I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the American southwest. Being a climber who wants to climb no matter what the season, I would often drive to Arizona and New Mexico in the winter to access the beautiful red rocks they have, as the sun stays strong even in the winter.
Driving through small towns and seeing the landscape was one of my favorite parts of the journeys. I would sometimes stumble upon entire communities that contained only adobe homes and earthships (check out this article I explain all you need to know about Earthships!) and it felt like I’d stumbled on the set of Star Wars.
I love the desert landscape. I love the warmth of the sand, I love the wonky shapes of the cacti, the incredible flowers that are only gifted to us if it rains, and the clean simplicity of this biome. If you too love the desert as much as I, chances are that you’d like to bring a piece of that home with you.
That’s why we’ve created this wonderful collection of southwestern style landscaping ideas. These beautiful homes are decorated with all sorts of different cactus and succulent species, desert trees and flowers, and stunning collections of rocks, boulders, and sand.
1. The Simple Stucco House
Home: There’s a certain level of mystery that comes along with the adobe home. For those who don’t know, adobe is a type of clay that has been used for centuries by people who live in dry, arid landscapes to build structures.
Adobe is an incredible insulator and acts as a heat battery. The clay absorbs the heat from the sun during the day, and disperses it on the inside of the structures once the air starts to cool. You’ll find that the air is cool and fresh during the day, and warm and comforting at night.
Because of this, there usually aren’t too many windows in adobe homes, hence the mystery. The shapes of homes are often lower to the ground and wider (to absorb more heat from the sun) creating this interesting aesthetic.
Features: Though driveways aren’t the most gorgeous feature of your home, that doesn’t mean it has to be your standard asphalt. This driveway is made from light gray brick which is honestly a nice color combination with the peachy orange of the adobe.
Warm lighting in the front walkway and above the garage doors is a great way to make one immediately feel invited in to your home, instead of those harsh LED lights with motion sensors.
Landscape: Did you know that a cactus will only create branches with its arms once it’s over a hundred years old? It’s pretty incredible to think that a plant in your yard is likely to outlive you. This garden is sparsely decorated with huge cactus and succulent species with small pebbles surrounding them, creating almost a zen garden type of look.
If you’re keen to see the rest of this home design, you can do so by clicking right here.
2. The Marvellous Moat House
Home: Here we have a more modern take on the adobe home. I do adore how in the southwest there is always a nod to the traditional methods of building, and here we see an elevated version complete with rustic shingles, huge windows, and amazing wooden doors for the front entrance.
Features: This sweet little oasis really seems like it can beat the hot southwestern summer heat by those huge shady trees and surrounding moat. This adorable moat feature is lined with smooth red rocks, and an adorable little stone bridge to guide you to the front door.
Living in one of the more harsh biomes, it’s also important to provide lovely water features like this one for the surrounding plant, insect, and animal life! Water means life, and water features like these can be very helpful to our natural neighbours. Plus, it’s super adorable.
Landscape: This gorgeous property has so many amazing plant things going on. We have garden beds that are filled with huge succulent species, a nice little patch of grass, and absolutely enormous shade trees to round everything together.
This amazing property has been sourced from Redfin, and you can check out the rest of the home design by clicking here.
3. The Desert Hill House
Home: This aerial view really allows you to catch a glimpse of how magnificent this property is. Set on a huge rocky hillside, this stucco house is protected by the elements with stone shingles, which accentuate all of the different levels and wings of this incredible home.
Features: This stunning property features stone walls, a wonderfully decorative driveway, a four car garage with wooden doors, and tons of light fixtures all throughout the property to really create ambiance in the evenings.
Landscape: While we do have our dry garden beds that are adorned with cacti and succulents, the rest of this property is more on the wild side. Huge shade trees are found on every side, along with younger trees just trying to make it through the heat of the summer. This place really feels like it’s in the desert.
This amazing property was sourced from Redfin, and you can see the rest of the home here.
4. The Desert Oasis Mansion
Home: It’s rather nice to see a property in the evening time, since the southwest is often so correlated with the beating sun. This beautiful property centres around a gorgeous stucco home with brown shingles, decorative windows, and fantastic archways (which is rather symbolic of more traditional adobe homes).
Features: There isn’t a single thing that this property doesn’t have. A gorgeous stone wall creates privacy with garden beds on either side of it, but the inside holds an incredible looking pool of crystal blue water, a tiny patch of green grass, a relaxing seating area, and a covered outdoor area as well.
Landscape: Despite it being in the desert, this home has no shortage of plant life. Young trees are scattered all around and will eventually become helpful shade trees, small shrubs adorn garden beds, and potted plants lining the entrances to the home carry that plant life even where it doesn’t grow from the ground.
This beautiful property is thanks to Zillows DigsTM, and you can see the remainder of the design here.
5. The Backyard Fireplace Kitchen
Features: Though we’re just getting a tiny portion of this property, I figured that something this wonderful should be included in the collection. This incredible outdoor kitchen is the stuff of dreams in my opinion. Complete with a sink, countertop, and wood fire oven, I would cook out here even if it were snowing.
