of adaptable beauty in a book to enjoy while waiting for the next planting cycle.
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Do I prune my hydrangea in the fall or do I wait until early spring?
When is it safe to put out tomatoes?
Can I divide iris now?If you have ever asked yourself questions like these, Month-by-Month Gardening in The Desert Southwest is for you. Gardening is a journey, not a destination. The day-by-day gardening experiences - planting a few onion sets in the first warm afternoon of spring… the surprises - a purple crocus before the snow has even gone … the satisfaction - fresh green beans on the dinner table, or tomatoes, bright and red, safely in quart jars … these are the things that keep the gardener coming back year after year.
Month-by-Month Gardening in The Desert Southwest is packed with information that explains what needs to be done and when it needs to be done in the southwestern garden. Topics include:
- The most effective planting techniques.
- How and when to prune.
- The best season for fertilizing your lawn.
- The differences between bare-root, container, and balled-and-burlapped plants.
- Eleven plant categories, including Annuals, Bulbs, Herbs, Vegetables, Houseplants, Lawns, Perennials, Roses, Shrubs, and Trees.
- Twelve monthly calendars for each plant category - 132 calendars in all! - that make is easy to find the proper gardening advice.
Whatever your gardening interests or the time of year, you can take the guesswork and mystery out of gardening. You will become a more satisfied gardener … and your garden will show it!
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The desert Southwest is booming, with western counties consistently leading in population growth over the past decade. Yet while the Southwest has plenty of people and plenty of heat and sunshine, water remains at a premium. From Southern California to West Texas, in Arizona and Nevada and New Mexico, homeowners seek new ways to enjoy a lush environment while conserving precious water resources. Plants for Dry Climates is the only book of its kind to cater to this thirsty audience, with information that comprises both good landscape design and essential cultural information for nearly 450 plants. It gives readers all the information they need to plan a complete landscape that includes both mini-oasis features as well as arid-landscape plantings.This revised edition of Plants for Dry Climates provides complete descriptions of more than 350 plant species in an extensive plant encyclopedia section, with entries including description, situational photo, and requirements: zone, soil, sun, water, temperature, and maintenance.
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Techniques for landscapes and gardens that receive fewer than 20 inches of annual rainfall.Inspiring garden scenes in 17 states—from cold and warm deserts, dry grasslands, and Mediterranean climates.
Selection guide details 85 trees, shrubs, and perennials appropriate for dry climates.
Special chapter highlights efficient irrigation systems.
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George Brookbank has distilled nearly twenty years' experience—as an extension agent in urban horticulture with the University of Arizona—into a practical book that tells how to avoid problems with desert landscaping before they occur and how to correct those that do. In the first part, "How to Start and Maintain a Desert Landscape," he provides 28 easy-to-use chapters that address concerns ranging from how to start a wildflower garden to how to cope with Texas root rot. In Part Two, "A Month-By-Month Maintenance Guide," he offers a handy almanac that tells what to do and what to watch out for each month of the year, with cross-references to the chapters in Part One. Homeowners who maintain their own landscape will find in this book ways to make the work more satisfying and productive, while those who hire landscape contractors can make sure the work is done effectively and economically. "You'll find all kinds of books on desert landscape design and materials, irrigation system and design, and landscape installation," says Brookbank. "So far as I know, however, this is the only book that tells you what to do with what you've got and how to keep it growing."
CONTENTS
Part 1 - How to Start and Maintain a Desert Landscape
1. Desert Conditions: How They Are "Different"
2. Plants Are Like People: They're Not Alike
3. Use Arid-Land Plants to Save Water
4. How to Irrigate in the Desert
5. How to Design and Install a Drip Irrigation System
6. Soils and Their Improvement I: How to Plant in the Desert
7. Soils and Their Improvement II: How to Use Fertilizers
8. What to Do When Things Go Wrong: A Troubleshooter's Guide
9. How to Avoid—and Repair—Frost Damage
10. How to Control "Weeds"
11. Palo Verde Borer Beetle: What to Do
12. How to Avoid Texas Root Rot
13. When You Move Into an Empty House
14. What to Do About Roots in Drains
15. How to Dig Up Plants and Move Them
16. How to Have Flower Bed Color All Year
17. Landscape Gardening with Containers
18. Starting Wildflowers
19. Starting a Lawn
20. Making and Keeping a Good Hedge
21. Pruning Trees and Shrubs
22. Palm Tree Care
23. Caring for Saguaros, Ocotillos, Avages, and Prickly Pears
24. Roses in the Desert: Hard Work and Some Disappointments
25. Landscaping with Citrus
26. Swimming Pools: Plants, Play, and Water-Saving
27. Landscape Maintenance While You're Away
28. Condominiums: Common Grounds, Common Problems
Part 2 - A Month-by-Month Maintenance Guide
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Readers will learn about more than 50 species of cacti and more than 10 families of succulents, including their ideal locations, natural habitats, and care and feeding needs, in this complete guide to these captivating plants. Beautiful specimen plants from six garden collections the world over, from Zurich to Phoenix, are detailed in full. Complete descriptions, including color photographs, will help readers identify their plants, and detailed care instructions will help them make sure that their plants thrive—whether they are being grown indoors or outside, in the city or in the country.
