I'm so old I Remember when:

[BDutch]

Google it. Basically, landscaping using only native plants so you don't need to water. Sounds like "zero-scaping."

Thnx. Btw: Google translate didn’t have a clue.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

xe·ri·scape
US
noun

1. a style of landscape design requiring little or no irrigation or other maintenance, used in arid regions.

verb

1. landscape (an area) in a style which requires little or no irrigation.
   "I wanted to remove the grass along the sidewalk and xeriscape that area too"

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Apparently Google stumbled over the "ing."

 

[BDutch]

Omg the dust... the dust. You cannot understand the epic, Biblical levels of desert dust until you've lived in it. The humidity is so low nothing drops out of the air and the dust constantly circulates. It's everywhere and there's no controlling or escaping it.

We have HEPA air cleaners and humidifiers all over the house that run 24/7 plus filters on all the vent registers. You can dust and vacuum twice a day and still not keep up with the dust.

You can't have open surfaces anywhere. Everything has to be kept in cabinets and enclosed shelving units and bookcases with doors. Even then the dust gets inside.

Anything hung on the walls becomes instant dust-catchers: door frames, artwork, clocks, calendars, cabinet doors, baseboards, wainscoting, curtains, drapes, etc.

If you need a dish or pan you haven't used recently it has to be washed before you can use it. Clothes and shoes in closets have to be covered and protected as if they're expensive couture instead of just everyday wear items.

Dust on countertops. Dust on your computer. Dust on the coffee maker. Dust on the toilet tank. Dust on the window sills. Dust on the tv. Dust on your bed frame. Dust on the armoire. Dust on the treat jar. Dust dust dust dust dust dust dust.

It's in you, too. In your eyes, nose, mouth, throat, lungs. Some days are endless cycles of coughing and drinking water. Rain is your only hope of short relief. Then it's right back to the... dust.

There's the expense, too. Lots of cleaning products, replacement filters for the HEPA cleaners and humidifiers and the vacuum cleaner, distilled water for the humidifiers, boxes and boxes of eye drops, etc.

Gah. DUST.

Why do people live there? There are other places in the world you know.

My almost natural (not xeroscaped) garden. Created with the help of 8 diggers.
With green grass in winter and greenish grass in the driest weeks summer. (We do mow the grass ).

 

[Timmy59]

I remember when gas was less than 17¢ a gallon...

And you:

where did that cents symbol come from ? People under 40 likely aren't familiar with it . I recall 19.9 cents as a kid in an Opel station wagon. Dial you own octane at Sunoco stations. It was 49.9 when I started driving . White castle burger's were 10 cents or 10 for a dollar. Grocery store, chicken was .19 cents per pound, dozen eggs could be had for .39 -.49 cents. My first boa constrictor was 10 dollars. If I had a magic wand the population would be licking stamps and on a party line.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Why do people live there?

The desert is a very polarizing place. You love it or hate it. In my experience, people who love it either grew up here or are transplants from areas that have a lot of ice, snow, rain, mud and/or humidity so the desert seems like paradise by comparison. They think the five or six months of not-snow-or-mud-or-rain is worth the six months of hell that comes after. "You don't have to shovel sunshine." The cost of living is (relatively) low. Some people live here and work remotely to make their salaries go farther. Maybe they enjoy the abundant Mexican food and other-worldly landscapes.

I really think they just don't know any better. Those of us who have lived in a real paradise know THIS IS NOT IT.

To me, this is six months of the fires of hell followed by desperately trying to cram a year's worth of living into the other six months, and always, always dreading the return of hell.

I'm a beach girl. I will be moving in the next few years. I'm saving money and watching markets for now.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I was born there. I would live there again if it were up to me.

 

[notabitail]

The desert is a very polarizing place. You love it or hate it. In my experience, people who love it either grew up here or are transplants from areas that have a lot of ice, snow, rain, mud and/or humidity so the desert seems like paradise by comparison. They think the five or six months of not-snow-or-mud-or-rain is worth the six months of hell that comes after. "You don't have to shovel sunshine." The cost of living is (relatively) low. Some people live here and work remotely to make their salaries go farther. Maybe they enjoy the abundant Mexican food and other-worldly landscapes.

I really think they just don't know any better. Those of us who have lived in a real paradise know THIS IS NOT IT.

To me, this is six month of the fires of hell followed by desperately trying to cram a year's worth of living into the other six months, and always, always dreading the return of hell.

I'm a beach girl. I will be moving in the next few years. I'm saving money and watching markets for now.

Despite here in El Paso being a desert, cost of living is high. Everything costs more. Property taxes are more here than they were in CA. We had to fight the appraisal district real hard on one property because they are filthy thieving liars. This city is run by corrupt politicians as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Canadian Wind]

To me, this is six month of the fires of hell followed by desperately trying to cram a year's worth of living into the other six months, and always, always dreading the return of hell.

Sounds like what I go through, except my six months of hell is called WINTER.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Sounds like what I go through, except my six months of hell is called WINTER.

Yes - this is opposite land. Summer here is like winter everywhere else: we have to hide indoors and can't go anywhere or do anything. Everything stops.

We have two summers: dry summer and wet summer. Dry summer is approximately April to July. It is unbearably hot and dry, the humidity drops as low as 1% and it is horrible.

Wet summer is approximately July through October. Most years that means some rain/lighting/thunderstorms that are violent and deadly. Some years it doesn't rain much, if at all.

We hunker down through it all and simply wait indoors for November to come around again. November is spring for us.

Everything starts up again and you run around like crazy because you have to do everything you can't for the other six months of the year. We live only half the year. It's a very strange place.