Marfa Garden

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 second largest 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.
A showcase for plant diversity, the Chihuahuan Desert is North America's largest at over 200,000 square miles that include West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Mexico. This stunning guide is a full-color celebration of more than 60 flowering plants native to the area.
Jim Martinez has been creating water-wise and environmentally friendly landscapes for more than thirty years. He is a landscape designer specializing in native and xeric plants of Texas and the Southwest and the principal of Jim Martinez and Associates. He is also a member of the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute and the Big Bend branch of the Native Plant Society of Texas. He lives in Marfa, Texas.
Mary Lou Saxon is a freelance product photographer who moved to Marfa from Dallas for the beauty and serenity of the desert and the enjoyment of living in a small town.
Jim Fissel has designed user interfaces for more than thirty years as principle design consultant and owner of Thistle Associates. He lives in Marfa, Texas.
Martha Hughes is a writer and professional artist who works in paint, photography, and computer-based media. She lives in Marfa, Texas.
Dallas Baxter is the creator of the quarterly Cenizo Journal, which celebrates the people and ecosystems of the Big Bend. She serves as president of the Big Bend chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas, which she helped found in 2002.
"The book's overriding purpose is to encourage us to rethink our ideas about the desert land of West Texas... Marfa Garden's intent is to get the region's visitors and residents to look away, for a moment, from the stunning vistas and pay attention to what is happening on the ground. The photos more than make the case, highlighting not just the prickly cacti and agave that one might expect, but a host of plants that sport colorful flowers and berries."-- Texas Monthly

"Jim Martinez's garden in the desert of Marfa thrives by being useful to the natural area surrounding it."-- Texas Standard

"A visual celebration of flora of the Chihuahuan Desert"-- Big Bend Sentinel