I am always on the lookout for unique landscape design, seeing how others create beauty in the garden so that I can help inspire you with your outdoor spaces. So, here are some design notes from the field that I found that I hope you will find useful.
REFLECTIONS:
Often when walking through the garden, I find myself pausing to admire the view of a garden’s beauty reflected on a window.
It is much like looking at a landscape in a mirror, which expands on its beauty while making it appear even more extensive.
SUCCULENT NOOK:
On a visit to a client’s landscape, I noted a unique way that they display their succulents. Little nooks were created along the bare expanse of wall, where small pots filled with succulents were nestled inside.
What a lovely way to break up what would otherwise be a bare wall.
CIRCULAR STEP STONES:
Pathways are an essential element of the landscape, allowing us to move from one area to the other. Normally, you see square step stones, a continuous path, or flagstone in a variety of shapes forming the path. However, I like these circular step stones, which create a distinctive look. The concrete is poured into molds onsite to make these step stones.
COLORFUL PORCH:
While strolling among the buildings of the La Villita Historic Village in downtown San Antonio, Texas, I spotted a delightful splash of color on a front porch. Vintage-inspired chairs in vibrant red and turquoise created a welcoming seating area in front of an old, historic home.
I hope that you enjoyed these design elements that speak to me. This is a series of design-inspired posts that I hope to feature from time to time with you. Have you seen any unique design that inspired you?
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Exploring the Largest Therapeutic Garden in Arizona
Discover Arizona’s Largest Therapeutic Garden in Bisbee. Explore healing outdoor spaces and inclusivity at this remarkable resource and heal your soul. On a recent visit to southeastern Arizona, I was invited to visit a special garden in Bisbee, a small community with a big heart.
The Significance of the Founder’s Garden
My husband and I visit Bisbee every spring and enjoy walking through the older part of town with its historic buildings and exploring the mining history.
A Healing Oasis in the Desert
During this visit, I was to speak about gardening to a community group and was given the opportunity to tour a recently completed garden. It gave me so much joy.
The Largest Therapeutic Garden in Arizona
So what is so special about this garden? Well, it is the largest therapeutic garden in Arizona. Its goal is to “serve as a space for our community partners—including hospitals, nonprofits, and other organizations—to incorporate into their services plans for individual and group therapy, day programs serving individuals with additional needs, and other forms of healing.”
Designing a Healing Outdoor Space
The garden is a 3.5-acre outdoor space designed by Norris Design of Tucson and was completed two years ago. That was plenty of time for the plants to become established and to get a feel of what the garden will look like as it continues to fill in.
We toured the garden with the CEO of Premier Alliances, and the history of its humble beginnings was fascinating to learn about.
Promoting Healing and Inclusivity
In 1962, a group of mothers came together to find and create learning opportunities for their children with disabilities. Back then, few resources were available, so the women took matters into their own hands. They initially raised money by selling homemade cakes.
Over the years, the group evolved into Premier Alliances, which serves people with disabilities in southeastern Arizona. I love how the CEO, John Charley, refers to people with special needs as “People with additional needs.”
Inclusivity Through Design
Throughout the garden are wide, winding paths taking visitors along landscape beds with plants that invite you to touch and feel.
Over the years, the group evolved into Premier Alliances, which serves people with disabilities in southeastern Arizona. I love how the CEO, John Charley, refers to people with special needs as “People with additional needs.”
The plants are drought and desert-adapted to handle the cold(er) winters of the high desert and hot summers. Many of the plants are found in low and mid-altitude gardens as well. All are meant as a therapeutic garden in Arizona.
Personal Perspective on Therapeutic Gardens
Gardens can be places of calm and healing. Unfortunately, not all gardens are accessible to people who may have limitations. It’s easy for people without special needs to be unaware of the obstacles that stand in the way of enjoying every day experiences, like parks or gardens.
As a parent of a daughter with “additional needs,” I know how important spaces like therapeutic gardens are and their function within the community.
The therapeutic effects of gardens are for everyone – they reduce stress and enable you to enjoy nature.
