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Gardening In The Desert: A Guide To Plant Selection And Care

Newcomers to the Southwest usually find that their favorite landscape plants aren't suited to the hot, dry climate. Many authors offer advice on adapting plants to the desert; now Mary Irish tells how gardeners can better adapt themselves to the challenge. Drawing on her experience with public horticulture in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Irish explores the vexations and delights of desert gardening. She offers practical advice on plants and gardening practices for anyone who lives in the Southwest, from El Paso to Palm Springs, Tucson to Las Vegas. Irish encourages readers who may be new to the desert—or desert dwellers who may be new to gardening—to stop struggling against heat, aridity, and poor soils and instead learn to use and appreciate the wonderful and well-adapted plants native to the desert. She shares information and anecdotes about trees, shrubs, perennials, agaves, cacti, and other plants that make gardening in the Southwest a unique experience, and provides further information about plants from other desert regions that will easily adapt to the Southwest. In addition to descriptions of plants, Irish also offers tips on planting, watering, pruning, and propagation. For anyone who has struggled to maintain a patch of green or blanched at their water bill after unproductive irrigation, the answer to an attractive landscape may be as close as the desert around you. And for anyone who has bought a catalog guide to desert plants and not known which to choose, this book can set you on the right path. Mary Irish shows how to take heart in available plants of adaptable beauty in a book to enjoy while waiting for the next planting cycle.

Paperback: 175 pages

Publisher: University of Arizona Press (September 1, 2000)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0816520577

ISBN-13: 978-0816520572

Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches

Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #594,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #44 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Climate > Desert #420 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > By Region #505 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Gardening & Landscape Design > Reference

An excellent book that should be in every desert gardener's library. Not only does she offer sound advice she is occasionally, and refreshingly, very candid in her opinions. I have just ordered my second copy as I made the mistake of lending my first copy.

Excellent beginner's guide to desert gardening. Not surprising, bias is to low desert where she lives. An expanded version to include intermediate and high desert would be welcome, but the priciples as laid out hold throughout the Southwest. Reads well.

Great info for the desert gardener, but if you want to know what the plants and cacti actually look like, the small black and white pictures just don't cut it. Gardening is a visual discipline, pictures do speak a thousand words.

I read this book cover-to-cover, which wasn't what I expected to do; I expected to use it more as a reference. However, it's written so well and contains so much helpful advice that I found it easy to read straight through. I'm new at gardening, but I'm already making good use of the information in my own yard.

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