Create a Stunning, Low-Maintenance Landscape

With thoughts of spring swirling, now is the perfect time to do some outdoor planning. With a little strategy and knowledge, it’s easy to design, plant, and maintain a lovely, drought-resistant yard.

We all want to have a stunning and sustainable desert landscape that transforms our yard into a private retreat while ensuring we are wise with our outdoor water use. That’s why now is an ideal time to start planning for the planting season and looking at options for expanding your living space into the outdoors. However, knowing how to create a perfect landscape best suited to our arid climate can seem like a daunting task.

To help you design your ideal yard, we have various interactive resources for anyone looking for some help in building a water-efficient landscape with a little extra desert-adapted flower power.

Find Plants for the Arizona Desert
We know the desert offers a surprisingly diverse selection of low water use landscape plants and trees. They can be blended to create a distinctive palette of colors, forms, and textures that allows you to create plant combinations to suit any landscape scenario. Still, it can be an intimidating task to figure out how to utilize these plants to their full potential. The Plants for the Arizona Desert  website will help take the guesswork out of finding the right plants and trees for your yard.

Landscape with Style
When designing your landscape, it’s essential to take into account your preferences and purposes, such as the look you want to achieve, how you will use your yard, the amount of time you want to spend taking care of your yard, and your budget as you develop your unique plan.

Developing that plan is vital because a great yard begins with a great plan, yet many people do not know where to start when it comes to creating that outline. To help with all phases of planning and building your yard precisely how you like, there are resources and tips to help design, install and maintain your landscape on the newly updated website Xeriscaping: Landscaping with Style in the Arizona Desert .

Attend a Virtual Workshop
The AMWUA members host various educational workshops throughout the year to share information and expertise to empower you to be a little more water-wise while learning something new. Through these free classes and workshops, you can learn about a wide variety of landscape topics, including container gardening, designing desert landscapes, and how to prune a tree for health and beauty. Learn how to manage your irrigation controller, water efficiently, find and fix leaks, and unravel the mysteries of your irrigation system. This type of knowledge can lead to beautiful and water-efficient outdoor spaces. 

Understand Watering Needs in the Desert
Plant watering needs vary from month to month. Regularly adjusting your irrigation schedule is an easy way to save water and money and ensure your plants get the right water to thrive. Irrigation frequency should be changed at least four times a year to account for differences in seasonal watering needs. 

Now you are empowered with all the necessary information to ensure your yard is both stunning and sustainable. After all, with a little strategy and knowledge, it’s easy to enjoy beauty and color in your desert yard all four seasons of the year.

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For over 50 years, the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association has helped protect our member cities’ ability to provide assured, safe, and sustainable water supplies to their communities. For more information, visit www.amwua.org .