Watering Days, Shade Trees and the Last Freeze: Planning a Desert Yard
El Paso Water allows up to three watering days a week by address, and from April through September only before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. The city sits in USDA zone 8b with an average last freeze on March 17, so planting runs mid-March through May and September into October. Sage Intelligence plans each plant around both.
The work in detail
One thing most people won't tell you about xeriscape here: the plant list is the easy part, and El Paso Water's calendar decides whether it lives. A new El Paso landscape gets up to three watering days a week, on the days assigned to its address, and from April through September only before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. Every plant on the plan has to live on that schedule beside whatever shares its bed. So plants are chosen with three filters, in this order. The first is the ground. Native species evolved under this rainfall and this alkaline, rocky soil; adapted species come from other arid regions and tolerate the same conditions. Both belong on a plan, and mixing them is how a landscape reads as designed rather than as a restoration project. What does not belong is a species that wants an acidic, organic, evenly moist root zone, because it will spend years yellowing between the leaf veins on ground it cannot pull iron out of, and no amount of feeding fixes a soil chemistry mismatch. The second filter is water: plants that need very different amounts never share a bed, because they will be watered on the same days. The third filter decides whether the design ages well: mature size, not day-one appearance. A bed planted to look finished the day the work ends gets sheared into balls in year three and torn out in year six. Spacing comes off the mature spread, and the plan says plainly at Scope Lock that a new landscape looks intentionally open at first. That is the plan working, not the plan being thin.
Underneath, caliche decides whether a pit drains. Where a cemented caliche layer sits under a planting pit, a hole dug into it and stopped there is not a hole. It is a container with no drain: it holds every drop that reaches it, the root zone stays saturated, salts concentrate at the bottom, and a healthy plant declines for a year while everyone blames the nursery. What goes back in the hole matters as much as how deep it goes. A fertile amended pocket dropped into native ground becomes a pot the roots will not leave, and the plant circles inside it exactly as it did in the nursery can. Then there is the root flare, the most common way a good tree is killed slowly: a trunk buried like a fence post girdles itself years later. None of that can be seen once the yard is finished, so none of it is left to memory. The written plant schedule at Scope Lock states, for each pit, whether it is carried through the cemented layer or the plant moves, what goes back in the hole and where the flare sits.
The parts of a landscape that are not alive decide whether the living ones survive the monsoon. Grade is settled first: positive fall carried away from the house, swales that move sheet flow to a real outlet, planting basins placed where holding water helps rather than against a footing, and an armored splash zone wherever a canale or scupper drops a roof onto one point of ground. Everything else is laid on a grade that already works. Boulders are placement, not delivery. A boulder sitting on top of the ground reads as decoration and always will; the same rock set into the grade reads as the ground the yard was built around. Which face shows and how a group sits together are composed with the machine still on site, because nobody wants to move a boulder twice. Rock, decomposed granite, grass, trees and outdoor lighting each carry their own El Paso rules, and the sections below take them one at a time.
What does xeriscape mean on El Paso ground?
Xeriscape means a yard designed to live on El Paso's rainfall plus a limited watering schedule, and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension office for El Paso County says a properly installed and maintained xeriscape can use less than one-half the water of a traditional landscape. It does not mean a yard of bare rock. The same publication describes a landscape built on native plants chosen for their water efficiency, with lawn kept to the places it is actually used.
What makes it an El Paso problem rather than a catalog idea is the ground and the air. The same AgriLife office lists what a desert landscape here has to survive: rain that comes mostly in the short summer monsoon and in winter, humidity usually 20 to 30 percent, high, gusting winds, and soil from clay to sandy loam that is highly alkaline, highly saline and full of rock. A front yard plan that ignores any one of those looks right in its first spring and wrong by its third summer.