Visiting Founder’s Garden in Bisbee
I encourage you to learn more about the Founder’s Garden in Bisbee and its resources. The garden is open to people with extra needs and the general public, Monday through Friday.
Click here to learn more about their mission and how you can visit the garden.
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Side yard art in the form of a garden? Yes please! Do you have a side garden or perhaps an empty stretch of landscape along the side of your house?
Many of my clients do, and they desire something attractive to look at when they look outside their windows. Because let’s face it – staring at a bare block wall is boring!
1. Outdoor Side Yard Art: Adding Colorful Flair to Your Walls
It could be that your side yard is narrow or super shady, which makes growing plants difficult.
Well, I’m here to share ample inspiration for your side yard with three ideas for you to consider.
Bring Your Garden Views Up to Eye Level
Imagine being able to add colorful art to your outdoor walls!
My friend Shawna Coronado has done that in her side garden with colorful prints specifically made to handle the outdoors. If you have boring walls and no space to add plants, an all-weather canvas is an excellent option for adding colorful interest. Or perhaps as a backdrop for lower-growing plants.
Make Side Yard Art Creative
I love visiting her garden and how she uses her artist’s eye to create vibrant vignettes throughout her backyard. Shawna is a noted gardener and author who moved from Chicago to the deserts of Arizona several years ago. I’ve had the privilege to witness how she has embraced desert gardening, and she brings her unique style to her outdoor space.
2. Maximizing Space with Artful Raised Beds
Shawna loves plants as much as I do and has added galvanized steel raised beds along her entire side yard. The beds are powdered coated with a nice sage-green color which blends well with the desert garden palette.
A combination of succulents, perennials, and vegetables make their home in her raised beds. The narrow space can limit the sunlight plants receive for many side yards when planted in the ground. Using raised beds increases the amount of sunlight they receive.
I love this combination of agave, aloe, mangave, prickly pear, and yucca, which is low water and attractive. Ceramic garden fish appear to swim among underwater plants – I love whimsy like this in the garden!
3. Expanding Possibilities in Wide Side Yards
Reimagine your side yard as a canvas of possibilities. If you have a spacious side yard, seize the opportunity to transform it into a flourishing garden oasis with side yard art. Consider the practical elegance of raised beds lining both sides of this often-underutilized space, allowing you to make the most of your gardening potential.
With raised beds, you can cultivate a variety of herbs, vegetables, and flowers, turning your previously overlooked area into a vibrant green haven. But don’t stop there; infuse personality and charm with whimsical garden art, injecting life and creativity into every corner.
Your side yard has the potential to become a harmonious blend of artistry and agriculture, a true testament to the transformative power of outdoor spaces.
Click here to learn more about Shawna’s side garden gallery and where to purchase canvas prints, raised beds, and ceramic fish.
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A Long-Awaited Gardening Book Birthday: Turning 18 Months of Dreams into Reality
Today – the big gardening book birthday – was a day long in coming…
In many ways, it was like a very long pregnancy. 18 months to be exact since my initial discussion with my editor about writing a book on desert gardening.
The journey from idea to book is filled with varying emotions. From excitement, stress, and impatience, to today when I feel pure happiness.
Writing a book is not easy. My reason for doing so is to inspire and guide people who live in dry climates. I want you to create and maintain an outdoor space that brings both joy and beauty.
Empowering Dry Climate Dwellers: Tips, Strategies, and More in ‘Dry Climate Gardening’
Within the pages of Dry Climate Gardening, I help you with specific garden and landscape strategies. I help with plant choice, planting tips, watering strategies, pest control, design inspiration, and lists of my favorite plants.
Wherever you are in your garden journey, I hope you will find help and ideas for your landscape. The truth is that you can have an attractive garden despite living in an arid region.
Dry Climate Gardening: Creating Beautiful, Sustainable Gardens in Low-Water Conditions is available now. Find the book everywhere books are sold. Click here to order yours and celebrate my gardening book birthday with me!