Everything is better the minute it’s cooked over fire, and this wood fire oven provides that, but also something beautiful to look at. Red brick acts as the foundation for the walkway and the feature itself, creating a wonderful spot for storage for all of that hardwood.
Landscape: This amazing outdoor kitchen feature is surrounded by large and healthy hedges, patches of grass, potted plants, and enormous shade trees all around.
6. The Adobe Dream Home
Home: I think we can all agree that this is a truly exceptional home design. I find it so special that we get a nod to the traditional adobe home with the red clay, squared features with rounded edges, but it’s been updated with the unique block sections of the home and incredible landscaping.
Features: With such a squared structure, I find it was so smart to have only rounded edges everywhere else in the home. We see this with the brick driveway, the white stone walkway, and the curved edges of the garden beds and raised beds.
Landscape: Now if you don’t know anything about cacti you may just look at this and say “oh look, many cactuses!”, but if you know a thing or two about cacti, this garden will make you freak out. The cacti in this garden are old. They’re enormous, prospering, and they are so many that it’s hard to decide which is your favorite.
For reference, the plant store down the street from my house is selling a single 6 foot cactus for one thousand dollars. This incredible collection of various succulents, cacti, and other desert loving plants is truly incredible to behold. What a special gift to have this to look at every time you leave your home!
This exceptional home design is thanks to Pascale Land Design.
7. The Adobe Gateway Garden
Features: This property design is like if cottage-core and New Mexico home had a baby. This beautiful entrance features a gorgeous flagstone pathway that guides us towards an antique blue and red gate. The wall itself is classic adobe design with rounded edges and trunk pillars.
Landscape: It’s rather rare to see grass this green and that many flowering plants in the high desert, so something tells me that this garden is either outside of the American southwest, or it’s just a really properly irrigated garden.
Either way, this lush grass provides such a dramatic contrast to the warmth of the adobe wall, and the yellow, purple, white, and pink flowers are such a treat to see as well. I particularly love the use of ground lights to really accentuate all of the colors and shapes in the garden.
This beautiful property comes from Designscapes Colorado Inc., meaning that it is indeed still in the southwest, so it must have underground irrigation to keep those plants happy!
8. The Stone Mystery Home
Home: We’re back in the desert again with this intriguing and mysterious property. Highly contemporary, this incredible home features several different wings; one made of stone, another of metal, and another that is entirely made of framed windows. What a journey!
Features: The designer really wasn’t playing around with this entrance. A pebble walkway guides you through some stone steps, and incredible garden beds in every direction. The main feature is a beautiful copper trough waterfall feature that extends all the way to the entrance of the home.
Landscape: Just because a garden is in the desert doesn’t mean that it can’t be lush – you just have to know what to plant! Here we see a wonderful collection of ornamental grasses, cacti, succulents, flowering plants, shrubs, and young trees. Though it’s in the desert, this garden still acts as an oasis.
This stunning landscaping design comes from Overland Partners.
9. The Stone Arch Entrance
Home: This beautiful light adobe home carries a very classic shape to it and beautifully wooden framed windows and doorways. What sets it apart is the amazing and enormous windows to let that desert sun in.
Features: Something that I love about driving through old country roads is seeing what types of ghost structures lie in the fields. Single archways, crumbling walls, and lone-standing fireplaces dot the sides of the roads in the southwest.
I wonder if this gate is a remnant of the previous structure and the home was built around it, or it was constructed in a crumbling way to pay tribute to the heritage of the area. Either was, it is lovely, and pairs wonderfully with the flagstone walkway.
Landscape: This beautiful property is minimally decorated with cacti and succulent plants dotting the garden bed, and they are surrounded by light colored pebbles. Young trees wander around, while ancient cactuses tower above even the house.
This perfect property design is thanks to Thompson Photographic.
10. The Rolling Desert Hills Backyard
Features: This is an incredibly gorgeous backyard. A place large enough for you to wander about for a while, you are guided by flagstone stepping stones surrounded by lightly colored pebbles, and spotlights shining over the walkway to keep you from stepping on any beetles or snakes!
Landscape: This low-set garden features incredible collection of various cactus species, some perfectly manicured desert shrubs, big boulders scattered about, and some huge shade trees in the distance. The rolling hills and desert sunset are just a bonus.
This amazing landscape design comes from Caribou Construction Company.
Related: All Southwestern-Style Homes | Southwestern Style Foyer Ideas | Southwestern Style Bedroom Ideas | Southwestern Style Bathroom Ideas | Southwestern Style Dining Room Ideas
11. The Cactus Collection
Home: I really adore this property, and I really adore how it’s a bit of a different approach from what we’ve seen so far. Here we have a more modest home – a bungalow that for once isn’t made from adobe clay. I personally love a bungalow less so for how it looks on the outside, but for the type of layout that it has on the outside.
Features: I think this property is so clever. A pebble walkway with right angles match the shape of the huge pots, and green grass surrounds everything to create a contrast between the dry cactuses and pebbles, and the lush green grass.