AgriLife organizes xeriscape into seven principles, and on an El Paso lot they read like this. Planning and design starts with where water goes, so the grade holds rain where plants can use it and moves it away from the house everywhere else. Soil improvement means organic matter worked into planting beds and kept on top as mulch, while individual tree pits are backfilled with the native ground the roots have to grow into. Plant selection follows the brochure's own rules: species native to the region, chosen for their ultimate size, with high-water and low-water plants never sharing a planting area. Practical lawns means grass only where it earns its water, covered below. Mulch means rock for the open field and organic mulch in the root zones. Maintenance means pruning, mulch renewal and weeds pulled by hand. The remaining principle, the watering system itself, is licensed irrigation work in Texas, covered in the last section of this page.
What do El Paso Water's rules mean for a new landscape?
They mean every plant has to live on up to three watering days a week, on the days El Paso Water assigns to your address, and from April 1 through September 30 only before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. The schedule is set by El Paso Municipal Code 15.13.020, and El Paso Water publishes it as the rules in the table below.
The schedule is a design input, not a chore list. Plants that share a bed get water on the same days, so a thirsty shrub and a cactus in one bed means one of them is always getting the wrong amount. The code gives a new landscape a head start: owners of new landscaping can apply for a permit that allows daily watering until the planting establishes, for no more than 30 days (EPMC 15.13.060(A)), and El Paso Water takes those requests at 915-594-5508. The same permit covers new sod, as the daily watering question on the sod page explains. After that, the plan has to work on the regular schedule. The code is plain about it: the potential for damage to landscaping is never considered an economic hardship that justifies a variance (EPMC 15.13.060(B)).
El Paso Water also publishes a seasonal chart for established plants one to three years old. It calls for trees to be watered to a depth of 24 inches or more, shrubs 18 inches or more, cactus and succulents 8 - 12 inches, and grass 6 - 10 inches. Those depths are El Paso Water's guidance for the plant, not a design for any watering system, and what they mean for a tree pit is covered under trees below.
El Paso Water's current residential rebate list covers commodes, washing machines, laundry-to-landscape, smart irrigation controllers, rainwater harvesting, pool covers and pool filters, on terms El Paso Water sets. Controllers and rainwater tie-ins are licensed irrigator work, and laundry-to-landscape is plumbing work, under its own permit where the City requires one. Whether the utility pays to remove grass is answered, with the date it was last checked, in the rebate question in the FAQ below.
| Rule | What El Paso Water and the City code say |
|---|---|
| Mondays | No residential watering |
| Even-numbered addresses | Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday |
| Odd-numbered addresses | Wednesday, Friday or Sunday |
| How often | Up to three days a week, all year |
| April 1 - September 30 | Only before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m. |
| New landscaping | A permit for daily watering while it establishes, 30 days at most (915-594-5508) |
What trees grow best in El Paso?
Trees that last in El Paso include Mt. Atlas and Chinese pistache, escarpment live oak and the 'Red Rock' Texas red oak for shade, and honey mesquite, desert willow and the thornless 'Desert Museum' palo verde for a desert look, all on the City of El Paso Approved Plant and Tree List. The list rates each candidate on water need, soil, cold hardiness, salt sensitivity and the problems to expect, and every tree named here is low or medium water, adaptable to most soils where the ground drains, and hardy to 10 °F or below, though the list marks the palo verde as liable to frost damage on young plants until it matures. City Council approved the list in 2004, and its columns show where each plant may be used on City projects and under the commercial landscape ordinance; it is also a free planning reference any homeowner can use.
The list's notes are where the choosing happens. It calls Mt. Atlas pistache (low water) and Chinese pistache (medium water, and sensitive to excess nitrogen fertilizer) good shade trees, rates escarpment live oak for heavy shade on alkaline ground, and says the 'Red Rock' selection of Texas red oak is heat and alkaline tolerant. Honey mesquite comes in thornless selections, and desert willow gives light shade and comes in seedless selections. The same list carries the warnings: cottonwood and sycamore (Platanus wrightii) are rated high water and marked for river valley use, not every southern live oak selection tolerates alkaline soil, and Afghan pine turns chlorotic if overwatered and should stay out of heavy clay.