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Spiky, smooth, round, long or thin, cacti and succulents come in all shapes and sizes. The purpose of this book is to help you know, enjoy and care for your plants.
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Drawing upon her vast knowledge of perennials and how they perform in the arid Southwest, Mary Irish has produced the definitive guide for gardeners who want to create lush, colorful gardens while keeping artificial irrigation to a minimum. This book will help Southwest gardeners meet the challenge of growing perennials successfully by providing inspired, practical information on how to design dry-climate gardens and an A-Z guide to 156 proven plants. Each entry includes the plant's scientific and common names, distribution, cultural needs, drought tolerance, and ornamental characteristics. Written in a clear, reader-friendly style and profusely illustrated with sparkling color photographs, this invaluable volume makes Irish's expertise available to every gardener.
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Landscape gardening involves a partnership between gardener and environment, and an understanding of why and how plants grow where they do. Phillips takes the reader on an illustrated garden tour; through the rich ecosystems of the Southwest; and into gardens she has designed in the upland forests, shrub or desert grasslands, riparian oases, and arid city plots. Her plant palette includes: native trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and grasses, and embraces dozens of adaptive plants; that will flourish in the demanding conditions of the upland and desert West.
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This year the Huntington celebrates the centennial of its spectacular desert garden, one of the largest such collections of cacti and other succulents in the world. Visitors to the twelve-acre garden marvel at its more than 3,000 species, including the vivid blue and green Puya, a rare type of bromeliad; the Lithops, or "living stone," whose camouflaged leaves mimic the shape and color of rocks; and the dazzling red, orange, and yellow torch-like blooms of the winter-flowering aloe.
In this beautifully illustrated volume, Lyons draws on decades of experience with these unusual specimens to explore the Huntington's desert garden. He tells of its early development, describes its principal collections, and gives instructions on the care and landscaping of desert gardens.
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Anyone can grow extraordinary and exotic cacti and succulents with confidence, using this fully-illustrated, inspiring and practical new guide. In its 80-page A to Z directory, gardeners encounter every strange and beautiful species and variety: sea-urchin-like astrophytum; woollily bearded espostoas; fiercely golden-spined ferocactus; bizarre-shaped tree-like cactus; hallucinogenic peyote; 40-feet high pachycereus, hanging donkey’s tails; statuesque aloes, and ground-hugging, jewel-like flowering conophytums. Displacing the myths and legends, such as these plants don’t need water or light, it offers comprehensive easy-to-follow instructions on building a collection; pests and diseases, seed raising; repotting; greenhouse cultivation; equipment; and more.
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To the untrained eye, a desert is a wasteland that defies civilization; yet the desert has been home to native cultures for centuries and offers sustenance in its surprisingly wide range of plant life. Gary Paul Nabhan has combed the desert in search of plants forgotten by all but a handful of American Indians and Mexican Americans. In Gathering the Desert readers will discover that the bounty of the desert is much more than meets the eye—whether found in the luscious fruit of the stately organpipe cactus or in the lowly tepary bean. Nabhan has chosen a dozen of the more than 425 edible wild species found in the Sonoran Desert to demonstrate just how bountiful the land can be. From the red-hot chiltepines of Mexico to the palms of Palm Springs, each plant exemplifies a symbolic or ecological relationship which people of this region have had with plants through history. Each chapter focuses on a particular plant and is accompanied by an original drawing by artist Paul Mirocha. Word and picture together create a total impression of plants and people as the book traces the turn of seasons in the desert.
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Whether explosive displays of columnar cacti and brilliant wildflowers cascading down sun-bathed hillsides, meditative, botanical expressions of an organic, spine-laden geometry set within the quiet, earthen walls of a Spanish colonial mission, or twilit, verdant groves evoking a prelapsarian topographythis book captures the numinous light and beauty of 18 unique and rarely photographed private and public desert gardens between San Francisco and San Diego. Featuring the most important desert garden in the world at the Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, as well as the Moorten Botanical Gardens in Palm Springs, Balboa Park in San Diego, and many exquisite private gardens, the volume celebrates the sculpturesque charms of cacti, aloes, and other succulent flora that have adapted to the extreme conditions of the desert.
Combining spectacular garden views in idyllic settings and ravishingly beautiful images of particular specimens, with text by the renowned desert garden expert Gary Lyons that balances the poetics and technical aspects of this garden genre, the book serves as an inspirational guide to these horticultural treasures. Because interest in desert gardens continues to grow dramatically, the book also includes the addresses and visiting hours of gardens open to the public, and provides a bibliography of what one needs to know in order to create one's own.