Photos by Art Holeman Spring wildflowers splash color on a landscape composed entirely of native species and thriving only on rainfall. Just 10 years earlier, the yard was a barren patch of bermuda-grass and junipers. Now it is a haven for songbirds and lizards, plus butterflies and other insects

Landscape designer Greg Corman demonstrates the resiliency of native plants IN HIS YARD

Tending his grandmother’s Minnesota garden as a child, Greg Corman ordered a 10-cent packet of cactus seeds advertised in a magazine. “They germinated and grew about an inch, and then my zeal for watering killed them,” he recalls.

Corman, now an award-winning landscape designer in Tucson, jokes that this first experience with desert plants may have influenced his current gardening preference: landscapes that can survive without irrigation systems. “If plants are well-chosen for their site, they’ll survive on rainfall,” states the owner of Gardening Insights Inc.

To prove his point, Corman uses his front yard as a laboratory. He chooses natives that grow within the four mountain ranges surrounding Tucson at elevations of 4,500 feet or lower. After transplanting in fall, he hand-waters plants just enough to get them growing; then they survive on rainfall. Some drought-tolerant species, such as banana yucca, Wright’s buckwheat (Eriogonum wrightii), and limberbush (Jatropha cardiophylla)—which features unusual chocolate-colored stems—establish in just three to four months. “It’s remarkable how tough our plants are,” notes the expert, who majored in botany and has a master’s degree in agriculture. “I watered a fourwing salt bush just three times after transplanting, and it was off and growing.”

When he purchased his home in 2000, Corman began using passive rainwater-harvesting techniques to hold precious rainfall on-site. He nailed metal flashing to the roof upside down to direct rain to swales (slight depressions) in the landscape. There, it has time to soak into the soil around plant roots, rather than rushing off his property. An existing retaining wall serves as a barrier to help control water flow.

Greg Corman is a Tucson-based sculptor and landscape designer whose work combines art and ecology

Tucson averages a scant 10 inches of rain annually, but by employing fairly simple rainwater-harvesting methods, homeowners can effectively double the amount of rain that landscape plants receive, according to Corman. “Twenty inches of water is a lot for desert plants adapted to survive on 10, and they will respond with growth and vigor within days of rainfall. It’s astounding to watch the changes,” he says. Barrel cacti get chubby; bare stems on chuparosa and fairy duster leaf out; and withered gray foliage of western mugwort (Artemisia ludoviciana) transforms to a soft, supple green.

In 2009, Corman’s yard received the Judges’ Award for Water Conservation from the Tucson Botanical Garden and Arizona Department of Water Resources
Xeriscape Contest. “It was especially meaningful to me because it was the only award given to a landscape with no irrigation system,” the homeowner acknowledges.

Corman’s 10,000-square-foot lot supports 60 Tucson-area species, including spring and summer annuals, perennials, shrubs, trees, cacti and other succulents. The backyard also offers a smattering of non-natives such as bulbs, aloes and other succulents that “take care of themselves” beneath canopies of ‘Desert Museum’ palo verde trees. Although he avoids most exotics (plants native to other parts of the world), a few plants that provide significant benefits to wildlife, such as aloe, get a pass.

A yucca grows among fishhook barrel cacti. In the background, a recycled-wood “condominium” provides a nesting habitat for native bees. This piece and others presented on these pages are by Greg Corman.

Using native flora to establish ecologically sound wildlife habitats illustrates Corman’s approach to landscape design. “People experience so much joy watching migrating birds, butterflies, lizards and even insects,” he observes. “It’s quite easy to draw this amazing fauna to a landscape—even in urban locales.”

In fact, fashioning habitats for tiny winged creatures that often go unnoticed is Corman’s new artistic passion and evolving vocation. A year ago he began creating sculptural bee-nesting habitats from recycled wood and metal. The spark came from conversations with fellow Tucsonan Dr. Stephen Buchmann, a well-known entomologist and the co-author of Pollinators of the Sonoran Desert. Corman was fascinated to hear about the 800 bee species in the Tucson area.

“We probably have the highest bee diversity on the planet, including cuckoo, leafcutter, mason and sweat bees,” he remarks. Unlike honeybees that receive all the media attention and sting to protect their hive, native bees are solitary passivists that won’t harm you, explains Corman. “Our native bees are essential for native plants because honeybees haven’t evolved to pollinate them.” Encouraging sweat bees, which create their nests in the ground, can be as simple as leaving sunny patches of bare ground (without mulch) for easy access.

The sculptural bee habitats that Corman fashions, complete with dozens of pre-drilled holes, work well for leafcutter, mason and resin bees. In nature, these bees build nests in existing holes in soft, rotting wood. “The limiting factor for these bees in urban areas is the lack of nesting habitat because we cut down dead trees,” he says. “By assisting native bee populations in our landscapes, we help our unique native plants survive.”

Bee habitats are a terrific project for kids, adds Corman. “It doesn’t matter if you make practical habitats out of a block of wood or create an art piece. It opens a window to the little garden miracles in our desert ecosystem that are just extraordinary.”

EASY IDEAS
If you have a limited landscape budget, transplant trees from 5-gallon containers, then sow seeds for a mix of foliage plants, suggests Greg Corman. You also can transplant small cactus pads and agave pups (offshoots) shared by friends or purchased through such plant rescue groups as Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society.

Natives that grow readily from seed include chuparosa, creosote, desert senna, globe mallow and turpentine bush. Wildflowers such as bahia, desert zinnia, dyssodia, paperflower, penstemon, poppies and tufted evening primrose also germinate easily and self-sow for years.

“If you are someone who is attached to every baby plant that sprouts, this method may not suit you,” Corman cautions. “It’s essential to ‘edit’ your plantings periodically and thin as needed, because it’s better to have fewer healthy plants than lots of weak ones.”