One tree is off the table by law: planting or selling a mulberry tree in the City of El Paso has been unlawful since September 1, 1992 (EPMC 9.10.010). Shrubs follow the same logic as trees. The Texas sage family is rated low water on the City list, and root rot is the problem the list names for it, which says a lot about how those shrubs usually die here.
Planting is where the list meets the lot. El Paso Water's chart calls for established trees to be watered to 24 inches or more, so on caliche ground a tree pit is carried through the cemented layer to let water get that deep, or the tree moves. Digging with powered equipment to 16 inches or deeper, such as an augered tree pit, is excavation under Texas law (Tex. Util. Code 251.002(5)), and the excavator must notify the one-call notification center no earlier than 14 days and no later than 48 hours before digging starts, weekends and legal holidays excluded (251.151). Trees on private property belong in a landscape plan; a tree in the parkway belongs to the City under El Paso Municipal Code 9.11, so it is not ours to cut. Anything within six feet of an overhead power line waits for the line operator, as Texas Health and Safety Code chapter 752 requires.
Gardening on an existing yard follows the same list: perennials, ground covers and accent plants added to beds that already work, with fresh organic mulch in the root zones. Clearing overgrowth and pruning an existing yard is a different job, handled as a property maintenance visit through Sage's yard cleanup page. Pruning or removing an established tree of any size on your property is part of that visit, and the yard cleanup page's tree section sets out the lines it follows, starting with the parkway tree, which still belongs to the City.
What planting zone is El Paso, and when is the last freeze?
El Paso sits in USDA plant hardiness zone 8b, where the coldest night of an average winter falls between 15 and 20 °F (USDA 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map), and the National Weather Service in El Paso puts the average last spring freeze on March 17 and the average first fall freeze on November 13.
Both are averages, and El Paso's record shows why that matters. The latest last freeze on record came on May 2, 1967, and the record low is -8 °F, set on January 11, 1962 (NWS). A zone tells you what usually survives, not what always does. The City's plant list marks the plants that are only marginally hardy here, such as red bird-of-paradise at 28 °F and bush lantana at 25 °F, and those go in warm, protected spots or are planted knowing they may freeze back to the roots.
Heat closes the other end of the calendar. The average first triple-digit day in El Paso is June 12 and the average last is August 3 (NWS). That leaves about twelve weeks between the average last frost and the first 100-degree afternoon for new plants to root, and about fifteen between the end of the heat and the first freeze. Those are the planting windows: roughly mid-March through May, and September into October. Living material goes in during those windows. Grading, rock, boulders and edging can go in during summer, so a summer project usually splits that way, with the plants set at the front edge of fall.
Lawns in a desert landscape plan
A desert landscape can still hold a lawn where people use it, and the rules and choices for that lawn have their own page: how much of an El Paso yard can be lawn under the City's turf limits, and which grass makes sense as sod.
The system that waters a lawn is designed and installed by a TCEQ-licensed irrigator under a contract you hold directly, as the last section of this page explains. Whether artificial turf belongs in place of the grass is its own decision, covered on the artificial turf page.
Rock or mulch in El Paso, and why does decomposed granite wash out?
On most El Paso lots the answer is both: decorative rock or decomposed granite for the open field, and organic mulch inside the root zones of the plants.
The two surfaces do opposite jobs. Rock and granite are durable, do not blow away and do not break down, but they store heat all afternoon and give it back into the evening, to the plants beside them and to the wall behind them. Organic mulch moderates soil temperature at the roots and builds the soil life that makes alkaline ground workable, and it breaks down, which is the point. Pale rock against a west-facing stucco wall is one of the hottest places on an El Paso lot, and a plan treats that corner as its own exposure.
Decomposed granite is fines, and fines travel with water. About 53 percent of El Paso's yearly precipitation falls from July through September (NWS, against a period-of-record mean of 8.70 inches). So a granite path or field is built as a section rather than a layer: compacted subgrade, granite compacted in lifts, a stabilizing binder where it is walked or sits on any fall, and a steel edge anchored into compacted ground rather than loose fill. The depth goes into the written scope for the actual use, because a decorative field and a daily path are different sections. Angular landscape rock locks together and stays put on a slope where rounded rock rolls.
