I just moved to the Las Vegas area from California and am renting a home here.
I did some container gardening in So. Cal but didn't bring any plants with me so I'll be starting all over. My yard has the typical desert landscaping and the irrigation system doesn't work well. I have agreed to hand water for the time being (I like hand watering).
I would love any tips or ideas from you pros, heck I don't even know what zone I'm in!

Thanks,

K.

If you have itchy garden fingers, drive around older parts of town with neglected gardens, and look at what's thriving in those yards. Take pictures of things you like, and show the garden center people the pictures. That's about the easiest way I know to find truly reliable plants no matter where you live.

I'm over the hill in Pahrump (west of LV). Moved here in 2005 from southern California (south orange county-Rancho Santa Margarita). Gardening here can be done but it is tricky. Lisa has a great idea. You can also visit the Springs Preserve in LV. (info: www.springspreserve.org...ph:702-822-8344) near US-95 and Valley View Blvd. They have a brand new place that is free to walk through the gardens and check out the plants. They do charge to check out the new exhibits so call and see what interests you. Go visit Star nursery (I like the one off of Blue Diamond) or Plant World nursery (off of Charleston Blvd)...ask the people there. My place has roses, bulbs (not now), annuals (pansies/violas grow well here and re-seed)...also have desert plants that are beautiful: red yucca, lavendar, rosemary, olive tree,etc..lots more I can't name them...fruit trees (apple, peach,apricot)...we are also have 3 vegetable raised beds with eggplant, basil, tomatoes, cantalope, peppers, carots,etc...
It does get very windy at times so prepare well for that.
It will get cold in the winter too. Ask your neighbors about this past winter-alot of us lost plants because it was so cold. If you can consider a drip system...not sure if you can do this because of renting but it's well worth it. Maybe the owners would consider paying for it?? Who knows? You will tire quickly of handwatering.

Good luck!

Beca

I suppose you could bury these little lines, but it's a lot easier to spot breaks and tears when they are above ground, and you only need a pair of utility scissors and some more connectors to set up, mend or add to the system.

Welcome to Las Vegas. We've been here for 17 years and it is a different world plant wise from a lot of California but can be rewarding especially if you try to grow the plants that actually like our brutal heat in the summer and tolerate our sometimes harsh winter chill.

Like Beca said you will probably get tired of hand watering eventually but if your desert landscape is well established and has real desert plants you may only have to do it once a week in the summer and less in the winter. Bulletproof plants here include the texas rangers (leucophyllums), lantana, Salvia greggii, Bird of Paradise, red yucca (Hesperaloe parvifolia), Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri), Agaves, cactus, the wonderful desert trees, mesquites (prosopsis), palo verdes (Cercidiums), acacias and so much more.

It would help to know what you are interested in doing since you are renting and it sounds like the house is already landscaped. Also this is the very hardest time of the year to plant anything although if is one of the above mentioned plants and has been out in the sun and not under shade at the nursery it should be ok.

Beca has a good idea with going to the Springs preserve and the old desert demonstration gardens on Alta just east of Valley View. It is not nearly as nice as it used to be but you can still see some good plants. Also the Community College has a nursery in front of thier campus on Charleston that has a lot of plants in the ground that you can see what things look like mature and they have some great desert plants there also. Oh and for the best mature desert trees and a lot of other great plants you should go the Ethel M chocolate factory and cactus garden. It is off Sunset where it turns as Mountain view.

Hope you learn to love our great desert plants,
Maria

Thanks for the welcome and the great suggestions! I am going to make a list of places to go and view plants; that alone should keep me busy for awhile. I'm afraid I'm not as knowledgeable as you guys, definitely don't know the latin names for plants but I'm sure I'll learn with your help.

In California I loved flowering plants and since I was in an apartment I was a container gardener which I probably will stay.

In a couple of days I'll post pics of the current landscaping, there are two dead plants in the front yard but don't know what they are nor if they'll come back. There is a drip system but it is currently not working well and I before I knew any better said I would hand water and she could have it repaired later! The homeowner is a Californian as well and I'm sure not knowledgeable about how the terrain is out here.

Thanks again for all your help; I am in the Henderson area; how can I determine my zone?

89014 or 89014 is zone 8.

That's a useful little tool!

-K

Your wife's office is near Summerlin which is one of the nicest suburb in town. Definitely a good place to look if you can afford it. There are nice apartment complexes also if you don't want to settle for a house yet. Pretty much anywhere along the 215 beltway is nice from the Southwest to the Northwest where I live.

Obviously, it will be hot and dry but there are lots of microclimates in the valley mainly due to winds so you should be ready to experiment and expect to lose a few plants the first year.

I'm struggling with climbing plants and vines but have had great success with tomatoes and sunflower plants (and cactus and succulents of course).

The sunflower experiment has actually been pretty rewarding: 1st year, I got 2 smallish flowers maybe 3 feet high that never fully bloomed but I left them there and this year (year 2), without me planting any new seeds, I got one huge beautiful sunflower that is currently 6 feet tall with a beautiful flower. Moreover, two cute praying mantis have made it its home and are eating the bugs found all over the leaves.

I'm not a terrible gardener, but I'm completely clueless about how this whole "desert" thing is going to work to the point that I'm honestly not sure what to google.

I know it "Gets really hot" but I'm getting the distinct impression that my little tundra-dwelling brain is having the same amount of difficulty wrapping itself around the ramifications of "one hundred and fifteen degrees and dry" as my poor floridian husband's had as I explained to him "thirty-four below zero" ("what do you mean it goes BELOW zero!? Zero is the bottom.")

So this thread/forum has been incredibly helpful but I do have a few things I'm still confused on.
- Any good books/resources worth purchasing on containers gardening in the desert? I'm happy to do my own research, I'm just so terribly ignorant in this area any help would be great. (I checked out both of the nursery links)
- A lot of people mentioned that the soil gets HOT during the day. Right now I have a mix of ceramic and plastic containers but will probably leave them in minnesota with an aunt. Is there any particular type of container that's better for the desert? my brain says light colored plastic, but...
- Should I use a more water retaining soil than I have up here? I've used Al's gritty and regular mixes for the last few years with awesome results, but is a fast soil a worse thing when the water evaporates so fast?
- This is probably the stupidest question but the one I can't seem to find an answer to; Stuff that says "full sun" up here like my peppers or cilantro...would it be safe to assume that in full sun in vegas it would cook to a crispity crunch? How much "shade" is too much/ not enough for sun loving container plants?

Most of the Las Vegas is now listed as zones 9a/9b except for some of the western parts of the valley which are zone 8b. For outlying areas, Pahrump is zone 8a/8b, Mesquite is 8b/9a and Laughlin is 9b/10a.

i am looking to grow veggies such as peppers tomatoes, etc.. and I had the idea of growing corn rows on the west side of the peppers and tomatoes to shad them from the afternoon sun. has anyone tired this or found good ways to protect the plants from the beating summer heat other than building a shade cloth screen thing?

thanks everyone!

A wonderful source of information is Linn Mills, Horticulturist at Las Vegas Valley Water District, who regularly has a column in the Review Journal.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/gardening-linn-mills

Linn is also affiliated with the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, which holds quite a few workshops on gardening.

http://www.springspreserve.org/

http://www.springspreserve.org/apps/event/index.cfml?query=workshop

You can also contact someone with the Master Gardener program. Here is the link to submit questions online. Or you can call them at 222-3130. Years ago, they used to have info packets you could receive by mail. I don't know if they still do this, but it's worth a phone call to find out.

http://www.unce.unr.edu/programs/sites/mastergardener/askus/