Gardening & Landscaping in Las Cruces

If you live in Las Cruces and want to have a beautiful garden or landscape, you have to select plants that can thrive in our soil types and arid climate. The area around Las Cruces transitions from rocky mountain soils to sandy soils to clay soils near the Rio Grande. Likewise, the water table can be as far down as 400 feet at the mountain foothills to 5 feet near the river. Depending on the location, the wind may be constant if there is little vegetation to slow it down. With the intense sun exposure and heat of the summer and the lows into the 20s in the winter, we need landscaping plants that are very hardy and that can handle the extremes of our area.

When I moved here in 1993, I had to spend quite a bit of time learning about the challenges of landscaping and gardening. I didn't know anything about gardening in the desert. Here in the Mesilla Valley we're in the Chihuahuan Desert--which is a higher elevation than the other deserts in the west. The books available on gardening generally do not cover an area like ours. Even desert gardening books do not address the conditions that we have here because they are written for much lower elevations like Phoenix or San Diego. The elevation of the area rises from around 3,600 feet in the river valley to over 4,600 feet at the foothills. Gardeners in the Las Cruces area share information with each other and are well advised to use native, xeric, and/or extremely hardy plants from equally challenging parts of the world. What I know for sure is you are wasting your time and money if you select plants that are not suited for the intended location.

Particularly in higher elevation locations further away from the river, vegetable gardens are more likely to have success if they are in raised beds with plenty of rich compost and some shade from the intense sun. The benefit that gardeners have here is the extra long growing season. The last frost date here is around March 15 in the Spring, and the first frost date in the Fall is around November 15.
There are several good sources for finding native plants and seeds for your landscaping and gardening needs. One local nursery that specializes in native plants is Enchanted Gardens. There are also several plant and seed companies in New Mexico that grow and sell live native plants and/or their seeds. Two that come to mind are High Country Gardens and Plants of the Southwest, both are based in Santa Fe.

Starting native plants from seeds takes a special skill because many native plants have highly variable mechanisms for getting started.

The Dona Ana County Extension office offers a course for people who want to become Master Gardeners. It is a highly developed course drawing on the experience of local experts who volunteer their time to train a new class annually. The brain trust keeps growing as the Master Gardener graduates commit to share their knowledge and experience with the community.

I hope to be doing a video soon with my friend, Jackye Meinecke, who is an expert gardener and nursery owner. She has an incredible wealth of knowledge on what plants will work in the various soil types and exposure to the elements.