Landscape: Enormous pots are scattered all over the pebbled walkway, each with its own precious collection of cactuses and succulents. While we often see them planted in the ground, it’s nice to see them elevated like this. Huge shade trees surround the house and the lawn to protect from the intense desert sun.
This marvellous design is from D-CRAIN Design and Construction.
12. The Cactus Haven Hill Garden
Home: I find this to be so completely precious. A very brutalist and modern home is warmed by clever outdoor lights and an impeccably charming exterior.
Features: This beautiful property cascades down a hillside, creating an elevated garden bed that you are eye level with as you walk towards the front door. A precious little bench is sat between two huge potted plants, and a clever little scarecrow in the garden keeps the sun decoration company.
Landscape: This is quite the impressive garden. Either it’s spring time in the desert or we have one amazing gardener on our hands. It’s rather rare to see so many flowering plants in a desert garden, but here we get heaps! Huge potted trees sit on the walkway, while incredible succulents and impressive cactuses adorn the hillside.
This perfect southwestern garden design has been sourced from Carter Photography.
13. The High Desert Lawn
Home: It’s just one amazingly stunning property after another. We have another mysterious adobe home that is not only protected from trees, but it’s natural long and low set shape means we only get to see one side of the house. But with a front lawn this amazing, I can’t help but be curious about the interior.
Landscape: I really appreciate how so much of the front property is absolutely filled with plant life. Garden beds surrounded by sand feature cactuses both large and small, succulents both spikey and smooth, shrubs both rounded and wild, and trees both spindly and robust. I’m so impressed by the sheer size of some of the cactuses on this property.
This impressive garden design comes from Desert Foothills Landscape.
14. The Rock Garden
Home: While we don’t get much information about this home, because of the entryway we can assume that it’s going to be a contemporary masterpiece of an adobe abode.
Features: This southwestern zen garden starts with huge slabs of concrete as stepping stones that are separated by red pebbles. The view in the distance is truly something to behold, and I’m sure that the sunsets here are spectacular every single night.
Landscape: While so many of the other properties that we’ve been seeing feature super full garden beds, I appreciate that this one is more on the sparse side. Big a beautiful boulders create almost a zen-garden look, while we get freckles of little cactuses scattered throughout. Rather precious if you ask me.
This lovely property design comes from Soloway Designs Inc | Architecture + Interiors AIA.
15. The Earth, Wind & Water Garden
Home: I would live here. Full disclosure, whoever lives here, if you need a roommate, I will live with you. This incredible modern home features adobe pillars – giving us that precious nod to heritage – but elevating it by incorporating enormous windows.
Features: This clean and tidy property features gorgeous stone walkways that line a serene looking rectangular pool. These sharp edged features are found throughout the property, including the border or the pool and the garden beds.
Landscape: While we see wildness on the other side of the property line, the desert in manicured in the garden beds with evenly spaced cactuses, ornamental grasses, decorative vases, and my favorite tall and spindly cactuses.
This awesome property design comes from Greey Pickett.
16. The Manicured Desert Garden
Home: While so many of the homes that we’ve seen in this collection are on the extravagant side, it’s lovely to see a more modest and suburban home. I adore the look of this white stucco facade paired with terracotta red shingles, and gorgeous rounded archways to mimic the rounded sandstone arches throughout the biome.
Features: This wonderfully manicured front property matches the facade of the home so perfectly with slabs of white cement as stepping stones, and a white driveway to boot!
Landscape: This garden is just pleasant to look at. Rounded garden beds are filled with warm sand, white rocks gather on the edges, and short cactus species adorn the ground while a large shade tree is the star of the show.
This wonderful property design is from Michael D McIver | Landscape Design.
17. The Rocky Way
Home: Don’t you find this so special? I only visited Santa Fe once, but I just could not believe how much adobe was used in that town. The color combination of the orange adobe with turquoise is always something I will admire. This incredible home follows the traditional adobe pattern with rounded edges, wooden structural beams, and high walls to create that sense of mystery.
Features: This beautiful home features raised garden beds made from stone with adobe edges. A brick walkway guides us up some brick steps to a turquoise painted wooden door, while beautifully decorative tiles on the steps make the whole thing extra special. Outdoor lighting cleverly illuminates the warm clay walls, making everything feel inviting.
Landscape: Desert loving shrubs decorate the raised garden beds, while we are given a more rugged and wild looking desert scene just on the other side with dry sand and small cactus plants.
This lovely property design has been sourced from Classic New Mexico Homes.
18. The Small Steps Garden
Features: We’re finishing off this amazing collection with a sweet and colorful little garden. Flagstone is separated by patches of grass, creating a wonderful little checkerboard facade. A raised white wall protects the property while also creating a lovely contrast against the surprisingly lush garden.
Landscape: This beautiful desert garden is so green and full of life, it’s hard to believe that it’s in the desert! Big bushy shrubs and succulent species adorn the garden and create a serene walkway scene towards the front door of a surely beautiful home.
This special garden design comes from Arroyo Seco Construction.
Related: Southwestern Living Room Ideas | Southwestern Style Kitchen Ideas | Bold Southwestern Home
