Growing the Southwest Garden: Regional Ornamental Gardening

by Judith Phillips

Overview

Plant selection and garden style are deeply influenced by where we are gardening. To successfully grow a range of beautiful ornamental plants, every gardener has to know the specifics of the region’s climate, soil, and geography.

Growing the Southwest Garden, by New Mexico-based garden designer Judith Phillips, is a practical and beautiful handbook for ornamental gardening in a region known for its low rainfall and high temperatures. With more than thirty years of experience gardening in the Southwest, Phillips has created an essential guide, featuring regionally specific advice on zones, microclimates, soil, pests, and maintenance. Profiles of the best plants for the region include complete information on growth and care.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604697049
Publisher:	Timber Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/28/2016
Series:	Regional Ornamental Gardening Series
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	233 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Judith Phillips has spent more than forty years gardening in the Southwest and is still adapting. She is the owner of Judith Phillips Design Oasis, an ecosystem-inspired garden design and consulting service. She has designed thousands of residential gardens in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona, and has also been involved in public projects from habitat gardens at wildlife refuges and parks, to healing gardens at hospitals, courtyard gardens for townhomes and an historic inn, and outdoor classrooms for elementary schools. As a part-time faculty member in the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of New Mexico her class focuses on native and climate-adapted plants for arid landscapes, hopefully inspiring a new generation of ecodesigners.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction: The Changing Southwest
The arid Southwest has always been a place of extremes. We are home to some of the oldest continuously occupied human communities in the world and to the first commercial venture to launch civilians into space. We love extreme sports: snowboarding, white-water rafting, climbing 14,000-ft. peaks, and spelunking deep into subterranean caverns. And we are masters of an extreme sport we don’t need to leave home to enjoy: gardening. National Weather Service maps often show record daytime high temperatures in Phoenix, Arizona, while Alamosa, Colorado (scarcely 450 miles to the northeast as the crow flies), boasts the national nighttime low. Both are very dry; Phoenix in large measure due to the extreme heat, Alamosa because of its position in the rain shadow of the high peaks that surround it. While the positions of these places haven’t changed in countless human lifetimes, the number of people who live in them or visit to enjoy their natural wonders has increased dramatically.
    
In many ways, Phoenix and Alamosa represent the changing Southwest, always a rugged landscape visited by adventurers and settled by hardy souls who saw the potential and were enticed by living on the edge. Urbanization has buffered some of the extremes and amplified others. While we live in air-conditioned comfort and turn on the tap when we’re thirsty, the acres of hard surfaces—streets, parking lots, rooftops, and driveways that absorb heat and repel rainwater—have created heat islands in an already parched landscape. On the northern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, where I’ve spent much of my life, climate extremes are leaving their mark. Our average 6 in. of rainfall has decreased by half some years, while hotter summers have increased the rate at which moisture evaporates. Like the meander of a phantom stream, dryness ripples through this place. The soil is parched deep below the surface and some plants now live rainfall to rainfall, as insecure a lifestyle as a family living paycheck to paycheck. 

Shifts in the plant community and the wildlife it supports have been palpable for some time now, but change seems to be accelerating and intensifying: desert grass remains winter gray through several summers, awaiting rain that, like the kiss of Prince Charming, would bring it to life again. It’s no fairy tale for the thousands of songbirds who rely on those grasses, consuming 50,000 seeds per bird per day, all winter. Grasslands gray instead of green; silence where there once was birdsong; sunbaked sidewalks and dying street trees—the question is, what can and should we do about it? Individually and as communities we can do plenty. We can garden with new attention to the place we live, the plants we choose to grow, and the way we care for those places and plants. This requires no sacrifice in the quality of the landscapes we create. In fact, we’ll be more successful at growing beautiful gardens that are a joy to live in, harbor songbirds and butterflies, and don’t break the water budget. 

