Even if you live in the hot, dry desert, you can still have a garden. It won't be filled with the kind of plants you might see in Ohio or Massachusetts, but native cacti and succulents combine well with herbs and wildflowers for an Arizona desert garden.
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You can keep everything close to the ground for easy care or allow your desert landscape to grow tall and even a little wild.
Decide the best location for your desert garden. A display of native Arizona plants at your home's entry would be a special welcome to visitors.
A miniature cactus and succulent garden on a table top or bookcase will add to your guests' enjoyment of the desert landscape around them.
A patio garden is another possibility. Most likely, you will find desert plants already in place. Consider designing your garden around them, especially if you have signature cacti such as saguaro or prickly pear.
You must have both nitrogen and carbon in your soil. The nitrogen, or green matter, comes from the compost and the carbon, or brown matter, comes from the mulch.
Start a composting system to provide rich vegetable matter for your garden. It should contain no animal matter, including dairy products, cat litter, animal feces or meat leftovers. Egg shells may be composted to add calcium if they are rinsed carefully.
Kitchen or culinary herbs that grow particularly well in a sunny, dry climate include sweet marjoram, rosemary, sage, thyme and oregano. Medicinal herbs that thrive in the desert are aloe vera, horehound and purple coneflower.
The aroma of plants such as coneflowers, lantana, milkweed and pentas attract butterflies and hummingbirds, adding a splash of live color to your garden.
Cholla and creosote, agave and ocotillo, palo verde and acacia are all Arizona varieties that can be cultivated for a healthy ecosystem. Include four or five taller varieties among in your plantings. Two native landscaping treasures that help to provide shade for plants are desert willow and passion vines.
Mulch your plants to help them retain moisture. Use organic mulch, that is, plant matter instead of gravel or rocks. The Arizona Cooperative Extension cautions against using "soil amendments," which are "organic materials such as peat moss, animal manure and compost which are mixed into the soil."
Although soil amendments can conserve water, they "should be limited to use in vegetable, flower and ground cover beds where the entire potential root zone can be modified. Never use soil amendments in planting holes for trees and shrubs," the extension service warns.
Consider carefully whether your desert garden needs fertilizing. Some fertilizers burn and eventually exhaust the soil. If you have any pets that go outside, the chemicals in fertilizers can be harmful to animals.
Your local garden center can give you an idea of the makeup of your soil and what it requires, if anything, in addition to compost and mulch.
Keep sawdust to add to your compost for raising its carbon levels and straw for cold weather, to keep the compost from freezing to a point where it cannot be turned.
A pool or fountain will provide a ready source of moisture for your compost and for your new plantings. You may want to install a drip irrigation system. Rainwater harvesting is an economical way to help keep your garden alive and healthy.
