Backyard landscaping in the high desert works differently. It works when it stops trying to recreate somewhere else and starts responding to where it is. It works when the design begins with the climate instead of trying to override it.

That means listening.

Listening to the soil, which is alkaline, rocky, and not particularly forgiving. Listening to the precipitation, which averages under eight inches a year and arrives unpredictably. Listening to the elevation, where 4,500 feet of altitude sharpens the sunlight and pushes temperature swings that can feel extreme within a single day. And listening to the landscape itself, which has already figured out how to exist here without excess.