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Fall is my favorite time of year in the desert garden for two main reasons.
First, fall signals the beginning of the holiday season. And yes, I am one of those people who decorate for Christmas early. Thanksgiving dinner at my house is celebrated with a fully decorated tree in the background.
The Revival of the Desert Garden
Secondly, autumn marks a magical transformation in my garden, as it awakens from the trials of summer. It’s no secret that the scorching heat of the summer months can be taxing on our cherished green companions. However, the arrival of fall ushers in a series of remarkable changes that breathe new life into our botanical friends.
Lush and Vibrant
As keen observers of nature, we’ve likely noticed the remarkable resurgence of our plants during this season. The foliage appears lusher, the blooms more vibrant, and the overall health of our garden seems to rebound. It’s a phenomenon so profound that many desert gardeners affectionately dub autumn as the “second spring.”
This resurgence is no mere coincidence but rather a result of nature’s resilience and adaptation. As temperatures dip and daylight hours become more moderate, our plants find relief from the summer’s harsh extremes. They eagerly embrace this milder environment, seizing the opportunity to flourish once again.
Nurturing the Garden
In the desert, autumn isn’t just a season of change; it’s a reaffirmation of the enduring partnership between gardeners and the natural world. It reminds us that, even in the harshest of climates, with patience and understanding, we can create and nurture thriving gardens that mirror the vitality and resilience of the desert itself.
Foliage Rejuvenation and Vibrant Blooms in Your Garden
Here are some of the differences you may see in your plants this time of year:
Darker foliage has replaced the sun-bleached appearance of some plants due to less intense sunlight.
Flowering increases and the blooms may also appear more intense in color due to less intensity from the sun.
Some plants only bloom in fall, like black dalea(Dalea frutescens), cascalote(Caesalpinia cacalaco), and my favorite pink muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris).
Showcasing the Fall Garden
In the section of my backyard, pictured above, pink muhly and white trailing lantana(Lantana montevidensis ‘Alba’) look especially vibrant in fall.
Pink trumpet vine(Podranea ricasoliana) dominates the back corner and blooms in spring and fall. I always know when cooler temps are on their way when they begin to bloom in September.
However, as autumn transitions into winter, the blooms in this area will slow and fade. A few hardy blooms may remain, but overall, the plants will slow down in their growth and flowering. The exception is my angelita daisies (Tetraneuris acaulis) which will bloom off and on through winter.
Discovering the Delights of Your Desert Garden
In the desert southwest landscape, where scorching sun and minimal rainfall summers challenge even the greenest thumbs, cultivating a thriving fall water-saving garden becomes a true art. Through careful planning and sustainable practices, enthusiasts uncover the secrets of nurturing vibrant cacti, resilient succulents, and colorful desert blooms.
What a joy to learn the delicate balance of conserving water while creating an oasis of life. Beyond the satisfaction of tending to nature’s wonders, desert gardening in the southwest unveils the beauty of resilient, sustainable, and breathtakingly unique landscapes. I invite you to take a walk through your garden and note the changes to your plants. This is a happy time of year in the garden!
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I’m going record to state that I’m not a huge fan. I prefer to endure the intense heat indoors in the comfort of air-conditioning.
However, the plants in my garden don’t have that option. They are stuck outside no matter how hot it gets.
I always feel sad when I see plants struggle in the heat of summer. If I could bring them indoors to cool off I would 😉. But, let’s face it, that isn’t realistic or really what is best for plants.
For that reason, you will find the plants around my home are fairly heat-tolerant.
If you think that heat-proof plants are boring (and if I’m being honest, some are), many are attractive and beautiful.
One of my clients has a great example of an eye-catching entry that is fuss-free and shrugs off the heat of summer.
Artichoke agave (Agave parryi v. truncata), golden barrel cacti (Echinocactus grusonii), and lady’s slipper (Euphorbia lomelii), and yucca create a living sculptural landscape with their unique shapes.
As you can see, you don’t have to settle for a blah garden or one filled with heat-stressed plants. In fact, I loved this example so much that I featured it in my book, “Dry Climate Gardening” which is available for pre-order.
