Porchscaping: Southwestern Style

Change the personality of your porch by adding southwestern-style elements in a mix of rustic furnishings, fabrics, and tough-as-nails plants. By Karen Weir-Jimerson

Channel Your Inner Cowgirl/boy

Kick up a Southwestern dining area on your front porch with simple elements. Lay down a colorful rug, then build upward with a rustic table and chairs, sculptural low-maintenance plants, and some fun desert-inspired details.

Decorate Like the Desert

Add Southwestern style with plants that include sturdy structural beauties such as standard dracaena (which does a great imitation of a Joshua tree). Tree varieties of houseplants (such as dracaena or yucca) are ideal for creating a privacy screen on a porch or terrace.
Here’s a space-saving tip: Tree versions of large houseplants excel in small spots; their slender bases and big tops fit nearly any small space.

Get ideas for other houseplant trees.

Pack a Box of Succulents

Succulents are the textural stars of a Southwestern-style porch. These luscious lovelies come in a wide range of shapes and colors. They’re easy to mix and match in containers. Start with a shallow box or bowl and fill with a well-draining soil (a mix of sand and small pebbles helps encourage drainage). Pack plants in together tightly and enjoy a tabletop desertscape.

Choose Bold Bloomers

Desert rose (Adenium obesum) offers trumpet-shape blossoms in red, pink, purple, and white. The succulent-like plant looks like a bonsai because it has a large swollen trunk (that holds water for dry times). These beauties thrive in hot, humid weather and love full sunlight.

Corral a Container

Like succulents, snake plant (aka Sanseviera) is a low-water beauty that looks great alone or corralled together with several friends. These easy-care plants come in a variety of heights and forms -- from short varieties to long spears reaching 5 feet tall. Try variegated yellow-and-green versions for an extra pop of color.

Outfit a Small Space

Even small spaces can shine with spare Southwestern style. Choose vertically inclined varieties such as dracaena standards and tall snake plants and euphorbias on postage-stamp-size porches. Using small furniture makes space feel larger. A lineup of barrel cactus in terra cotta pots adds a modern touch.

Get Prickly

The round shape and criss-crossed spines of barrel cactus make it a fearsome beauty. Don’t bump against them! For all their prickly demeanor, these easy-care plants can go without water for months, so they are ideal options for travelers, weekend gardeners, and those who just forget to water (no judging!).

Serve up a Cactus Garden

Beautiful and carefree, a tabletop cactus garden is the perfect accessory for a desert-inspired porch. You can buy them readymade or design your own using succulents, cactus, and pebble mulch.

Add a Wagonwheel of Succulents

A flat-base chandelier gives up its candles to shine in another way; it becomes a hanging succulent circle. Succulent plants have good looks and easy charm which allows them to fit into any décor. These easy plants like it on the dry side, so you won't need to water much.