Arid Zones in The Garden

In the last two articles we wrote about the three “zones” in a desert garden.

The first two zones were the “oasis” zone and the “transition” zone. The third zone is the “low-water-use zone”, “arid” zone or desert zone.

The arid zone is usually located farthest from the house, and in areas of lowest use. In the arid zone, you may need no supplemental water or, in the case of prolonged drought, infrequent waterings.

In fact, if you utilize “found” water, or “harvested” water techniques, you can even lessen the need for supplemental water during a drought. Look at harvesting water from roof runoff and paved areas. Since some water harvesting requires grading to channel the water where you want it to go, you probably want to look at planning water harvesting during the initial phases of landscaping.

You also need to understand that even in the “arid” zone, you can have an interesting, beautiful and colorful garden.

Some perennials you might want to consider in your “desert” or “arid” zone include red valerian, Maximillian’s sunflower, dotted gayfeather, toadflax, prairie coneflower, gray santolina, partridge feather, Western spiderwort and prairie zinnia. You might also be interested to know that daffodils, narcissus and a number of other bulb perennials will flourish in the “arid” zone.

Shrubs might include black sage, sand sagebrush, four-wing saltbush, mountain mahogany, fernbush, chamissa, Mexican cliffrose, winterfat, apache plume, rock spirea, threeleaf sumac, wax currant, roundleaf buffaloberry, soapweed and datil yucca.

Here are some groundcovers for your “arid” garden zone: mat daisy, fringed sage, hardy iceplant, myrtle euphorbia, Mexican phlox and sedums.

In your “arid” zone, you might want to have some conifers, and there are some which require no supplemental water after they are established.

Try Arizona cypress, one-seed juniper, Utah juniper and pinion pine. In desert regions where one-seed junipers are prevalent, take care where you plant them. The one-seed juniper berries are the main staple of coyotes (I know that might be hard to believe, but take my word for it, it’s true). If your garden area is not fenced, you might want to plant one-seed junipers as far away from the house as possible, since small dogs and cats are also on the coyote’s diet.

Ornamental grasses also look great in the “arid” zone. Indian ricegrass, big and little bluestem, blue avena grass, fountain grass, blue fescue and maiden grass are excellent additions to your desert garden’s “arid” zone.

In the next article, we’re going to discuss irrigation methods for desert gardens.

Related articles include:

Top Desert Trees and Shrubs

How to Plant Desert Trees

Top Low Water-use Shrubs