This booklet is directed towards people who live in Borrego Springs or neighboring desert communities such as Ocotillo Wells, Shelter Valley, Ranchita, Canebrake, and Salton City. But this is a subset of a larger area known as the Lower Colorado Desert that stretches as far as Palm Springs to the north, Yuma to the east, and even Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, to the south. The Lower Colorado is, in turn, part of the vast Sonoran Desert that encompasses most of Arizona and a large part of northern Mexico. So, these gardening principles can be applied over a large area of the desert, even though our focus is on a small slice of it.