Landscaping for Desert Ground Cover

Selecting Plants

• Before selecting plants, be sure you ask the plant nursery personnel about plant hardiness in your climate zone, and the mature sizes of the ones you would like to plant. This way you can choose plants that will not become overgrown for their planting spots. Other considerations include flower color (if any) and water requirements.

Decide If You Want a Lawn

• A grassy area in the desert is acceptable as long as you keep it small. A small patch of grass next to an outdoor patio provides a cooling effect and the green is attractive. Additionally, it is the only ground cover you can walk on. But it needs daily watering and weekly mowing in the summer. Avoid large grass areas since they are expensive to water.

Drought-Tolerant Plants

• If you want to avoid high-maintenance grass, use drought-tolerant ground covers. It is important to select a species for your climate zone, and to understand its limitations. Some ground covers freeze back in the winter and need to be cut to the ground. Others might need occasional shearing to generate new growth. Some are notorious for dying off and creating bare spots. This requires occasional replanting.

Plant Ground Cover with Appropriate Spacing

• Once you have selected the plants, make sure you know their mature size so you can space them accordingly. For example, if a plant grows 6 feet in diameter, then you will want to plant them 2 to 3 feet apart for full ground coverage. This way you will have the coverage you are looking for with no bare spots in between plants.

Using Landscape Rock or Gravel

• Although these inert ground covers keep dust down, they should be used sparingly as they gain and hold daytime heat. If you decide to use them, do not place plastic or weed barrier fabric underneath. Plastic tears and eventually weeds poke through, and weed barrier fabric gathers dirt and debris, which allows weeds to grow on top of the fabric and roots to penetrate, through creating a nightmare for removal.