 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Melissa Tapia at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden shows us some water-efficient plants. Well, we have the chocolate flower. Oh, I've been smelling that all day. It smells good. The chocolate flower blooms all summer. It only blooms early in the morning. As soon as it gets hot, the flowers close up. But they come bright and early the next day. In the morning, it invites you outside. It can self-seed and spread around a little bit. But that's kind of good. And you've got some other things here. I see the lamsears. We have lamsears. The most petable plant in the landscape. It's a great plant. It's very soft. It blooms pretty much through the summer. And it has a great gray foliage color. After it blooms, you can cut it down and just have a nice ground cover with a soft gray-green. And I see you've also got the snow and summer. Snow and summer. Snow and summer is great. Really spring bloomer. Nice white flowers. It makes a nice gray mat after the flowers are cut off. A nice gray mat. It's a real pretty plant. I like it. Excellent ground cover. You've got the Matt Daisy in here as another ground cover. The Matt Daisy is one of my favorites. It takes it a while to open up. As soon as the sun hits it in the morning, then the petals will open. And it blooms spring to mid-summer. Okay. So that gives you a pretty long season. Otherwise, it's a nice, very fine textured ground cover. And it is pretty low water too. And then I see you've got the golden currant here. We talk about some of the taller things. The golden currant, it's a great shrub. And it also produces berries for the birds. And those are tasty. And the flowers are very fragrant in the spring. The flowers are very spring. Early, early spring. And you've got, oh, the cherry sage, which is not related to the Artemisia sage. It's a salvia related to the cooking sage. Right. And one thing with the salvia, Gregiae, is that we've also learned to cut it back really hard in the spring. And you get a better compact little shrub and not a whole lot of dead growth. Not as leggy then. So that's really a better way. Right. I prefer it that way. And then you've got some of the lavenders. Some of the lavenders. We have three lavenders. We have Spanish lavender. It's got a really nice flower. But it doesn't have the fragrance as the Providence Lavender and the English Lavender. So which one do you like best? I like the Providence Lavender because it's tall. And it has a longer spike. And how well do they survive here? They do great. One thing about the lavenders, everybody thinks, oh, they take a lot of water. Well, they don't. Actually, the lavenders do better with less water than more water. And I've heard of it being grown in tows. So it's pretty hardy throughout the state. It's pretty hardy throughout the state. And then, oh, I'm watching the Desert Willows growing up, getting ready to bloom. They're not ready yet. So there's something to follow. You've got a lot of grasses, ornamental grasses in here. I like the ornamental grasses. They're something we don't use enough of in our landscapes. Right. I think it's great. Grasses just give everything a soft texture. They provide kind of an accent, even though they're green. But through the winter, they'll turn interesting colors. And also, in the fall, if you leave the plumes on, you'll have them all winter. Nice seed heads, which provide winter interest. And in many cases, attract the birds into the landscape during the winter. Correct. And when there's nothing else blooming in the landscape, you still have those nice seed heads, you know, on the top. OK. And I see a Vitex. A Vitex. Which is a chase tree. Beautiful. Flowering pretty much through the summer. Through the summer. Blue. You've got the blue. I have at home a pink. A pink. And I've seen kind of an off-dirty white one. That's not my favorite. But in the right setting, it's an excellent plant, too. That's an excellent plant. And I see you've got the spiderwort, which is a plant I didn't expect to see here. Right. And it grows great with little amounts of water. Just a drip system around it. Just a drip system. The clumps are spreading. The flowers are bright. And it's a beautiful, grassy type foliage on it. Nice one to have in the summer. It's great. I love it. 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. Thank you.