Pima county cooperative service, Chandler website are good places to start gathering info. These sources will give you broadest array of info so you can choose what you like.

im from rhode island. going on 4 years here. i live in the valley of the sun in buckeye north end, near surprise .i have tomatoes on vine now.just put in 3 citrus and a pomagranite. just moved in a new build with nothing in back yard. also put in bogunvillas a very pretty bush or vine plant that does well here. it will be very hot in june july aug sept very little can grow in summer. i like the nw valley. take a look at ken mead reality they found us a temp 2 mo rental of season pricing fully firnished good stuff. then we rented 3yrs in surprise bought in dec the price was right on a new build in festival foothills in buckeye. we are 10 miles from the edge of the big city love the drive mountian views all around many palo verde trees big cactus. it a little cooler too. 1700 ft elevation. i can see mountions 50 70? mile away from my home, as well as downtown pheonix 40 miles, during my drive to the city. i left ri never looked back.dont let the summer heat blow u off the rest of the year is awsome. ernie from nort provvvadence ha

asu coperative extention has a lot of info

very doable.

thank you I am going to look for those web sites.
LOL I am so nervous about the summer heat. We will be arriving right in the middle of it. I wish I had know we where leaving durning the winter I would have enjoyed all that snow more, instead of cursing it.

my 1st yr i walk my dog to a park half a block away was kind of worried i stayed on cement to keep dogs feet from burning on black top. walked from small shade tree to next in park till dog did duty. i hurried back. funny thing was i had only a little sweat on for head .u do feel 115 degrees but it not as uncomfortable as 90 and humid. take water or a good hydration drink with u in car everywhere. my second yr i was cutting small front and back grass in the hottest part of day. a good sweat then shower a drink and air condition its good. walking thru lot to market in into cold store its good. i get my sun mornings 9 mos a year good for these old bones. and a good tan. get use to shades. this beats snow, humidity, doesn't rain much just happy sun shine . im spoiled.one cloudy day bums me out ha. i lived in ca. to humid and busy. surprise and the newer cities here are very clean, safe, and beautifely landscaped scottsdale is to ritch for my blood . do your home work. look at crime stats some city it depend witch part of town your in others are good everywhere but u already know noplace is perfect. nice talking so much . ernie

Hello, if you are moving to phoenix, this is an excellent resource. www.phoenixpermaculture.org or www.azhomegrownsolutions.org We have tons of workshops and many gardeners who are members with experience with our climate.

Good luck on the move--let us know how it goes. You can definitely garden every single day of the year in the Phoenix area, so that's a great benefit for gardeners. People and gardens who struggle are those who don't adapt and adjust to local conditions, but it's an easy and fun thing to do (geraniums and petunias in winter instead of summer for instance) and so on.

If you go to any independent or chain book stores they will have a local gardening section and you will see several local gardening books that will help you get started. Some are focused on veggie gardening in the desert ("Extreme Gardening") and others are more ornamental, but there are quite a few regional gardening books that are fun to read and very informative. "Desert Gardening" by George Brookbank is a good place to start. The pictures are very dated and some of his writing style is as well, but the information itself is still totally relevant and practical. A quick search in bookstores, or a search on amazon.com for "desert gardening" will easily get you started.

Safe travels. Keep us posted!
Take care,
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: Desert Gardening by George Brookbank on Amazon

I moved to Tucson from Pennsylvania almost 4 years ago. Arrived in August!!! What amazing contrasts -- 110 degrees one minute, followed by the insanity of a monsoon, then the sun returns and everything is dry 20 minutes later.

I have gardened all my life, but never have I had as much fun as gardening in the desert! I use native plants or desert-adapted plants -- cuts down on water usage after the plants are established. And it takes about 2 years for even a native plant to become fully established -- a lesson I have learned the hard way!

You can't imagine how many amazing plants you will discover -- things we never heard of on the east coast. Things blooming in my yard now -- penstemons, globemallow, hedgehog cacti, trichocereus, hesperaloe, chocolate flowers, autumn sage, verbena, aloe -- and none of it is on an irrigation line! There is something almost magical about gardening in the desert.

I grew up in Az and lerned to garden here and then moved to Kansas and gardened there. To oversimplify just do everything backwards. Az has a great growing season from about September through June. It just gets too hot for alot of plants in the heat. We also have no problem with acid soils so forget the lime. All that being said there are some things that you can not grow here that you could back there. There are also new things that you can grow that you never even knew about. When you look at plant and seed catalogs look at zone 9 but remember we have a very arid climent most of the time but we also have a true monsoon season when the humididty goes up. I know that the humidity at 40-50% sounds low but remember that the hotter the air is the more mosture it can hold so our 40-50% holds just as much moisture as the east coasts 90-100%. It will not take long for you learn, as most of us have to go inside during the heat of the day and come out when it cools off at night, which is why Az does not go on dailight savings time in the summer like the rest of the country does. We want the sun to go down so we can go outside. Your frinds and family will soon get used to the change when they call you (oh is it already 10:00 pm I thought it was 9:00) It is really not much diffent than the winters there when everyone spends a lot of time indoors during the winter months.

