Xeriscape design
Low-water planting planned as a garden rather than a gravel field, with layered heights and deliberate spacing.
Landscaping / Desert Landscaping
Desert landscaping and xeriscape in Las Vegas
A xeriscape is not an absence of planting. Done badly it is a gravel lot with three plants in it.
Desert Landscaping in the Las Vegas valleyThere are two kinds of desert landscape in this valley. One is a design: layered heights, deliberate spacing, species picked for the wall they sit against, gravel as a finish rather than a filler. The other is what happens when somebody removes a lawn and stops there.
The difference is not cost, it is thinking. A good desert garden uses fewer plants than a lawn-and-shrub yard and looks like more, because each one is placed where it reads and given the room it needs at mature size rather than at planting size.
What survives here and what only looks like it does
Plenty of plants sold locally as desert-adapted will take one summer against a west wall and then thin out for good. Exposure matters more than the label. The same agave that thrives in morning sun will scorch in reflected heat off a stucco wall at four in the afternoon.
We plan by exposure first: what goes against the hot wall, what goes under the tree, what can take the reflected heat off the pool deck. Then by mature size, so the bed is not overplanted at installation and strangled in year three. Then by water, so the irrigation zones make sense.
The finish is decomposed granite or crushed rock, raked and even, with room visible between specimens. Bark mulch belongs in a climate that gets rain.
What this covers
Every part of the job, under one team
Plant selection by exposure
What goes against a west wall, what takes reflected heat off a deck, what needs the shade of the one tree you have.
Decomposed granite and rock
Ground finish specified by color and size, laid over the right fabric and depth so it stays put and stays clean.
Boulders and dry streambeds
Placed to look deliberate and to move water where it should go when the monsoon arrives.
Lawn removal and conversion
Taking out turf that no longer earns its water, and replacing it with something that does not need replacing again.
Common questions
What homeowners ask us first
Is xeriscape the same as no maintenance?
No. It is much less maintenance than a lawn, and it is not zero. Desert plants need pruning that respects their form, and gravel needs cleaning.
Will it look bare?
Only if it is designed badly. A xeriscape with layered heights and correct spacing reads fuller at year three than a crowded bed does at year one.
Where we work
Desert Landscaping across the valley
We take desert landscaping work throughout Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Summerlin. Tell us the street and we will tell you honestly whether it is a job we are the right team for.
Start with a conversation