Desert Style Landscape Plants

Cacti

• Cacti immediately come to mind when someone mentions desert plants. For a medium-sized cactus, try a barrel cactus. According to Greennature.com, these can grow from 4 to 10 feet in height and they produce a red or yellow flower on the top of every plant. Or try a small hedgehog cactus, which will produce bright flowers but maintain a height of 1 foot or shorter.

Scented Options

• If you want to bring fragrance into your desert landscape, choose plants that are known for their scents. Try lavender, which has small purple flowers and produces a calming fragrance. Or Texas sage, which is a perennial plant with plenty of color for your garden. This herb will produce light purple blossoms a few times a year. Thyme is also a fragrant, drought-tolerant plant, and will add spice to your cooking as well.

Tropical Desert

• Even if you don't live in a desert climate, you can still grow a desert garden. If your climate is tropical or sub-tropical, try growing cabbage palms. These evergreen trees have lavender blooms and dark, glossy foliage. Or try bromeliads, which grow to a height of 2 or 3 feet and have bright red blossoms.
  Oleander blooms in a variety of colors but is poisonous if eaten. Beach sunflowers will also provide bright yellow flowers and will bloom continuously all year.

Northern Desert

• In a northern area plant cold-tolerant options like felt plants. These fuzzy plants will bloom year-round and produce light-colored blossoms. Another option is the Madagascar palm, which is deciduous but also poisonous if ingested. It produces white blossoms year-round.

Turf

• In most cases, you would want your desert landscaping to be free of turf, because the grass can hold in moisture and you don't want to overwater your drought-tolerant plants. However, you can plant zoysia grass or bermuda grass in this type of landscape without too much concern. These grasses will tolerate the drought the way the other plants in your landscaping plans will.