Blending Desert Natives with a Vegetable Garden in Paradise Valley

Harmonizing Contrasting Landscape Desires

The owners of this new home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, wanted their landscape to reflect the surrounding desert while also incorporating a vegetable garden and citrus trees. Landscape architect Steve Martino of Phoenix accommodated these seemingly disparate desires by using walls and well‑placed plants to screen non‑native plantings and visually emphasize desert plants.

Curving Walls Define Zones

Along the house’s south side, which faces a street, Martino created a series of 3‑ to 4‑foot‑tall curving walls that separate more lush plantings closer to the house from more natural plantings at the property perimeter. On the street side, where the site had been scraped bare during construction, Martino revegetated the ground by hydro‑seeding with a mixture including brittlebush (Encelia farinosa), creosote bush, desert marigold (Baileya multiradiata), and globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua). The desert marigolds readily adapted to the sunny site.

Hidden Productive Garden

Martino hid a small vegetable garden and citrus orchard behind curving walls. In this enclosed space—unseen from the street or inside the house—the owners grow artichokes, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, and other crops in raised beds with waist‑high railings that can be draped with shadecloth or frost‑proof blankets. Roses also grow here, along with grapefruit, lemon, and orange trees, shaded by several blue palo verde (Cercidium floridum).