You know that I don’t care for fussy plants – I prefer plants that look great with little effort on my part and this succulent garden is a great example, don’t you agree?
I invite you to take a walk through your garden to see what plants may be stressed from the heat. It may be time for you to switch them out for more heat-tolerant ones.
Embracing the Desert Heat: Landscaping with Desert-Adapted Plants
Surviving the Summer Scorch with Desert Adapted Plants
Let’s face it…summer can be brutal.
I tend to spend as little time outdoors as possible when temperatures soar above normal ranges. It’s times like this that I praise the inventor of air-conditioning.
While we can escape record-breaking temperatures, our heat-stressed plants can’t.
Beauty in the Heat: Desert-Adapted Plant Landscaping
However, you can create a landscape filled that thrives in the heat by using native or desert-adapted plants. And you know what? Most are very pretty!
Last weekend, I saw a great illustration of this…
Hospital vs. Church Landscaping: Lessons in Adaptation
Our church recently opened up a new campus, filled with new plants, but many of them were struggling to survive the intense heat, even if irrigated properly. Many were planted native to more tropical climates.
After church, my husband and I headed out to the hospital to visit a loved one. The hospital had just undergone a renovation and brand-new landscape areas surrounded the entrance.
I stopped to take a photo of one of the areas that were doing very well so I could share it with you. Full disclosure: if you hang out with me, be prepared for sudden stops to take pictures of plants.
The Secret to Thriving Landscapes
There were two main reasons that the landscape by the hospital was doing better than the one by the church:
The plants by the hospital were better adapted to hot summers – desert marigold (Baileya multiradiata), gold lantana (Lantana ‘New Gold’), and Mexican fence post cactus (Pachycereus marginatus).
Additionally, these plants had been installed three months earlier than the ones at the church. Yes, plants can technically be added any time of year BUT there are times that should be avoided if at all possible – specifically May and June.
Heat-Resilient Gardening
Sometimes you need to add new plants at the wrong time of year due to construction schedules, etc. In that case, I advise the use of shade cloth on a temporary basis for young plants through September IF you see that certain plants are struggling. This is in addition to watering them more often than existing plants in the landscape to help them establish their roots.
Use native or desert-adapted plants (those from other regions with similar weather conditions) to help your garden to be more resilient to hot, dry temperatures and they will need less help from you to beat the heat.
Stay cool friends!
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Do you have parts of your backyard landscape that you would like to change? Perhaps you have areas you like in your garden. There are also plants you are tired of or are struggling to manage.
I want to show you what I did in my backyard, where I blended both old and new elements. First, a little history:
Balancing Old and New in a Backyard Landscape
Preserving What Works
I was fairly happy with the areas bordering the walls of the backyard. These areas have colorful shrubs such as Bougainvillea, Coral Fountain, and Yellow Bells.
Bid Farewell to the Dominant Lawn
We removed the large lawn that had dominated the center of my backyard space last year. We made the decision to replace the grass with a focus on plants that I love and that would blend well with the existing plants.
Creating a Harmonious Landscape
A New Focal Point
The focal point is a new flagstone seating area with Adirondack chairs arranged around a portable firepit. Around this area, boulders add height and texture. Angelita Daisy, Artichoke Agave, Blackfoot Daisy, and Pink Muhly grasses surround the seating area, which adds year-round color and texture.
In another area, a gentle mound stands planted with a ‘Bubba’ Desert Willow tree. Purple Trailing Lantana grows around the tree and will soon cover the entire mound in a mass of purple blooms.
Embracing Change and Growth
At this point, the new plants are still rather small. However, plants grow quickly in the desert climate and, in another year, will soon reach their mature size.
The Beauty of Seamless Integration
The result? A backyard landscape where the new and old will blend seamlessly together. I am delighted with how the finished product looks. It took me a long time to decide what to do with this area – it is so much easier to design someone else’s yard than your own.