Hi sorry it took me so long to get back. We have been looking at houses online. wheat I dont understand is why some houses have no green what so ever, then there are houses that have these green lush awsome lawns? picture taken at a different time of year?

Thank you so much for all the info, I am starting to get pretty excited (2 months to go). I thought I was going to miss my veggie garden window, I can only grow here from June-Sept. I will probably have to start in Pots as I dont know if our new landlor will let us plant in the ground. We are going to rent for a year or so to learn the areas before we buy a home.

Oh my! I just read the stung by a scorpian thread...LOL can I do this? can I move to Az? my biggest garden visitor are garden snakes, a few spiders, ants...the kids eating all the strawberries before I can pick them.

Let me answer two questions, first, don't be too worried about the scorpions. Yes they are here and they hurt if you ever even see one. There are areas where they are a problem and other areas where they just are not.
Next Most people do not put grass in the front yard and when they do it is often just a small patch for looks. It saves a lot of water that way and this is a desert. The back yards ar pretty much the same. There is another reason for this, the only grass that really thrives here is bermuda and it is VERY invasive. you just cant edge it and make it stay like the northern grasses. Once planted it stays there for ever. In fact we have a lot of people who litterally spend years trying to remove it. Belive it or not fake grass is really popular here because it looks good and stays put and never needs to be watered or mowed. Bermuda grows best when it is super hot out and needs mowed more often just when we are trying to stay indoors. The good news for grass lovers is that bermuda looks good all summer and then we plant annual rye grass and it looks good all winter.

I lived in Phoenix for fifteen years and never once even saw a scorpion.

I've lived in Oregon now for over twenty and still miss gardening in Phoenix. I visit this forum occasionally to torture myself. My husband won't even consider moving.

I sit and look out at the rain and dream of Phoenix. I bought a greenhouse so I could grow bougainvillea, hibiscus, gardenias, citrus etc but it still isn't the same.

There are a lot of people who never adapt to gardening in the desert and who have hideous yards that give the area a bad name for gardeners. However, you can grow a lush gorgeous garden without cactus. You can grow many fruit and veggies and perennials and shrubs. Roses can be amazing.

Just be wise about water. There are many low water use plants that are bloom machines that can be in the front, keep the grass and high water plants in the back. It is the desert, don't try to make it into Mass. Those who adapt to it and embrace it, love it and are happy.

Moving in July isn't ideal. Any way you can put it off until October? It is going to seem really really hot but by next summer you will be acclimated and won't be so miserable. The temp does go way down at night and there is no daylight savings so it gets dark sooner than you will be used to. Many parks have football stadium type lights and you see people out all over the place at night.

Visit the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, visit the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior. They both have good ideas for home gardeners though the DBG is a lot of cactus. It is fascinating. Visit the Sonoran Desert Museum in Tucson. It is a zoo and botanical garden, not a dusty old museum.

Remember, that there are Ponderosa Pine forests only about an hour away to visit in Payson and Prescott. You can play in the snow and ski in Arizona two hours away in Flagstaff. Really. Go to Grand Canyon. Go to Sedona. Arizona is WONDERFUL!

Didn't quite get where you were moving to, but I'm guessing the Phoenix area? Arizona climates and gardening can be pretty diverse. In Phoenix and Tucson, it's all about finding out what works here natively and going with it. Trying to plant the stuff I grew back home makes no sense...and just uses up water. Also consider the microclimates in your yard as that can help guide you. Absolute best sources are the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, and the two places in Tucson. All offer classes and info for the asking. They also have terrific books. Containers are a great way to get started and play around. Good luck!

Visit public gardens. The Boyce-Thompson Arboretum in Superior and the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix are awesome examples. There's also the Univ of AZ Maricopa County Extension Office at 40th Street & Broadway, Phoenix, where the Master Gardeners have lovely mixed gardens. There's the Valley Garden Center, 15th Ave between McDowell & Thomas Rd, where garden clubs have been meeting and planting since the early 1960's.

Public rose gardens are located at Sahuaro Ranch Park, 59th Ave & Olive, Glendale; Encanto Park, 15th Ave south of Encanto; Mesa Community College, Southern & Dobson; Scottsdale Artists School, 2nd Street & Marshall Way.

There are many, many garden clubs that meet all over the Valley, too, ranging from Native Plants to Old-Fashioned to Vegetables to Bonsai to Herbs to Gourds to Citrus/Rare/Fruit Trees to Iris, Daylillies and Roses.

Then there are the nurseries, where knowledgeable people are available to help you. Depending on the season, there are flower and garden shows, demonstrations, meetings and lectures on just about every gardening subject you can imagine, lol. Come summer, though, all but the hardiest are sitting in front of the AC with their lemonade (made with lemons from their own yard, of course).