A desert rock landscape is only as good as the grade under it. Rock placed over ground that falls toward the house hides the problem instead of solving it, until the first storm. Woven landscape fabric under rock in a planting bed tends to fail the same slow way: blown-in dust and leaf litter build a growing layer on top of it within a few seasons, weeds root into that layer, and the plant roots below get nothing. A separation fabric under a base section is a different product doing a different job. Rock and soil also stay below the weep screed at the base of a stucco wall so the wall can still drain; the clearance for your wall is confirmed on site. Rock is also the one part of a xeriscape an HOA keeps a hand in: Texas Property Code 202.007 limits how far an HOA can restrict drought-resistant landscaping, but it can still review your plan and regulate gravel, rocks and cacti.
Where artificial turf fits in
Artificial turf is the third option most El Paso yards weigh, and it is a drainage and heat decision as much as a look. The side-by-side comparison of turf, rock and planted xeriscape, including what the base under turf has to do in a monsoon, lives on Sage's artificial turf page. The short version for this page: planting and rock are covered here, turf is a synthetic surface that needs no watering, and the three can share one plan when each goes where it works.
Can my HOA stop me from xeriscaping in Texas?
Not outright. Texas Property Code 202.007 says a property owners' association may not prohibit or restrict an owner from using drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf, and a deed restriction that tries to is void.
The same section leaves the association real control. It may require you to submit a detailed description or plan of the landscape for review and approval, to keep it compatible with the rest of the subdivision, though it may not unreasonably deny or withhold that approval, and it may restrict the type of new turf to water-conserving turf. Rock is its own rule, taken up in the FAQ below. The protection names drought-resistant landscaping and natural turf; whether an HOA can refuse artificial turf is a separate question, answered on the artificial turf page.
HOA approval and a City permit, where one applies, are two separate approvals, and you are the one who submits to the HOA. The plan fixed at Scope Lock, with its render, is drawn to be that submission, so the review happens before anything is dug.
Who installs landscape lighting in El Paso?
In El Paso, as anywhere in Texas, the law lets a landscaper install low-voltage landscape lighting, and the power source it runs from, any new outlet and any line-voltage fixture are electrical work, under its own permit where the City requires one (Texas Occupations Code 1305.003(a)(13)).
El Paso adds its own rules in the Outdoor Lighting Code, EPMC Chapter 18.18. New outdoor fixtures, replacements included, must meet it (18.18.030). Fixtures are located, aimed or shielded to minimize light crossing residential property lines (18.18.100), and light at a residential property line may not exceed 0.25 footcandles measured five feet above grade (18.18.270). On a single-family home, a spot or flood lamp whose source can be seen from another home or a public street is aimed no higher than 25 degrees from straight down (Tables 18.18.070 and 18.18.080), and any fixture of 1,800 lumens or more must be fully shielded (Table 18.18.070). A home is allowed up to 5,500 lumens of outdoor light in total, or more on a parcel large enough for the per-acre cap to allow it, with no more than 5,500 of those lumens unshielded (Table 18.18.080). The code also calls for fixtures in a fixed position, without adjustable hinges or knuckles (18.18.260). Apartments and other multifamily properties use the code's class 1 - 3 standards instead of the residential ones, and under those, decorative lighting, including lighting on trees and landscaping, is turned off from 11 p.m. (or closing time, if later) until sunrise (Table 18.18.070 notes).
Those rules shape the design more than they limit it. Good landscape lighting lights objects, not the yard: a downlight set high in a mesquite canopy puts moonlight and leaf shadow on a path with no glare anywhere in view, a stone or stucco wall grazed from close to its base turns texture into the subject, and where a tree is lit from below, the placement is checked against the code's aiming rule for your lot first. What decides whether it lasts is out of sight: fixture bodies chosen for salty, alkaline ground, cable sized to the length of each run so the far fixture is not dimmer than the near one, and sleeves set under paths and patios while they are still open. The layout is walked at night with you before it is finished.
Which parts of a landscape stay outside Sage's scope in Texas?
