No matter what Sunset tells you, we high desert gardeners are all in zone 2222: too cold, too hot, too windy, too dry.

But we do get a lot of sunshine. lol

Using containers for a while will help you get growing until you have hauled in a gazillion pounds of mulch and compost to build lasagna beds...or reverse lasagne, laid into a dug out pit, for best water retention.

The deeper you water in the spring, the better equipped your plants will be to survive the hottest months to come.

As for the other problems, look at each growing area to see what its microclimate will be like through the year, and plan how to deal with the inevitable obstacles.

You'll need windbreaks in some places and and shade structures in others and of course Frost blankets and other season extenders. Bob cat urine to keep the prolific ground squirrels out of your garden.

Your ground and water is likely to be plenty alkaline. Maybe even too much so at the end of the season, because the salts build up and you may see chlorosis indicating that the plants aren't getting oxygen and other nutrients. An early sprinkle of ironite around them will help prevent from getting to this point.

And that's my quick overview of high desert gardening. May you know all the joy of actually harvesting vegetables against all odds!

You probably won't have the ground squirrels that are so common further west. Gophers, though, and probably rock squirrels. Here's a list of ideas that come to me, though I hope others with more knowledge will begin to chime in as well...

-- veggie and flower gardens will needs lots of organic matter, nitrogen, and watering
-- other landscaping should be native plants, adapted to soil and climate
-- summer will be too hot for most cool season crops, you could try the latter in winter
-- rainwater is best for watering
-- 2,000 square feet of roof area will produce about 12,000 gallons of rainwater runoff in a typical year of 10 inches of precipitation!
-- get some rain barrels, tanks, cisterns, etc...
-- check out "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands" by Brad Lancaster, it's an awesome resource
-- check out some of the many permaculture-oriented books that deal with desert climates
-- forget about having a big, lush-looking flower garden, and just adapt to what you do have going: lots of interesting and tough native plants (especially cacti, yuccas, and agaves), beautiful wildflowers after the monsoon, etc.

I'm a transplanted gardener from the Midwest as well, and had to get used to gardening in the desert. It was tough at first. Now I'm loving it! The others are right: compost and mulch are your friends. I've added it, along with the proper organic fertilizers, and watched the plants I've inherited come to life! A lot of people don't plant with compost, and use rocks for mulch. That's fine. You can put rocks over shredded bark. It works. Just a little more work to removed the rocks when you want to add compost. The plants will love you for it. I'm slowly turning a dull landscaping into a green and healthy one. Getting the drip system fixed was important too! But don't forget that some plants just do better with a good soaking every 2-3 weeks in the cool months and as much as once a week, or at least every 10 days, in the really hot months.

I have some hybrid Tea Roses that I'm coaxing back to health, and they are doing beautifully. I trim about a third off every year -- there's no taking them down to 2 feet in this climate, or you'll kill them. So I'm keeping them shaped, and cutting off dead wood. They were sorely neglected, but have responded to the pruning, compost, fertilizer, and tender loving care with more blooms, and are they beautiful! Hybrid tea roses are a species that will do well down here as long as they are properly cared for.

Check out "High Country Gardens", and you'll never again feel that there are no beautiful plants and flowers you can have down here. The place is LUSH with flowers. You just have to get the right kind. There are even plants from the midwest that can handle living on much less water, as long as they have a bit of compost and mulch. And there are many, many plants not at that site, that are both beautiful and hardy here. Check out the local Nursery!

Once you've become acclimated to the gardening here, you'll be glad you moved! It's still gardening. It's just different. And in the summer, when it's so hot, and you don't want to work outside, just wait for evening. It cools off then in all but the hottest month. You can garden outside until 9-10:00 PM, and NO BUGS. That's big when you're from the Midwest, I know.

Best of luck to you!

MacThayer

I'm in Reno and the biggest lesson I have learned is to make sure I plant tender plants where they won't get beat up by the insane wind, well the other lesson I learned the hard way is that it can and will snow in June. Our yard is composed mostly of very hardy evergreens and perennials, I grow herbs and vegetables in self watering containers so that I can move them around and even put them in the garage when we get an unexpected snowstorm. By the way jll0306 I love your description of zone 2222 I will never forget that one!

It is odd how roses do well in the desert, that surprised me. As for the zone, I thought the high desert was Zone 666 lol.

Natives are really the way to go, however, for a garden that really succeeds in our crazy weather. I also use "neighbor natives" or native plants from a neighboring state with similar environment to my own. As the others have said, you can have a gorgeous flower garden with xeric plants, and many of them you can't grow at all in wetter weather.

Go to http://www.wildflower.org/collections/ and use the Recommended Species tool to get a list of what native plants will succeed in your area. The biggest problem is availability, as native plant nurseries are not always available where some of us live and mail order is very, very expensive. Don't ever order plants from outside the desert areas, though, because those young trees grown in Ohio or shrubs from Oregon will croak when they hit the desert, even if it is the "right" sort of plant.

Some amazingly beautiful xeric desert-wise plants to think about:
* Desert Willow zone 5-9
* Palo Verde Tree 'Desert Museum' zone 8-11
* Russian Sage (not a native, but thrives wonderfully)
* Catmint (shrub)
* Agastache (multiple colors)
* Penstemon (multiple colors)
* Various sages (Autumn Sage, Blue Sage, etc.)
* Cenizo or Texas Ranger (shrub)
* Yarrow (multiple colors)
* Arizona Cypress tree
* Red yucca
* Blue agave
* Colorado Blue Columbine
* Vitex (not native, small tree or large shrub)
* Lantana (range of wonderful colors in new cultivars or use Texas native Lantana in orange/yellow/red)

Best of luck.