Southwestern Landscaping with Native Plants

by Judith Phillips

Book Overview

This book has been the inspiration for tens of thousands of gardeners facing the challenging winds, soils, and droughts of low- and high-desert gardens. A perennial gardener's favorite, this... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 089013166X
• ISBN13: 9780890131664
• Release Date: June 1987
• Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 8.6" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

A very useful book from the authoritative author

Any search of the web reveals Judith Phillips as the authority in this field, and this large, thick book reveals why. Encyclopedic in its presentation of native southwestern USA plants, it also discusses planning landscapes, maintenance, propagation, etc. and is therefore immediately useful to the gardener, like having a wise and knowledgeable friend at hand in the dry desert garden. The other review here discusses the trouble of the northern New Mexico high altitudes. I have other challenges at under a mile high in a drought ridden desert with roaming herds of large jackrabbit which eat nearly anything green, including spiny cactus. As they say, under the right conditions, these rabbits will eat anything, even what they do not eat! The European shrub Rosemary (romero) is one thing they will not eat, apparently, and so it is well planted here, as it also resists drought and in fact prefers good drainage. Nevertheless, I seek to restore native plants ravaged by years of overgrazing by those other large rodents: cattle, who have left nothing but greasebush to chew at. Judith Phillips in her many books, but in particular this one, is the guru to turn to. This book is well laid out, with understandable tables and charts and room for notes in all the right places, as well as full color photos and other illustrations and all the right names, familiar and Linnean binomial nomenclature. I only wish it provided much more precise and specific indications for my favorite native, the Ocotillo, including its propagation, but from the general information given we can determine proper techniques, including the rooting of cuttings (with hormones) and the starting of seeds (which I have a bag full on the kitchen table now that need sometihng very soon! Now where did I hide that bag of Perlite?!). If you know of any desert rats like me hiding in exile in the southwestern desert, please send them this book and make them smile, a dusty dry smile but a smile. This is the one book that has it all, with every native plant of this region and how to grow it and where. Get one today. Who knows, the way global warming is going you might want one for your region too!

Great gift

I originally bought this book as a gift for my mother who lives in New Mexico. She then bought two additional copies for her friends living in the area. While you can't really grow much at high altitude in New Mexico, the book did provide some realistic suggestions and help choosing what might grow.