What Is a Xeric Garden?
A xeric garden is a landscape designed around plants that are adapted to dry conditions — species that have evolved to thrive with minimal water, withstand intense heat and UV exposure, and sustain themselves through Scottsdale's long dry seasons without demanding constant irrigation or intervention. Xeric gardens go beyond simple drought-tolerant landscaping to create genuinely naturalistic and ecologically rich outdoor environments where plant communities work together the way they do in the wild — supporting pollinators, providing habitat, managing soil health, and responding to Arizona's seasonal rhythms with genuine vitality and visual interest. The Sonoran Desert is one of only two subtropical deserts in the world and supports more than 2,000 native plant species — a botanical richness that gives xeric garden designers in Scottsdale an extraordinary palette to draw from that most other regions simply cannot match.






