Marfa Garden

A field guide to more than a hundred plants of the Chihuahuan Desert

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Marfa Garden is a celebration of more than 110 flowering plants of the Chihuahuan Desert. Marfa, the internationally acclaimed arts and cultural mecca in Far West Texas, sits squarely in the desert—North America’s second largest, spanning northern Mexico, West Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Arizona—and a surprising showcase for colorful plant diversity.

More than 360 stunning color images are presented in a style reminiscent of naturalist Karl Blossfeldt’s Art Forms in Nature, with an array of vines, grasses, trees, herbs, shrubs, cacti, and succulents ranging from the little known to the popular to the iconic. Designed as a companion to the lavishly illustrated coffee table book of the same title, this compact field guide’s photographs show plants in year-round cycles, with buds, complex foliage, unfolding blooms, seed pods, and winter texture and color. Also included are introductory essays, a discussion of each plant’s common and scientific names, historical information, garden use, and USDA classification, as well as abundant space for gardening notes. A visual appendix of botanical and gardening information consists of illustrations relating close-up botanical details.

Everyday gardeners, naturalists, landscape designers, architects, and anyone interested in dry gardens or the Southwest will find great value and even joy in this essential field guide.