QUESTION
I love the lush, green-looking patios and gardens of the eastern coast. How can I duplicate that look here in Phoenix?
—Margaret C., Phoenix, AZANSWER
Dear Margaret,
You can't, and you shouldn't. Part of our problem in gardening today is that we attempt to replicate landscape styles in areas that are completely unsuitable for them, usually with disastrously wasteful results. The lush gardens of the East belong in the East, where they have sufficient rainfall and rich soil. In Phoenix, where all water is imported and prospects look grim for finding additional supplies, you need to embrace native plant materials that can tolerate dry, hot conditions. To do otherwise is expensive, wasteful and extremely environmentally unsound. Besides, I have seen examples of incredibly beautiful desert-style gardens that are the envy of many an eastern gardener, including myself! I know this is hard advice for someone who yearns for lush eastern gardens, but it's important for all of us to learn to live with, and love, what we have at hand, or we are going to be in serious environmental trouble down the road.
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