An Easterner Learns to Garden in the West

I take classes at the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, I read books, cruise southwest garden blogs, and chat up garden pros at plant sales. It all helps.

Texas red yucca

But here are the most valuable lessons I learned on my own as an east coast gardener trying to establish new gardens in the dry montane southwest.

Watering is never enough
Over two years I have learned that new plants want constant water all the time without pause to get started. Hand watering all the new plants takes three times as long as I imagined and four times as long as I think necessary. But it is actually necessary.

Dry loving plants like 'Gro-low' sumacs and shallow rooted creeping thyme need a surprising amount of water, at least in the first several years. Daily water. Black eyed Susans wilt the minute the soil dries out and need deep watering every day, the same for coneflowers and Mexican Hats and other prairie plants that you picture living in a dry grassland. Even orange globe mallow, a xeric desert weed really, looks so much healthier and flowers better with more water than I think it needs.

Orange Globe Mallow

In the first two years all new plants want constant, regular, deep and drenching water.

I am always amazed when I dig up a struggling plant -- one that I have soaked daily, only to find that four inches down the roots are withering in dry powder. It takes a lot -- a lot -- of hand watering to penetrate hydrophobic soil here.


Establishment takes longer
Because it is so hard to keep new starts wet enough and because the UV rays are intense and because the wind blows so dry in spring, new plants take more time to settle in than they did back east. The whole first year is a year of desperate hanging on. It takes more years than I was expecting for even the dry adapted plants to begin to grow. Most new things just look stunted for the first year.

Lavender 'After Midnight'

The plants I could barely control in the east -- aggressive fall blooming anemone, an overgrown flop of coneflowers, running obedient plants, spreading sedums -- are tidy small things here. Rampant growers in the east soon got too crowded. Those same plants here are too far apart and very small. Will they stay that way, or will I be pulling up runners and cutting back stems years from now just as I did in my old gardens? It just doesn't seem likely here.


June sucks
It's the worst. Everything stops growing in 10% humidity and dusty wind. Nobody likes June. It's just the month you have to go through to get to July monsoons. I have learned NOT to plant new little things in spring, they simply can't take late May and June aridity and winds. Fall planting is the only way to go.


Fertilize, fertilize, fertilize
The soil, even when amended, dries out and isn't very rich. Annuals must be fertilized constantly, and plants that are heavier feeders, like my 'Bartzella' peony and the clematis vines, need a ton of fertilizer all summer. Even old established trees like the Scots pines in front or the mature aspens in back need annual fertilization just to hang on.

A couple of the garden pros I talked with stressed this -- most gardens here are under fertilized. It takes more than you'd ever think was prudent.

'Bartzella' peony needs constant deep water and more fertilizer

Flat thin leaves are death
I found out that no matter how wet or how shady or how richly enhanced the conditions are for some papery leaved plants, transpiration is too rapid for them to live. Nasturtiums can't grow here, and the beautiful epimediums that I loved back east turn to potato chips even in shade.

Hostas, well watered and in the shade, become brown paper bags no matter how coddled or fussed over.

To cope with bone dry air here plants need a waxy cuticle or fuzzy covering or narrow straplike leaves -- think lavenders or spiky rosemary.

Rosemary 'Arp'

Mulch is the solution and the problem
Wood chips or rocks are an absolute must to keep the soil from crusting and drying out in this dry place. Mulch is so necessary, but it is also a problem, since it makes hand watering harder. It's impossible and disruptive to pull the mulch away from each plant in order to water, but it takes a lot (and the jet spray) to get water down below the layer of chips or rocks and into the soil.

Purple candles of veronicas, a black-eyed Susan,
& orange zinnias all want tons of water

The usual suspects
I learned to deal with deer, voles, rabbits, mildew, fungus, rampant weeds and winter damage in the east. I don't have any of that now, instead the usual suspects here are water, stunted growth, water, needing to fertilize, water, aphids, and water.

Feather Reed Grass 'Karl Foerster' in gravel mulch by a stone path

Rewards are huge
For all the challenges, the payoff when a garden begins to look pleasing is just immense. The difficulty factor is high and the disappointment ratio is excessive, but the rewards are sweeter when you look at dappled shade late in the day dancing over rocks and plants beautifully combined in the cool dry air of a sparkling southwest garden.