We took a visit to St. George, Utah, last weekend. And up on the hills above the city, there’s this little desert oasis called Red Hills Desert Garden.
Inside, there are walking paths and a little stream. You can cross over the stream on these beautiful red rocks, and walk along red clay paths to see spots where dinosaurs once roamed. You can see all sorts of desert landscaping, too. It’s quite beautiful, really.
And most interestingly: The entire thing is run not by the local parks department but by the Washington County Water Conservancy District.
Once I realized that, I started to notice that there were little signs everywhere talking about how to save water. In St. George, the average annual rainfall is about eight inches, and the county has made a push to encourage people to replace their lawns with desert landscaping. And as part of that push, they created this garden where locals can see just how beautiful their homes could be if they planted cacti or desert-friendly plants instead of grass in their yards.
They even host regular events and classes there, highlighting ways to conserve water and create a beautiful desert landscape on a budget.
Instead of just telling people that they should plant things that don’t use up lots of water, they created an entire garden as a showcase for this type of landscaping. It’s part-garden, part-showroom.
I love that they showed their work — and know that once you see what you can do with desert landscaping, others will choose to bring those ideas back to their own homes.
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I took that photo at Red Hills Desert Garden. Even on a cloudy day, the garden was still lovely to walk through.