Noooo . . .

. . . . Waterwise Gardening is closing for good.
 

Waterwise was the last of three businesses based here in Santa Fe that specialized in high desert garden plants. The first was Santa Fe Greenhouses, started by David Salman in 1984 and a beloved retail source for gardeners in this unique environment. We are not warm southern desert, we are at 7,000 feet and very cold in winter, sitting under UV rays 33% stronger than at lower elevations, and very dry. 

Santa Fe Greenhouses had beautiful plants that would grow well in those conditions.

The second business was mail order: the Salmans expanded the retail store to offer mail order plants in 1993 and called it High Country Gardens. Their catalog was award winning, especially in those early days of mail order in the early '90s. Now of course it's all online.

In 2012 the Salmans closed the store and sold High Country Gardens to American Meadows, another mail order operation. David Salman continued to grow and source wholesale plants for the new operation, and in 2014 he started opening his greenhouses on a few weekends in spring so locals could shop what he was growing for the mail order company.

That business was called Waterwise Gardening, and I marked my calendar every spring to be sure I got to the Waterwise plant sales. 

Last year David Salman died. I wrote about him here. His wife Ava has continued Waterwise, and the weekend plant sales are still going on this spring. But this is the last year. After this sale there will be no more and Waterwise is closing down.

An end of an era for gardeners in this challenging place.