Three parts do: the irrigation system, any chemical applied to weeds or pests, and the electrical power for lighting. The irrigation system and any chemical treatment are contracted by you directly with the TCEQ-licensed irrigator or the TDA-licensed applicator. Where a plan includes lighting, the power to it is electrical work, under its own permit where the City requires one, on a schedule Sage coordinates, and Sage stays your one point of contact.
Sage designs and builds the planting, rock, grading and low-voltage lighting. The irrigation system is licensed irrigation work in Texas: a TCEQ-licensed irrigator, with an irrigator license number beginning with LI, designs, installs and repairs it and pulls the City irrigation permit (EPMC 18.47.040), under a contract you hold with them directly. Selling, maintaining and even advising on an irrigation system are licensed irrigation work too (TCEQ), which is why this page explains El Paso Water's watering rules and never how a system should be laid out.
Sage clears weeds and overgrowth by hand and by cutting, and leaves ground cover so the lot does not blow or wash. Any weed or pest treatment with a chemical, including products sold as natural, is licensed work in Texas and is done by a TDA-licensed applicator. Applying fertilizer alone does not call for a licensed applicator, according to TDA.
Where a landscape includes work that needs a City permit, Sage pulls the permit for its own scope under its City of El Paso registration, LCCR26-00183, and any irrigation or electrical work carries its own permit. Whether planting, rock or sod on its own needs any City permit on a given lot is confirmed for the address at the Feasibility Audit rather than assumed, and the City's rules for the other projects in a yard, from walls to patio covers, are on Sage's El Paso permits guide.
Talk it through with Sage
What this city does to this trade.
Heat stacks up at the base of a west wall
Exposure changes from one side of a house to the other. The west and south sides of a house are not the same address as the north side of the same house. A light stucco wall throws the afternoon back at whatever is planted in front of it, and a pale rock or granite surface underneath adds a second helping from below, so a plant rated for full sun can sit in a corner that is effectively hotter than full sun. That is why the plan places tender material where the building shades it in the afternoon, puts the tough species on the hottest exposures, and keeps a strip of organic mulch around the roots even in a rock yard. It is also why a tree on the west side is worth more to the house than the same tree anywhere else: shade on that wall at four in the afternoon changes how the whole yard behaves.
Summer rain arrives as a few violent afternoons
Summer rain in El Paso arrives as an event, not a season: one monsoon cell over your block for forty minutes. In that hour the landscape is the drainage system whether it was designed to be one or not. Sheet flow finds the lowest line across the lot and takes loose granite with it, unanchored bed edges walk outward, a basin dug in the wrong place holds water against a footing, and a canale that lands on bare dirt cuts a channel toward the house in a single storm. The difference between a granite path that is still a path in five years and one that is re-screeded every August is not the material. It is whether the section was compacted, whether the binder was set in a dry window, and whether the edge was anchored into something solid. Deeper yard drainage and grading questions live on the hardscaping page.
The ground changes between two corners of one lot
Caliche does not arrive in a neat layer at a known depth. A planting pit can hit cemented ground at one end of a bed and loose, sandy soil a few feet away, which is why Scope Lock writes down how a pit that hits cemented ground is handled before a machine is on the clock. Two more things follow. Concentrated water sent into a pit or basin near a footing is the right idea in the wrong place, so basin locations are a design decision, not a default feature. And the alkaline, salt-bearing character of the same ground is why the plant palette is chosen against the soil rather than a catalog, and why buried metal, from steel edging to its stakes, is chosen to live in it. Where a wall or grade change is holding back soil rather than defining a bed, that is a different project with its own rules, covered on the rock walls page.
Documented before it is built.
See the xeriscape and desert landscaping Sage does, and how to start.
