How to landscape in the Southwest

How to landscape in the Southwest. Landscaping in the American southwest requires you to start thinking along the lines of water, placement, and consistency.  The fundamental way to your landscaping design success is consistency and it will need to be applied to your entire yard and all-around your home.

It does not matter if you are from the Southwest or live in the North-Eastern States or anywhere in the world.

Landscape Design in the American Southwest

Your landscape will need to have a similar feel and look, if you do this to your home it will have a balanced look of symmetry and is what separates good design from bad or not looking quite right landscape!

The Southwest does require a different set of landscaping rules.  One of them is water.  As the hot mid-summer sun can make many plants and trees wilt and die if not enough water is applied during this time.  Another problem is the soil.  Most desert soils lack the right nutrients to make non-native plants look good. And just for your information the most fertile land in the USA is Northeast Iowa.

It’s easy to amend your soil with good soil.  All retail gardening stores will have ample soils that you can use to help create good soil conditions.  The soil in the southwest is usually alkaline and the solution to counter this is simple.  Adding sphagnum peat moss will help make your soil acidic.  Ammonium sulfate and sulfur are good for making the soil acidic.

Read more about making your soil more acidic at Gardening Know.

Create Symmetry in Your Landscape

You can create symmetry and balance in your landscaping design in a few diverse ways. The most common way of bringing harmony to your landscaping design is with similar types of plants and trees. It is not all that hard to do.  There is another way to get unity to be a basic part of your landscaping design and this is with heights.

By having different plants and trees of the same or similar height you will be bringing the whole design of your yard together like you never knew you could. It will look wonderful, and it will work well.

Your landscaping design should make use of much more than just plants and trees. Flowers look great but they generally only bloom for part of the year so you need to find some other landscaping design elements that will look perfect all year round.

What to use to make it look just right

You could use landscaping stones and decorative boulders, or even mulch just to name a couple of things. The use of granite, flagstone, and marble in your landscape design will enhance its look and design.

You can add nice little stepping-stones, some statues, or water fountains in your landscaping design.  You can also just have an attractive rock garden design.

Your Landscape theme can go a long way toward making your landscaping design just right. If you love butterflies or hummingbirds, then choose plants and flowers that will attract them to your yard and garden.  Types of plants that attract Butterflies. 

This is a unique way to highlight your design and you, and your guest will have something great to look at. You can talk to those at your local nursery store about which type of plants, statuary, and flowers will work best in your landscape or area.

Find out what type of landscaping you will need.

Try to have your landscape design balanced and whole looking. You can do anything you want with your landscaping design; you can design it yourself or you can hire a professional landscaper that is well-experienced in your area.

They can tell you what types of trees and other vegetation will work well in your specific garden zone. Or purchase a good Southwest Gardening Books and do it yourself. You will save a ton of money, but the downside is the challenging work.  I don’t mind…how about you?

How to landscape in the Southwest

No matter what you decide to do, if there is unity and consistency in your landscape the design will look perfect or close to it.