Popular imagination pictures gardens as places with perfectly
manicured green lawns bordered by splendid, well-trimmed bushes
and an array of brightly coloured flowers. Glossy magazines and
gardening books picture idyllic bucolic scenes with roses and clematis
vying each other in splendour. The mere thought of a garden in the
midst of an arid desert, where water is a matter of wishful thinking,
seems incredibly bizarre, almost totally absurd. Yet gardens can grow
under a blazing sun, in rocky, parched terrain, where rainfall is rare, or
even non-existent. Indeed, many of the plants that grow naturally in very
dry conditions are actually easier to cultivate, as long as the gardener
respects their origins, which means not watering them during the
summer.