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

The Wisdom of Place 11

Understanding the Extreme 23

Plants Adapting to Extrems 39

Taming the Elements with Design 51

Designing with Plants 55

Design Gets Real: Smart Desert Gardens 75

Planting for Southern west success 101

Trees 103

Palms 132

Vines 136

Shrubs and Subshrubs 146

Succulents 190

Perennials 218

Bulbs and Ephemerals 244

Annuals and Biennials 249

Grasses 256

$$$

Soil Preparation and Planting 271

Watering 279

Pests and Weed Control 287

Seasonal Pruning and Cleanup 295

Acknowledgments 301

Recommended Reading 303

Metric Conversions 306

Photography Credits 307

Garden Design Credits 307

Index 308

Editorial Reviews

Explains the Southwest garden from every perspective, opening your eyes to its beauty, and helping you avoid costly mistakes.” —Debra Lee Baldwin, author of Succulents Simplified and Succulent Container Gardens

“Judith leads the way toward understanding our changing climate. With beautiful photographs and engaging prose, she shows Southwest gardeners the designs and plants we should be using to create inspiring, comfortable, and durable landscapes.” —David Salman, founder of High Country Gardens 

“When it comes to arid gardens, Judith Phillips is one of the masters. Her deep experience shines through, in elegant plant solutions for the climate, a gallery of homeowner-scale gardens, and accommodations for wildlife and humans.” —Scott Calhoun, author of The Gardener’s Guide to Cactus and columnist for Sunset

“An essential guide to gardening for the region.” —Houston Lifestyles Homes

“Growing the Southwest Garden by Judith Phillips is possibly the best gardening book of the year for Colorado. Phillips, who lives in New Mexico, dispenses with hardiness zones but tells you the low temps that will kill that shrub, tree or perennial you’re mulling. She knows about mountains, microclimates and maximizing available water.” —The Denver Post

“Phillips shares her tried and true tips and secrets for creating a thriving, beautiful garden in the country’s most parched region...Chock-full of information on luscious flora and spectacular succulents, Phillips’ gardening guidebook showcases some of the desert’s most unexpected and bountiful blooms and shares specifics on the region’s climate, soil and geography. Everyone from Novice to expert gardener will find the information they need to begin cultivating.” —Modern Luxury Scottsdale
 

From the Publisher

“Phillips shares her tried and true tips and secrets for creating a thriving, beautiful garden in the country's most parched region. Chock-full of information on luscious flora and spectacular succulents, Phillips' gardening guidebook showcases some of the desert's most unexpected and bountiful blooms and shares specifics on the region's climate, soil and geography. Everyone from novice to expert gardener will find the information they need to begin cultivating.

Modern Luxury Scottsdale

“When it comes to arid gardens, Judith Phillips is one of the masters. Her deep experience shines through, in elegant plant solutions for the climate, a gallery of homeowner-scale gardens, and accommodations for wildlife and humans.” 

author of The Gardener's Guide to Cactus and colu Scott Calhoun

“Judith leads the way toward understanding our changing climate. With beautiful photographs and engaging prose, she shows Southwest gardeners the designs and plants we should be using to create inspiring, comfortable, and durable landscapes.

founder of High Country Gardens David Salman

“Explains the Southwest garden from every perspective, opening your eyes to its beauty, and helping you avoid costly mistakes.”

author of Succulents Simplified and Succulent Cont Debra Lee Baldwin

“Explains the Southwest garden from every perspective, opening your eyes to its beauty, and helping you avoid costly mistakes.”

Debra Lee Baldwin

“Judith leads the way toward understanding our changing climate. With beautiful photographs and engaging prose, she shows Southwest gardeners the designs and plants we should be using to create inspiring, comfortable, and durable landscapes.

David Salman

“When it comes to arid gardens, Judith Phillips is one of the masters. Her deep experience shines through, in elegant plant solutions for the climate, a gallery of homeowner-scale gardens, and accommodations for wildlife and humans.” 

Scott Calhoun

“Possibly the best gardening book of the year for Colorado. Phillips, who lives in New Mexico, dispenses with hardiness zones but tells you the low temps that will kill that shrub, tree, or perennial you're mulling. She knows about mountains, microclimates, and maximizing available water.

The Denver Post