Desert Garden Maintenance

In past articles, we’ve touched on desert garden zoning and design, irrigation, mulch, preparation of soil, appropriate turf and lawn areas, and provided a list of water-efficient plants.

The final point of desert gardening is maintenance which is an important component.

Many of us find the time spent in our gardens relaxing and rejuvenating, others with less time available, or those who have other interests as well as gardening might find that maintenance is something that can be dismissed.

Maintenance is one of the real beauties of desert gardening. That’s because you can design a garden that needs as much or as little maintenance as you’re willing or able to provide. Your design will determine the maintenance required.

Every garden will require some maintenance: pruning, removing trash, occasional weeding, pest management, mulching, periodic checking of your irrigation systems (particularly if you use drip irrigation), and adjustment of irrigation prior to the changing of seasons.

Since there are so many low-water tolerant plants now in existence, it’s really possible to have a verdant, beautiful, fragrant and bountiful garden in the middle of the desert, without using a great deal of water.

But, if you are so inclined, you can still have a rock garden with a small number of plants that require little or no watering. Rock and cacti gardens can be beautiful, require little maintenance, and have a certain ascetic quality about them.

As the availability of viable water becomes more and more of a serious problem, desert gardeners are pioneers of new gardening techniques that can help conserve the planet’s water, prevent soil erosion, help cool the local environment by creating microclimates, make the area around our homes more hospitable, replenish renewable resources, and improving the landscape for the benefit of humans, animals, and plants alike.