Plants for Fall Color

One of the great advantages of desert-adapted plants is the wealth of colorful flowers they produce, a boon to gardeners and pollinators alike. Plants that bloom in autumn offer pollen and nectar for insects and, if the seed heads are left to ripen, a late season food source for birds.

After a long hot summer, some plants think the cool of fall means it’s spring again and burst into bloom with renewed vibrance. Salvia greggii is commonly called autumn sage because, even though it flowers brilliantly in spring and lightly all summer, fall brings on another strong show. Responding to the cooler, longer nights in autumn, Salvia’s late season color becomes even more intense. Autumn sage is a compact shrub that grows 2-feet tall and 3-feet wide, with small dark green leaves and spikes of flowers in red, rose pink, coral, purple or white. Hummingbirds and bees are frequent visitors. Autumn sage prefers well-drained soil and deep watering (24 to 30 inches) every week or two while blooming, monthly or less in winter.

Many ornamental grasses are their showiest in autumn, too. There are several varieties of little bluestem Schizachryium scoparium with 12-inch wide clumps of narrow blue-green leaves and 24-inch tall slender stems bearing fuzzy seed heads. ‘Blaze’ little bluestem turns scarlet in fall and ‘The Blues’ turns a beautiful pink. Both keep their color into winter when they fade to a rich bronzy brown. The color is our reward for supplying the little extra water these grasses need.

Native grasses are also important larval food for butterflies and produce nutritious seeds for songbirds, bringing color on wings to the garden. Since the seed heads are a large part of the reason they are planted, ornamental grasses should be left uncut until early spring. Then, trim them a few inches from the ground so the new growth is not stymied by having to push through old stubble to reach sunlight.

Perhaps the most spectacular late blooming perennial is the Maximilian sunflower Helianthus maximiliani. By early autumn, its flower stems are 5 to 7-feet tall. Established plants can spread 4 or more feet wide, shooting up dozens of flower stems. The top few feet of the stems are covered in 2-inch wide yellow sunflowers with yellow centers abuzz with bees. The show can last for several weeks in September or October, but after the flowers fade the plants become a bird buffet of seeds well into winter. Maximilian sunflowers grow best in soils that hold water well and produce the best show when watered to a depth of 2 feet weekly during the growing season, every two weeks in spring and fall and monthly or less in winter.

Flowers aren’t the only source of fall color, either, but red leaves in fall are not the norm in New Mexico. Cottonwoods in the Bosque and aspens in the mountains are our autumn gold. Chinese pistache Pistacia chinensis has become one of the most dependable heat and drought tolerant shade trees and adds splashes of red fall foliage in the ABQ metro area. A great shade tree that is 20 to 30-feet tall at maturity with a canopy spread of 20-feet, Chinese pistache benefits from structural pruning while it is young to assure strong branching. Once well rooted, it should be watered at the edge of the branch canopy to a depth of 2 to 3 feet every few weeks during the growing season and monthly or less depending on winter moisture.

Author: Judith Phillips, owner of Design Oasis, landscape designer and garden writer with 30 years experience designing arid-adapted and native gardens in the high desert.

Water-Wise Vegetable Gardening

With our hot summers and low precipitation, growing vegetables in NM can be challenging. This talk will provide strategies and recommendations for growers to cultivate a thriving vegetable harvest in the region. Discussion will include irrigation and infrastructure suggestions, as well as selection of vegetable varieties that are well-adapted to the area.

Instructor: Stephanie Walker, PhD. Professor and Vegetable Specialist, New Mexico State University, Extension Plant Sciences Department.

Maintaining Tree Health During Drought

Learn from Albuquerque’s leading tree expert how to identify drought stress in trees, understand their responses to drought, and implement strategies to keep them alive and thriving in hot, dry weather.

Instructor: Joran Viers, Board Certified Master Arborist and Municipal Specialist, International Society of Arboriculture (ISA). Senior Arborist, Legacy Tree Company, Albuquerque. Former City Forester, City of Albuquerque

Creating a Drought-Tolerant Refuge for Yourself and Wildlife

Instructor: Laurel Ladwig, M.S. She is the ABQ Backyard Refuge Program Director for the Friends of Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge, a part-time faculty member in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, and Associate Director of the R.H. Mallory Center for Community Geography at the University of New Mexico and is enthusiastic about all opportunities to encourage people to develop a relationship with our wild neighbors.

Designing Resilient Landscapes: Plant Adaptations, Communities, and Selection for Arid Environments

Instructor: Maria Thomas is the Curator of Plants at the ABQ BioPark where she manages the botanical exhibits, plant collections, horticultural staff, and related programs for the 150-acre public park and garden. Additionally, Maria is an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Mexico in the Landscape Architecture department.

Climate-Ready Trees- Planting for a Warmer and (Hopefully) Shadier Future

Instructor: Marisa Y. Thompson, PhD Extension Urban Horticulture Specialist. New Mexico State University Department of Extension Plant Sciences, Los Lunas Agricultural Science Center, Think Trees NM, President of the Board (2023-current).

Plant Adaptations to Heat & Drought

Noticing the Ways Plants Thrive in our Yards and Natural Areas Learn how to Recognize Drought-Adapted Traits in Everyday Plants all Around Us.

Hose Bib Tree Irrigation System for Your Trees: Simple Systems for Thriving Trees!

Instructor: Richard Perce has twenty years’ experience working with trees and irrigation here in New Mexico. He is a former certified arborist and currently holds the Irrigation Association’s Landscape Irrigation Auditor certification and is a certified QWEL irrigation instructor. He worked as a landscape contractor for more than a decade and is the Water Authority’s former Irrigation Efficiency Specialist. He also has a Masters of Community and Regional Planning from UNM and currently works at Anthropopulus Design + Planning.

Passive Rainwater Harvesting

This workshop introduces participants to the principles and practices of passive rainwater harvesting. Attendees will learn how to capture, slow, spread, and infiltrate rainwater into the landscape using simple, low-cost methods such as swales, berms, and basins. The workshop emphasizes working with the natural flow of water to reduce runoff, prevent erosion, and support healthy soil and plant life. By implementing passive rainwater harvesting, participants can conserve water, and create more resilient, self-sustaining landscapes.

Instructors: Anthony Luketich, Natural Resource Scientist, Anthony Luketich is a Natural Resources Scientist for Bernalillo County where he is focused on water conservation and water-wise landscape practices. He received a degree in Watershed Management and Ecohydrology from the University of Arizona where he studied the relationship between trees and water. Anthony has worked across the Southwest US as a research scientist as well as a water harvesting field technician where he became a certified water harvesting practitioner.

Bobby Mullin, Natural Resource Scientist, Bernalillo County Stormwater Quality Program Bobby Mullin is a Natural Resource Scientist for Bernalillo County in the Stormwater Quality Program. He focuses on improving stormwater quality in the Middle Rio Grande Watershed and promoting sustainable and resilient landscapes using Green Stormwater Infrastructure and rainwater harvesting. Bobby received his Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Bucknell University in 2011. Before joining Bernalillo County, he had worked as an environmental consultant remediating contaminated soil and groundwater and as a Research Scientist studying the impacts of climate change, drought and plant mortality in New Mexico ecosystems.

Xeriscape: The Desert Friendly Yard

Join us for learning all of the tips, and benefits of our Xeriscape program!

3 Steps to Landscape Success

Service, Settings, and Selection are the keys to landscape success!