Source: Month-By-Month Gardening: Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico
The link below is to the native plants for pollinators and beneficial insects for AZ, NM and CO Plateaus.
These plants are attractive to a diversity of pollinators, providing pollen and nectar for bees, butterflies, wasps, flies, and moths. Some plants provide additional resources such as caterpillar host plants or nesting sites and nesting materials for above ground nesting bees. Many support specialist bees that require pollen from specific plants to survive and supplement beneficial insects that can help control pests of ornamental and crop plants. These plants are native to this region.
Check plants.usda.gov to determine if a species is native in your area and can be used to create or enhance pollinator habitat across rural and urban landscapes
When purchasing plants, let your local garden center or nursery know you want plant material free of pesticides that may harm pollinators.
A sustainable garden is a work in progress. This checklist provides signposts you can use along the way in your journey toward sustainable gardening.
Answer the following questions to determine how sustainable your garden is and identify opportunities to improve:
Plants adapted to NMs unique soil and weather conditions require less water and fertilizer. Ideally, the lawn space should be <10%.
A variety of bloom structures, sizes, colors and bloom time attracts pollinators and other wildlife as well as ensuring they have food not just during the summer season but through all four seasons.
Companion planting and interplanting naturally repels unwanted pests, attracts beneficial insects and creates a healthy ecosystem reducing dependence on fertilizers and pesticides.
Seeds saved from plants that were successful are more likely to be successful in the future.
Proper location of plants can provide shade, block wind, and reduce noise. For example, evergreens block wind and may offer protection to other plants and wildlife. Deciduous trees planted on east, west, and southwest sides of buildings can block summer sun and warm buildings in winter.
Drip irrigation provides efficient and effective watering and can be designed to provide the right amount of water to the right place at the right time.
Cisterns, rain barrels and seasonal swales can be used to capture and leverage rainwater to reduce use of community water systems. Greywater reuse can also be an effective way to reduce water usage.
Landscapes should be designed to use the natural topography to capture water and assist in the slowing, spreading and soaking of water into growing areas.
A pond or appropriately sized water feature helps attract wildlife and pollinators.
Grouping plants by water use helps ensure plant health as well as efficiency. For example, high water use plants can be grouped together and placed in the vicinity of captured water to augment irrigation while low water use plants can be grouped together and watered less frequently.
Natural mulches are critical to prevent soil erosion and to preserve water. Wood, shells, and straw are great examples of natural mulch.
The regular addition of organic matter in the form of compost or plant matter on top of the soil ensures that depleted soil is replenished.
Soil type greatly impacts the success of plants in a garden or landscape. Understanding the soil makeup is foundational to landscape planning and development over time.
Organic, non-synthetic fertilizers utilized in proper quantities avoid pollution of water systems as well as ensuring healthy plant development.
Permaculture Graphic by HIPPERMACULTURE https://www.hippermaculture.com/
Zone 0, not shown on this graphic, is an indoor living space that incorporates a planned view of the outside and brings the outside in.
| Zone 1 | Zone 2 | Zone 3 | Zone 4 | Zone 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An area of intensive daily use, closest to the house. This is an area for herb and flower gardens, annual vegetable garden, rainwater catchment and structures you visit daily – (e.g. a greenhouse or a toolshed) | An area that requires attention 1-2 times/week. This is the place for perennial vegetables, dwarf fruit trees, beehives, compost bins, stables, barns. Fowl and rabbits may be housed between zones 1 and 2. This allows small animals to be close to the home for daily management – but able to reach foraging further from the house. | A farming area visited less often – twice a week to twice a month. Smaller properties may not include this zone. Here is pasture for large animals, orchards, produce for market, staple crops. (This could also include a community garden.) | An area that borders the wilderness – visited 1-2 times/year. This may be a wildlife area, or a public park. | Actual wilderness, which requires only proper conservation. Is there consideration of flood/ forest fire risk from the wilderness area? |
From Albuquerque Water Authority: https://www.505outside.com/
Provides watering instructions for trees, plants and turf; gives suggestions for efficient irrigation and landscaping
From NMSU: Xeriscaping for beautiful gardens and water conservation
From Office of the State Engineer: https://www.ose.state.nm.us/WUC/wuc_homeOwners.php
Carrots Love Tomatoes Secrets of Commpanion Planting for Successful
Gardening by Louise Riotte
Gaia Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway
Plant Partners, Science-Based Companion Planting Strategies for the Vegetable Garden by Jesssica Wallsier (Storey Publishing: 2020). This book covers plant selection and pairing for soil improvement, weed management, pest management, disease management, pollination and biological control. All the research used for the chapters is listed in the book.
Permaculture by David Holmgren. Holmgren Design Services Pub 2002. (pages 138-141)
Practical Permaculture. By Jessi Bloom & Dave Boehnlein. Timber Press publisher 2015. (pages 100-105)
Teaming with Nutrients: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to Optimizing Plant Nutrition by Jeff Lowenfels
Avid gardeners tout the benefits of gardening, which are many. It’s easy to forget gardening also can be hazardous, at least until the gardener is in a doctor’s office with an injury or condition that needs professional support. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), emergency rooms treat more than 400,000 outdoor garden tool-related accidents each year. With proper safety techniques, you can stay away from the hospital and avoid becoming a statistic. We will run a series of Safe Gardening information through the season.
Wearing the proper gloves will not only reduce blistering but will also protect your skin from fertilizers, pesticides, bacteria and fungus that live in the soil. When exposed to soil, even the smallest cut runs the risk of developing into a major hand infection. Leather gloves offer protection from thorny objects and poison ivy, snake, rodent and insect bites, and other skin irritants in the garden. Gloves also prevent sun damage and fingernail damage.
Unless you are used to the activity, repetitive motions such as digging, raking, trimming hedges, pruning bushes or planting bulbs may cause skin, tendon or nerve irritation. Make sure your gardening activities are varied and tasks are rotated every 15 minutes with a brief rest in-between so that the same muscles are not used over and over again.
Use a hand shovel or rake rather than your hand for digging. Sharp objects and debris buried in the soil may cut you. If possible, remove objects from the work area before beginning the task to avoid causing damage to you or your tools.
Avoid accidents by using tools for their intended purposes. Other important tool tips:
“Posture” refers not only to your whole body position but also to the angle of your wrist while using hand tools. Grip strength is at its maximum when the wrist is in a relaxed or neutral position. Studies have shown that people lose up to 25% of their grip strength when their wrist is bent.
Remember to safely enjoy the health benefits of gardening by using your hands and tools wisely.
https://www.assh.org/handcare/safety/gardening
Home gardeners can be an important part of the solution to climate change by using sustainable practices. Sustainable practices and landscape techniques can slow further warming by reducing carbon emissions and increasing carbon storage in soil and plants. In addition, we can adapt our gardens and green spaces and make them more resilient to climate change by adding native plant diversity, improving soil health, and growing heat tolerant vegetable crops, and using storm water management practices.
Sandoval Extension Master Gardeners will be exploring ways to make our gardens climate resilient. We will share the ideas and actions over the next several months.
If you have not yet watched KISS THE GROUND, it’s a great place to start understanding that small well thought out changes can yield big results. (Movie Trailer)
“The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world.”
Michael Pollan, This is Your Mind on Plants
Source: Month-By-Month Gardening: Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico
