Janet Fabio
If you’re new to Arizona, you’ll quickly realize that gardening here is very different from what you knew in the Midwest or the East Coast. Learning to garden in the Desert Southwest is a fun challenge and can be delightful when armed with good information. Even if you have been gardening here for 20 years, there’s always more to learn to enhance your enjoyment of growing a variety of cacti, succulents, flowers, herbs, citrus trees, or vegetables. There are so many options in our climate zone!
For a wealth of gardening information, you only need to go as far as the DesertView Library, in the same building as the theater and Fitness Center. Did you know that the library’s Southwest collection has more than 50 books on gardening in the Southwest and plant identification? There is something for everyone, from ideas for creating pots of succulents to low water use gardening, growing citrus, and identifying wildflowers. For simple plant identification, try Sonoran Desert Plant ID for Everyone.
Succulent plants offer an entire world of choices, whether you want to grow something in a small pot in a window in your kitchen or large specimen plants in your backyard. Succulents also lend themselves to grouping in pots, offering an endless variety of shapes, foliage, flowers, and sizes. Look for creative ideas for succulent gardens in books such as Hot Color, Dry Gardens, Designing with Succulents, or Succulent Container Gardening.
Many of us want to learn more about cacti, and there are many varieties beyond saguaros and ocotillos! The library has books such as Cacti and Succulent Handbook to help select, care for, and enjoy growing cacti.
Some gardeners are free-wheeling, and others like to garden by the book. For those in the latter category, pick up Mary Irish’s book Month-By-Month Gardening in the Desert Southwest, Arizona Gardener’s Guide, or Southwest Fruit and Vegetable Gardening.
If you’re looking for information about landscaping, water conservation, correct pruning, propagating plants, etc., consult the very informative books Dry Climate Gardening or The Water-Smart Garden, both by Noelle Johnson, also known as the Arizona Plant Lady. And then there are the challenges of growing shrubs, trees, and flowers that do well in the desert. The library has books to help with this, too! Try Cool Plants for Hot Gardens, by Greg Starr, or Landscape Plants for Dry Gardens.
In the spring, when we hopefully have an abundance of wildflowers, pick up one of the wildflower identification guides from the Southwest collection. They are right sized to fit in a backpack while hiking or to take along in your car.
Stop in the DesertView Library to find a book to answer your gardening questions!
For more information about the three libraries in SaddleBrooke, see our website at sblibraries.com. Funding for purchase of new books is provided by Friends of SaddleBrooke Libraries, sbfsl.org.