Useful Plants from Robert Nold’s “High and Dry”

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One of the more challenging environments for food production is cold and arid. I’ve been investigating useful perennial plants for that climate for many years. A few years ago I purchased Robert Nold’s High and Dry: Gardening with Cold-Hardy Dryland Plants. Robert isn’t interested in growing these plants for food, but he has an incredible wealth of knowledge and years of experience in growing plants in his Littleton, Colorado garden with 10″/250mm of precipitation a year and -10F/-23C winter temperatures.

I was fortunate to be able to visit Robert and his garden with a class last year. It was fascinating to see his collection, and I was struck by the beauty of these tough high desert survivors.

Robert’s book is quite remarkable and offers great information on growing and propagating these species. He doesn’t say which are edible or otherwise useful though. This article is intended as a “key” to help permaculturists and edible landscapers utilize his book to select species for a cold, arid perennial food production system. I’ve already cross-indexed them with other resources for you. High and Dry also has much to say on the subject of gardening in cold, dry climates in general – for example, he reports that most of these plants grow in soils with little or no organic matter in their native habitats, and are more vulnerable to disease in compost-enriched soils.

This article features many of the useful species from High and Dry. Get a copy and read it to learn all about his experiences growing them. All of these species have survived Bob’s test conditions of 10″/250mm of rainfall a year and -10F/-23C. All are native to the western United States, and some to adjacent Canada and Mexico as well. Of course there are many other useful species, native and not, that are suited to this area. Growers in other cold, dry regions (particularly in Central Asia) may also want to grow some of these species.

My sense is that these might represent the things you grow farther from home, while close by you’d have water-loving crops like peaches and apples watered by greywater and roofwater (or plain old drip irrigation).

TREES

Few trees grow in the high and dry country, and fewer still are much use to us in the food forest. Here are some good ones recommended by Nold. Pinyons are slow to grow and don’t bear annually but can grow where nothing else will. Mesquites are delicious and nitrogen fixing. We could use people identifying and propagating good forms of oak, mesquite, and pinyon.

Latin Name	Common Name	Uses	Functions
Cercocarpus ledifolius	mountain mahogany		nitrogen-fixer
Pinus edulis, P. monophylla	pinyon pine	nuts
Prosopis glandulosa	honeypod mesquite	staple pods, honey plant, coppiced firewood	nitrogen-fixer, fodder pods
Quercus emoryi, Q. hybrids, Q. undulata	“sweet” acorn oaks
Robinia neomexicana	New Mexico locust	edible flowers, firewood	nitrogen-fixer

Cercocarpus ledifolius is a very tough nitrogen-fixer, handling arid conditions and -50F/-45C! Robert’s garden.

SHRUBS

This region excels in useful shrubs, including many edible berries and a large number of legume and non-legume nitrogen-fixers.

Latin Name	Common Name	Uses	Functions
Amelanchier alnifolia, A. utahensis	serviceberry	berries
Amorpha fruticosa, A. nana	false indigo	pesticide	nitrogen-fixer, contour hedgerow
Ceanothus fendleri, C. velutinus	snowbrush		nitrogen-fixer
Cercocarpus montanus	mountain mahogany		nitrogen-fixer
Elaeagnus commutata	silverberry	soap	nitrogen-fixer
Fallugia paradoxa	Apache plume		nitrogen-fixer
Lycium pallidum	wolfberry	fruit (native goji)
Prunus americana	American plum	fruit
P. besseyi	sand cherry	fruit
P. virginiana	chokecherry	fruit
Purshia tridentata	bitterbrush		nitrogen-fixer
Ribes aureum, R. cereum, R. odoratum	currants	fruit
Shepherdia argentea, S. canadensis	buffalo berry	fruit (not fantastic), soap	nitrogen-fixer

SUCCULENTS

This group includes cacti and “woody lilies” like agaves and yuccas. There are many useful species in this group. I’m not aware of any prickly pears with inedible fruit or pads, for example – though many are so small or spiny as to be not worth the trouble. A form of O. phaeacantha called “Mesa Sky” is noted for having particularly good fruit, while O. basilaris var. aurea is relatively spineless for nopale (edible cactus pad) production. I’m unaware of improved agaves or banana yuccas but would love to see people out there testing, selecting, and propagating them!

Latin Name	Common Name	Uses	Functions
Agave parreyi	agave	swollen base cooked just before flowering	living fence
Cylindropuntia imbricata, C. whippleyi	cholla cacti	flowerbuds, fruit	living fence
Echinocereus engelmannii, E. stramineus	strawberry cacti	fruit
Mammillaria heyderi, M. wrightii	pincushion cacti	fruit
Opuntia basilaris, O. englemannii, O. fragilis, O. macrocentra, O. phaeacantha, O. polyacantha	prickly pear cacti	fruit, nopale vegetable pads	living fence (some)
Pediocactus simpsonii	hedgehog cacti	fruit
Yucca baccatta	banana yucca	cooked fruit, fiber	living fence

 

HERBACEOUS PLANTS

The region excels in edible roots. Though I’ve not included them here, Nold lists a hundred or so plants in the aster family, which attract beneficial insects.

Latin Name	Common Name	Uses	Functions
Amorpha canescens	leadplant	tea	nitrogen-fixer
Brodiaea spp.		bulbs
Callirhoe involucrata	purple poppy-mallow	roots	groundcover
Calochortus spp.	Sego lily	roots
Cucurbita foetidissima	buffalo gourd	seeds	groundcover
Dalea spp.	prairie clover		nitrogen-fixer
Dichelostemma spp.		bulbs
Erigeron flagellaris	fleabane		attracts beneficial insects, groundcover
Helianthus maximiliani	Maximilian sunflower	shoots, seeds	attract beneficial insects
Ipomoea leptophylla	manroot	roots
Lewisia spp.	bitterroot	roots
Lomatium spp.	biscuit roots	Roots	attract beneficial insects
Lupinus spp.	lupine		nitrogen-fixer
Oryzopsis hymenoides	Indian ricegrass	seeds
Phacelia tanacetifolia	scorpion weed		attracts beneficial insects