The grade and the plant schedule are written down before anything is dug
It starts with the complimentary consultation: send photos, Sage calls within one business day, and within 48 hours you get a preliminary project assessment, which is not a price and not a final answer, plus a render if the project is a fit. What gets written down for your lot comes from the paid, on-site Feasibility Audit, a visual walkthrough with measurements and photos: where existing grade actually falls and where the low point is, every roof discharge point and what its water does today, any caliche showing at the surface where the planting pits will go, which exposures run hottest and which are protected, and which City rules the project touches. Those findings come first because a yard that drains toward the house is far easier to correct before the beds and rock go in than after. Scope Lock then fixes the plan in writing before work begins: the plant schedule by botanical name, container size and spacing, the rock and granite sections, the edging and how it is anchored, the boulder count and size range, the grading intent and the lighting fixture schedule. Nothing in the consultation obligates you to build with Sage.
Permits for Sage's scope, and a clean line at the power source
Sage is registered with the City of El Paso, LCCR26-00183, and where any part of a landscape needs a City permit, Sage pulls it for its own scope, and other work carries its own permits. The lighting line is drawn just as plainly. Texas law lets a landscaper install low-voltage landscape lighting, so the fixture layout, the low-voltage cable, the sleeves under paths and patios and the night aiming walk are part of the landscape scope. Bringing power to it is different: a new circuit, a new outlet or any change on a branch circuit is electrical work, under its own permit where the City requires one, on a schedule Sage coordinates. One point of contact carries both, so neither side is waiting on a phone call from the other.
The invisible line items are written as scope
Everything that decides how a landscape ages is buried by the time the yard is finished: how wide the planting pits were opened and whether a cemented layer was carried through, what went back in the hole, where the root flare sits against finished grade, the depth and compaction of the granite section and whether a binder was used, whether the edging is anchored into compacted ground, how the grade was set and whether it was checked after the rock went down, and whether the light fixtures and cable fit the runs and the City's lighting code. Sage writes each of those into the scope under Written Scope, Changes You Approve and Photo Updates, so each one is on paper before work starts and in dated photos while it is built.
More on landscaping and xeriscape.
What days can I water my yard in El Paso?
It depends on your address number. Even-numbered addresses water on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday, odd-numbered addresses on Wednesday, Friday or Sunday, and there is no residential watering on Mondays, per El Paso Water and El Paso Municipal Code 15.13.020. Landscaped areas can be watered up to three days a week all year. A corner building with both an odd and an even number follows the number on El Paso Water's books. On a day your address cannot water, the code still allows a plant that cannot survive without daily water to be watered from a bucket, not a hose (EPMC 15.13.100(M)).
What hours can I water in El Paso in the summer?
From April 1 through September 30, outdoor watering is allowed only before 10 a.m. or after 6 p.m., and only on your address's days (El Paso Water; EPMC 15.13.020(D)). From October through March the hour limit does not apply, but the day schedule still does. For a new planting that matters more than it sounds: the hottest part of a July afternoon is exactly when water is off limits, so plants are chosen and placed to get through that stretch on the water they received early in the morning.
What drives the cost of a landscape in El Paso?
What the ground demands and what the design has to do drive it: how much cemented caliche stands between the surface and a planting pit that drains, how much grading it takes to carry water away from the house, the number and size of boulders and whether a machine can reach where they belong, whether a granite area is a decorative field or a walked, stabilized path, how much steel edging the design needs, the plant sizes and count, and the fixture count on the lighting. Square footage is the weakest predictor on the list, and two yards of the same size on opposite sides of the city can be very different scopes because of what is under them. Pricing is a phone conversation with Sage. The complimentary consultation returns a preliminary assessment within 48 hours, not a price, and the investment is confirmed at the paid on-site Feasibility Audit and fixed in writing at Scope Lock.
Work that sits next to this one.
Artificial Grass and Synthetic Turf
Artificial Turf
Artificial grass and synthetic turf for El Paso yards, play areas and dog runs, built as ground work: what comes out, a base that drains a monsoon storm, edges that hold in the wind, and seams and infill chosen for how the yard is used.
Bermuda Sod and Natural Grass
Sod and Grass
Sod and natural grass installation across El Paso, Texas: the old lawn or rock dug out, soil loosened and graded to fall away from the house and finish flush with the walks, Bermuda or buffalograss sod laid in a staggered pattern and rolled, and steel edging where the lawn meets rock.