Grass is over-rated for the most part but your dog would appreciate a small patch. Water is always an issue and many gardeners grow a variety of plants with various needs. Although I grow a lot of roses, I also have other plants that either have a short growing season, like bulbs & vegetables, or have low-water needs. My dream garden would exist on dog pee and cat poop...

LOL...I did a search for "Arizona" on this site, and found this post - well, I moved here from STURBRIDGE 3 years ago (had snowbirded for 2 years before that) - but I see that the original poster, Orange Dragonfly, is moving BACK to MA! Oh well. I have to admit, other than the weather, I am VERY homesick. This is a beautiful place, weather is great - I don't even mind the heat, NEARLY as much as I HATED snow!, but there are a lot of..umm...nutty folks here?

Please define "nutty folks". Many people here definitely have different attitudes than those on the coasts. I've found Arizonans overall to be much more outgoing and friendly.

Just like someone mentioned before: do everything backwards from what you've learned... not really, but honestly if you've amassed gardening know-how up north, you might as well chuck most of that knowledge in the "doesn't apply here" bin and listen to the folks on this forum. Gardening in AZ is extremely different from gardening up north. one thing to always remember: If the label on a plant at Home Depot or Walmart says "Full Sun", in most cases that translates to "morning sun, afternoon shade". There are not a whole lot of plants that can thrive in our full sun although there are some good ones.
The winters here still do get cold enough at times that we can't grow tropicals without protection. Yeah we don't get too many freezes, but we do get them from time to time, so things like avocados, bananas, mango, are a challenge here.
There are a few things you can grow in the summer, but your main gardening seasons will be spring and fall. I'm mostly an edibles gardener so my post will reflect that. In the summer I've had good luck with Armenian cucumbers, Okra, Cantaloupe and Watermelons (they use a lot of water, but they love the heat). Corn is supposed to also do ok in the summer, but I haven't tried that yet.
In the fall you can do a lot of things. Since the growing season is fairly short so you need to go with short season varieties. Winter is one of my favorites for gardening here. That's when I do greens. Carrots, Parsley, herbs, Lettuce, Brocolli (It does extremely well here over the winter), peas, spinach...basically all your salad greens. So from about late Oct until around March, you can be swimming in greenery. I was supplying my whole extended family's salad needs most of last winter.
The soil here in most places is about the worst soil you could imagine. Mine is hard clay, with caliche that is about as hard as concrete when dry. Some areas have a lot of crushed granite. There are areas with good soil as this used to be an agricultural area. The first thing I would do if I got a plot of land here to garden is I would dig out the soil in some of the areas where I plan on having a garden and get several BIG loads of horse manure and dump it in that area, then let it compost into place. Stuff breaks down fast here IF you keep it moist. BTW, you can get as much horse manure as you want around here for free, there are several places that have horses and they'll load your truck or trailer. In a few years you can develop some decent soil around your property and that will help a lot. I wouldn't bother with bagged "compost" or garden soil and crap like that. I think the quality of that stuff here is terrible and it's not worth the money.
The soil here is very alkaline, which means that putting lime or ash on it makes it worse. You want to acidify it if possible by using sulfur. A little vinegar in the water can help temporarily. Also gypsum helps break down the clay.
Plants need a good amount of nitrogen here because the heat breaks it down very fast so fruit trees will need to be fertilized at least quarterly.
Some of the mineral deficiencies common here are iron and zinc defficiency. If you acidify your soil a little, it helps quite a bit. For iron, I don't like ironite, but chelated iron seems to work much better.
Some fruit trees that do well here would be most of your citruses, dates, figs (very nice for ornamental and shade purposses as well), pommegranates are a piece of cake here. Peaches and nectarines will do ok too. A few varieties of grapes (especially Thompson seedless) do extremely well here if they get some afternoon shade.
One of your biggest challenges will be birds, insects and diseases. Ants (particularly fire ants) will make you really really hate Arizona at times. I hate the nasty SOBs.
Pest problems develop very FAST here, and you need to address them early. Some things have easy organic solutions, like for grape leaf skeletonizers you can spray them with BT which is safe (not poisonous) and they'll be gone. Other problems like white flies can be really hard to get rid of without pesticides and they can get inflict some serious damage if they get out of control.
In my opinion, here you get several years's worth of plant growth in one year (I'd say in some cases about 3 yrs worth) and that translates into a LOT of work. pruning, digging up weeds...etc. A good thing to know here is that in AZ they encourage people to recycle their graywater by using it on ornamentals. I changed the plumbing in part of my house to allow my bathwater to go to my shade trees. Water is not cheap here, and if you're going to garden, it's going to be a precious commodity. For shade trees there are a lot of choices but I've fallen in love with Sissoo. Fast growing, not messy, can handle some drought, looks beautiful.

Just look at your gardening that your used to is going to take a twist for you. No more growing your old favorites probably. On the other hand you can grow things here in AZ that you never dreamed of growing in Mass. Ie,.. tropical plants, tropical trees, passifloras, etc,...Good luck on growing things on the otherside.