What's the best time to plant or prune? When should you fertilize fruit trees? What's the earliest date to set out tomato plants? Gardeners in the desert Southwest can't rely on books that try to cover the whole country. Summer heat, less rain, and shorter, unreliable growing seasons are important factors in the desert. That's why The Desert Gardener's Calendar can be essential to gardening success.

Whether you're raising vegetables, nursing citrus trees, or just trying to keep your front yard looking its best, you'll find that this handy book gives you a valuable month-by-month perspective on the year. It helps you to focus on necessary activities and reminds you of simple tasks you might overlook.It's especially valuable for people who've moved to the desert regions from other parts of the country and follow old gardening dates that seldom apply to their new home.

The Desert Gardener's Calendar is a guide to the maintenance you need to do to keep your garden flourishing and your landscape attractive throughout the year. It combines the month-by-month gardening and landscaping activities from two separate books by George Brookbank—Desert Gardening, Fruits and Vegetables and Desert Landscaping—and was created in response to readers who have found the calendar sections of those books especially invaluable.

And because not all deserts are the same, Brookbank is careful to point out differences in scheduling encountered by gardeners in low- and middle-elevation regions in California and the Southwest. "I believe," says the author, "that if you use this calendar and let your judgment become more accurate with experience, you'll soon be doing everything right." Although that might suggest a day when you don't need this book, chances are good that, if you're a desert gardener, right now you do.

George Brookbank has distilled nearly twenty years' experience—as an extension agent in urban horticulture with the University of Arizona—into a practical book that tells how to avoid problems with desert landscaping before they occur and how to correct those that do. In the first part, "How to Start and Maintain a Desert Landscape," he provides 28 easy-to-use chapters that address concerns ranging from how to start a wildflower garden to how to cope with Texas root rot. In Part Two, "A Month-By-Month Maintenance Guide," he offers a handy almanac that tells what to do and what to watch out for each month of the year, with cross-references to the chapters in Part One. Homeowners who maintain their own landscape will find in this book ways to make the work more satisfying and productive, while those who hire landscape contractors can make sure the work is done effectively and economically. "You'll find all kinds of books on desert landscape design and materials, irrigation system and design, and landscape installation," says Brookbank. "So far as I know, however, this is the only book that tells you what to do with what you've got and how to keep it growing."

CONTENTS

Part 1 - How to Start and Maintain a Desert Landscape
1. Desert Conditions: How They Are "Different"
2. Plants Are Like People: They're Not Alike
3. Use Arid-Land Plants to Save Water
4. How to Irrigate in the Desert
5. How to Design and Install a Drip Irrigation System
6. Soils and Their Improvement I: How to Plant in the Desert
7. Soils and Their Improvement II: How to Use Fertilizers
8. What to Do When Things Go Wrong: A Troubleshooter's Guide
9. How to Avoid—and Repair—Frost Damage
10. How to Control "Weeds"
11. Palo Verde Borer Beetle: What to Do
12. How to Avoid Texas Root Rot
13. When You Move Into an Empty House
14. What to Do About Roots in Drains
15. How to Dig Up Plants and Move Them
16. How to Have Flower Bed Color All Year
17. Landscape Gardening with Containers
18. Starting Wildflowers
19. Starting a Lawn
20. Making and Keeping a Good Hedge
21. Pruning Trees and Shrubs
22. Palm Tree Care
23. Caring for Saguaros, Ocotillos, Avages, and Prickly Pears
24. Roses in the Desert: Hard Work and Some Disappointments
25. Landscaping with Citrus
26. Swimming Pools: Plants, Play, and Water-Saving
27. Landscape Maintenance While You're Away
28. Condominiums: Common Grounds, Common Problems

Part 2 - A Month-by-Month Maintenance Guide

¿Cuál es el mejor tiempo del año para plantar? ¿Cuándo es el mejor tiempo para fertilizar el árbol frutal? ¿Cuándo se debe plantar la mata de tomate en la primavera? Los jardineros que viven en el desierto del sudoeste no pueden contar con las prácticas recomendadas para otras partes del país. El sol del verano, las lluvias esporádicas y las cortas e inestables temporadas de cultivación producen una nueva serie de reglas para el jardinero del desierto.

Jardinería desértica---mes por mes le servirá de guía para cuidar las plantas de su jardín y determinar el mejor tiempo para plantar, podar, y regar. Este libro es especialmente útil para los jardineros y residentes recién llegados al sudoeste desértico. Si usted cultiva vegetales o árboles frutales y cítricos, o si sencillamente quiere mantener un jardín hermoso, encontrará que este libro práctico le informará sobre las labores necesarias y le ayudará a recordar las tareas importantes que inadvertidamente podría olvidar.

Now available in a Spanish-language edition, this popular guide provides pointers to the maintenance needed to keep gardens flourishing and landscapes attractive throughout the year. Translated by master gardener Félix Hurtado, Jardinería desértica makes a wealth of common-sense wisdom available to Spanish-speaking readers.