Driving to my weekly, away-from-home place to write, I enjoyed the cool morning at a public garden in the valley.
My first and only time at Fabian Garcia was on another perfect April day – in 1996. I was getting the Las Cruces tour from Mesilla Valley native, plant-soil-tree nerd, Mike Melendrez. It’s part of NMSU, home of the Aggies. I sometimes drive by here between home and errands in town, never stopping to look.
Photos are from my iPhone 13 mini, on 4/17/24:
Each time I notice how much it’s growing in, as the trees take over. Bradford pears and chitalpa are slowly declining, while retamas volunteer around, and so on.
It also looks like NMSU is responsible for not just the desert-hatin’, mesic lollipop tree scourge this state’s public and landscape industry can’t let go of – Bradford pear. The Aggies also trialed and introduced Afghan pines (good but overused, so beetle bait) and Chitalpa (too mesic for some soils, bacterial leaf scorch magnet), but NMSU also planted plenty of other trees, shrubs, and spiky plants.
Many of those are regionally or locally native, which over the years, if not shaded out, are outperforming Nandina and Photinia – the latter didn’t make the cut!
Onto some other cool plantings, such as this focal point in the form of a Montezuma Cypress / Taxodium mucronatum.
Maintenance of gardens, private or public, is not a priority in this state.
Of course, at NMSU chiles and pecans are a major focus, as well as ranching.
Though there’s potential to up the ambition and foresightedness, and focus on horticulture’s connection to economic development, quality of life, and so on.
Chinese Fringe Tree and a happy, but too-shaded, Peony join with natives like Chocolate Daisy (aka Chocolate Flower).
On the east side of the garden, there’s a secondary garden entry, made of what appears to be stabilized adobe. That’s framed by bullet-proof natives Desert Willow and Beargrass, offering a glimpse to the inside.
Once inside, a small area that may have held plants at one time joins a few wood latillas, one of which is now a feature in the Mescal Agave grouping. With Beaked Yucca and Texas Sage standing guard further inside the garden.
While many plantings here are now over-shaded by the trees to really perform and inspire the public to use them, there is Mexican Feather Grass under this trio of pecans. They are living their best, graceful lives!
Of course a garden needs a gazebo, joined by roses and irises, to announce spring. Moderate irrigation sustains them.
Mediterranean Fan Palm is another favorite from older times around Las Cruces, and despite the deep shade, this one still fruited profusely under its spiky foliage. Nearby is a chaparral native from parts of Arizona and southern California, Sugarbush, plus one of several blank spots naming the plant that is no longer in existence.
Western Honey Mesquite provides a moderately open canopy for plants that seem to tolerate that, Engelmann Prickly Pear and (the real) Claret Cup Cactus.
Blue Sotol (aka Desert Spoon) and Sand Sagebrush somehow are tolerating more overstory trees, with even a shaded Soaptree or Palmilla, in front of it’s aspirational tall plant, California Fan Palm.
Retama (aka Jerusalem Thorn) is a near-native from the lower elevation Big Bend valleys, and it is quite common thanks to it reseeding a bit much from landscape plantings. Except for a few thermal belt areas above the valley, other palo verde relatives (Parkinsonia species) are often killed including their roots, during our periodic, generational freezes. Retamas, though, usually grow back rapidly from freezing to their roots.
Looks like with this shade, I’ve found a great picnic spot!
This might also be a place to enjoy even in the summer, but earlier with a breakfast burrito and before it gets too hot out.