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A chilly winter’s morning dawns over this Phoenix garden
Embracing the Beauty of Winter in the Desert Landscape
A Tranquil Video Shoot at an Oasis in the Desert
Video shoot in the desert? YES! Winter is a beautiful time of year in the desert landscape with bright blue skies, fresh cool air, and the plants in the garden add subtle beauty. It’s a great time to film
A seating area beckons you to sit and enjoy the peace and beauty of the garden
Lights, Camera, Action: A Video Shoot Day with Plant Pop
This particular garden was the backdrop for a video shoot by the horticultural filmmaker, Plant Pop this past December. They asked me to be the subject of their first video shoot in Arizona, and I was thrilled to do so.
A variety of succulents add beauty to this large galvanized steel horse trough container
Shooting the film in my desert garden wasn’t possible as my backyard is undergoing renovation. So, I asked one of my clients if we could shoot film in her landscape instead. Thankfully, she said yes!
Hop Bush (Dodonaea viscosa) shrubs
Behind the Scenes of a Desert Paradise
We met at her house early in the morning with the filmmaker who set up the cameras and microphones. Our host is one of the most gracious people I know and kept us warm with the outdoor fireplace and feeding us donuts 🙂
Being interviewed – I love talking about desert gardening!
Lights, Camera, Desert!
We spent about 3 hours there with me talking about the unique challenges and possibilities of gardening in a hot, dry climate. During the filming, I walked around the garden, highlighting different areas throughout the garden. This garden has many ‘rooms’ and corners that display the beauty of winter in the desert.
The video has come out, and I’m so happy at how well the folks at Plant Pop condensed our visit into a 4-minute video so nicely. I hope you enjoy it and come away inspired by what you can do in your own desert garden!
One of the many blessings of living in the desert is that you can garden all year. That means that you can have beautiful color all year, even in the desert winter (above).
Embracing Winter Color in Desert Landscaping
Drive down the street during the summer, and you will see flowering plants in the common areas and gracing the front yards of everywhere you look. Texas Sage, Bougainvillea, Lantana, and Tecoma species dot the landscape as shown in the photo above.
Why, then, do people not include plants that will provide color in the winter? You can take the same drive as you did in the summer and see nothing but green blobs and nothing else (below). The landscape below is an unfortunate victim of ‘poodle’ pruning. We are so fortunate to live in an area with relatively mild winters, so why not take advantage of that fact in your garden?
I mean, who thinks that this looks nice? Countless times, when I am meeting with clients, they ask, “My landscape is so boring. What can I do to make it look better?” The majority of the time, I hear this from winter residents. Their landscape is a riot of color in the summer when they are gone. But, in the winter when they are there, they have green blobs and little else.
Adding Winter Color to Your Landscape
The landscape (above) has potential. The solution to a somewhat dull landscape is easy. Add plants that bloom in the cool-season to the landscape.
When I create a landscape design for a brand new landscape, I make sure to include a variety of plants that flower at a different time of the year. This ensures year-round color. If you have an established landscape, add a few winter-flowering plants. That is all it takes.
Top List of Plants for Stunning Winter Color
For beautiful winter color, I recommend trying the following:
Damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana) – Late Winter and Fall Blooms
Damianita (Chrysactinia mexicana) Flowers late winter to spring and again in fall
Valentine Bush (Eremophila maculata ‘Valentine’) – Winter to Mid-Spring Blooms
Valentine Bush (Eremophila maculata ‘Valentine’) Flowers winter into mid-spring
Angelita Daisy (Tetraneuris acaulis) syn. Hymenoxys acaulis Blooms off and on throughout the year
Add Winter Color to Any Climate
As you can tell, there are countless plants that you can use for winter color. If you are only a winter-resident, you may choose to primarily have plants that flower in winter. As for me, I love lots of color year-round. My favorites are Purple Lilac Vine, Firecracker Penstemon, Valentine, and Angelita Daisy.
Whether you live in the Tropics or Canada, this same principle is true for any climate you live in – make sure your garden provides color for you when you are there.
What are your favorite winter-bloomers?
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