Pavers, Patios and Drainage
Hardscaping and Pavers
Paver patios and driveways, flagstone, steps, seat walls and yard grading across El Paso, built from the base up, with the route a monsoon storm's water takes planned before the first unit is laid.
Sources
- El Paso Water, Watering Schedule (days by address, no Monday watering, up to three days a week, April 1 - September 30 hours, 30-day new lawn permits at 915-594-5508). Checked .
- El Paso Municipal Code Chapter 15.13, Water Conservation: 15.13.020 (watering days and hours), 15.13.060 (30-day landscape watering permit; potential damage to landscaping is never an economic hardship for a variance), 15.13.100(M) (bucket watering). Checked .
- El Paso Water, Residential Rebate Programs (current list; no turf, grass removal or xeriscape rebate). Checked .
- El Paso Water, Conservation Progress (past turf replacement rebate removed 11 million square feet of turf). Checked .
- El Paso Water, Seasonal Watering Recommendations for Established Plants (1 - 3 years old): watering depths by plant type. Checked .
- Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, El Paso County, Xeriscape: Landscapes for the Desert Southwest (less than one-half the water; local conditions; seven principles; practical lawns). Checked .
- City of El Paso, Approved Plant and Tree List (City Council, May 25, 2004): water needs, soils, cold hardiness and problems by species. Checked .
- El Paso Municipal Code 9.10.010, Mulberry trees: planting or selling unlawful since September 1, 1992. Checked .
- National Weather Service El Paso, Weather Extremes (mean first and last freeze Nov 13 / Mar 17; latest last freeze May 2, 1967; record low -8 F, Jan 11, 1962). Checked .
- USDA Agricultural Research Service, 2023 Plant Hardiness Zone Map, ZIP code lookup (El Paso ZIP codes checked, 79901 - 79938: zone 8b, 15 to 20 F). Checked .
- National Weather Service El Paso, 100-degree days (average first June 12, average last August 3). Checked .
- National Weather Service El Paso, Monthly precipitation (period-of-record mean 8.70 in, 1879 - 2024; July 1.66, August 1.59, September 1.34). Checked .
- Texas Property Code 202.007, Certain restrictive covenants prohibited (drought-resistant landscaping, plan review, gravel, rocks and cacti). Checked .
- Texas Utilities Code 251.002(5) (excavate: powered or mechanized digging to 16 inches or more) and 251.151 (one-call notice 14 days to 48 hours before excavation). Checked .
- Texas Occupations Code 1305.003(a)(13) (landscapers installing and maintaining low-voltage exterior lighting and holiday lighting, excluding any required power source). Checked .
- El Paso Municipal Code Chapter 18.18, Outdoor Lighting Code: 18.18.030, Table 18.18.070, Table 18.18.080, 18.18.100, 18.18.260, 18.18.270. Checked .
- El Paso Municipal Code 18.47.040 (City permit to install an irrigation system) and 18.47.130(b) (LI number in advertising). Checked .
- TCEQ, Landscape Irrigator license: selling, designing, installing, maintaining, altering, repairing, servicing, inspecting or consulting on an irrigation system is licensed irrigation work. Checked .
- Texas Department of Agriculture, Applying pesticides to ornamentals, trees, lawns or weeds (pesticide application for hire by licensed applicators; fertilizer-only application exempt). Checked .
- El Paso Municipal Code Chapter 9.11, Tree care (public trees). Checked .
- Texas Health and Safety Code 752.003 - 752.004, work within six feet of high voltage overhead lines. Checked .
Start Here
Start with a complimentary consultation.
- Send a few photosCall 915-505-1323 or WhatsApp 3 to 5 phone photos of the yard, in English or Spanish.
- Sage calls youWithin one business day. Your written first read follows within 48 hours of the call. It is not a price and not a final answer.
- If your project is a fit, see it firstYou see your own yard finished, from the same angle, before any work starts. Then you get a written scope with every item listed, and that written scope is what the work follows.