Jim Fissel

Marfa Garden is a celebration of more than a hundred flowering plants of the Chihuahuan Desert, North America's largest hot desert, spanning northern Mexico, West Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Hundreds of photos show plants in year-round cycles, with budding, complex foliage, unfolding blooms, seedpods, and winter texture and color. Also included are introductory essays, each plant’s common and scientific names, historical information, garden use, and USDA classification, as well as abundant space for gardening notes. Everyday gardeners, naturalists, landscape designers, architects, and anyone interested in dry gardens of the Southwest will find great value and joy in this essential field guide.

Marfa Garden is a full-color celebration of more than sixty flowering plants of the Chihuahuan Desert and neighboring regions. Marfa, the internationally acclaimed arts and cultural mecca in Far West Texas, sits squarely in the Chihuahuan Desert—North America’s largest hot desert at 140,000 square miles spanning northern Mexico, West Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Arizona. The desert is a surprising showcase for colorful plant diversity. Presented in a style reminiscent of naturalist Karl Blossfeldt’s Art Forms in Nature, the book includes an array of vines, grasses, trees, herbs, shrubs, cacti, and succulents ranging from the little known to the popular to the iconic. Photographs show the plants in year-round cycles, with buds, complex foliage, unfolding blooms, seed pods, and winter texture and color.Also included is a discussion of each plant’s common and scientific names, historical information, garden use, USDA classification, and other helpful details. A visual appendix of detailed 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 joy in Marfa Garden.