 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Garden rider Marcia Teatro takes careful account of conditions in her garden, harvest water to maximize water use efficiency, and collects many very interesting plants adapted to her Denver area garden. So this area is not watered? No, I only water plants to get them established using a watering can. Everything else here, it's mostly dry land plants, so they like it dry and hot and sunny. But the tree? Yeah, the maple, this is a big tooth maple, which grows along stream banks in Utah. But before I planted it, I excavated a base about eight feet across, six inches deep, and planted it into the base so that whatever water falls in here will be gathered up by the base in there and water the tree. And I've noticed you've got some interesting plants here, the evening primrose. It is a western native all across the western United States. I couldn't grow that for years. I planted it over and over again thinking wildflowers need well-drained soil. This is heavy clay soil here. I finally read some place that the other name for it is gumbo lily for gumbo clay. Planted it in the clay and now I've got a whole colony of them doing very well. And something that likes clay yet over here, I see a barberry that likes really dry desert conditions. Well, you know, I think part of the reason that does well there is with the maple here, so it grabs up all the water from the soil. So the desert barberry is really quite dry since it's so close to the tree. It's beautiful, plus it's evergreen, so in the winter it's also very attractive. And I like this path we're standing on. Well, thank you. This is about six inches of rock. So this also helps with the water harvesting because anything that falls on the slope waters both this garden, watering the berm here, and then the excess will also run along the side of the house and water the west side of the house where there's shrubs and trees. And then you've got a garden in back to look at. Yes, I do. Is this a continuation of the swale here? Yes, this is an actual infiltration trench. What we're standing on is dug 18 inches deep and filled with this lava rock so that any water that runs across the property will be held here and kept from running off and help water the gardens behind it downslope from it. And how much water does your garden really use? This year we've used very little, but the garden doesn't need much water in spring. Later in the year we'll start to water a little more. And you've got a berm here, which is for dryer plants? Yes, the center. This is the sunniest part of the garden, and these are mostly great basin natives. These are actual desert plants, and they wouldn't want the clay soil because it would be too wet in summer. We've raised up the soil here to well-drained soil, and then we can grow things like the Pentstem and Clutii from the Grand Canyon of Arizona. And I noticed over here things are very, very lush. Is that the infiltration that's causing that? No, there it's plant selection. Down the hill I'm growing a lot of very invasive flowers and letting them just have the hillside with some desert shrubs. The preceding was a production of New Mexico State University. The views and opinions in this program are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the NMSU Board of Regents.