Sorry so long between posts…I’ve been tied up in the garden.  Sigh…it makes me want to hire a landscape professional!

Knowing more about desert gardening means that I want to do more and more.  But if you’re strapped for time or less than knowledgeable about desert landscape maintenance, you might want to hire the appropriate professional.  Trouble is…where do you find them?

Well, Phoenix has a boatload of people who do what we call “blow ‘n go.”  These are the guys who sweep in with jet packs on their backs and tote chainsaws for a Texas-sized massacre of your plant life.  From what I can tell, they’re either paid by how much noise they make, how much dust they blow around, or how many shapes they can form from your shrubs.  Or all three.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they focused instead on testing and fixing your irrigation system?  Or on cleaning up your trees a bit, and doing some selective pruning on your xeriscape plants?   How about if they came in and did their work without disturbing the peace…or provoking an allergic reaction?

Lucky for us, these landscape professionals DO exist here in Phoenix.  Smartscape Certified Landscapers receive training in design, renovation and maintenance of desert-adapted xeriscape plants, drip irrigation design and installation, water management and irrigation controllers, and solutions to plant problems.

You can also contact the Desert Botanical Garden for a list of Certified Desert Landscape Professionals.  These Desert Landscape School graduates have completed a minimum of seven months of intensive training in landscaping with desert-adapted plants.

With a little digging, you’re sure to find someone who cares more about helping you manage your desert landscape than about operating a power tool!

In my last post, I talked about how plants in the desert fare compared to our watered xeriscape plants in our Greater Phoenix landscapes.  With adequate water, our desert landscape plants thrive while the same plants living in our drought-stricken desert become vulnerable to diseases and pests.

Mistletoe is one of those infestations that often attack trees and shrubs living in the desert.  Spread primarily by birds, mistletoe attaches itself to a host plant and begins drawing the nutrients from the host.  Very quickly it will spread and begin growing out of the host plant, and eventually destroy it.

If you see the beginnings of a mistletoe infestation in any of your xeriscape plants, some judicious pruning of the affected areas can remove it.  But it’s also a signal that your plant probably needs water.

Oh, and this is the same mistletoe (from the same family) that we rush to kiss under at Christmas time.  I don’t think of that tradition in the same way anymore…

I was talking the other day with someone who wanted to buy a cactus.  ”Do I have to water it?”  When I told him yes, he asked why.  I mean, the plants in the desert don’t get watered unless it rains…why do I have to water it?

Great question!  True, the plants in the desert don’t rely on us to water them.  They’ve been well-adapted to our desert climate, and take what rain they get.  But what happens in a drought?

Drought-stressed plants not only lack adequate water, they become vulnerable to diseases and pests.  And they sometimes die as a result, like this Ocotillo.  That’s why, in many Phoenix landscapes, we even supplement our native and desert-adapted xeriscape plants with water.

So when you’re planning your landscape, consider whether you want to take your chances (and a few rain dances) on a “natural” desert landscape…you’ll want to consider neighborhood and zoning restrictions, too.  Or whether you want to provide enough water to ensure a healthy desert garden.