Gorgeous Fall Color in Las Cruces

The wonderful changing of the leaves continues, with this flame-leaf example on the NMSU campus.

Retire in Las Cruces for a true four-season climate! Yes, the summers are blazing hot and long, but we also have the other three seasons well-represented. It's a mild climate, overall. The low humidity and the plentiful sunshine helps many people's arthritis, and it certainly helps keep "SAD," Seasonal Affective Disorder, at bay, speaking from personal experience.

Join the other retirees in Las Cruces and experience four wonderful seasons!

First Glimmers of True Autumn

We had a cool snap about three weeks ago, but now true fall is arriving. It's a relief not to have scorching hot days. Many love the warmth here, but by October, I think even the most ardent summer fans are ready for a change.

Around town, leaves are changing and berries are ripening. These Mountain Ash berries are on the grounds of the Immaculate Heart of Mary cathedral. Beautiful! So much nature to enjoy in Las Cruces. Make southern New Mexico your retirement home!

Beautiful Profusion of Blooms in Autumn in Enchanted Las Cruces

 While other locales are seeing blooms wither and fade, Las Cruces sees an explosion of beautiful blossoms. The plants seem to catch their breath after the scorching summer, and celebrate by putting on an autumn show.

Other areas may have the beauty of leaves turning colors -- and we do too, by the way, as will be shown in an upcoming post -- but we have the flowers of fall.

Here, clamboring over a wall on a deserted adobe home, is Coral Vine. The beauty of this vine when seen in person is just indescribable. It has such grace of habit, and the vivid pink color is striking.

Also making a good show is Texas Yellow Bells, a plant native to the U.S. It has an airy, upright growth pattern and holds its bright yellow bells out into the sun. 

Texas Yellow Bells have a cousin, Orange Bells, just as lovely and with a rich, golden yellow/mahogany shade.

If you love gardening, you will enjoy retiring to Las Cruces, where it's easy to grow so many beautiful and rare plants that bloom almost year around!

NMSU a Haven for Students

 NMSU isn't just an ordinary land grant university: It is truly a haven for its students. 

Do you have college-aged children or grandchildren? NMSU offers so much more than many other universities. 

It has a huge amount of married student housing, allowing many who would be unable to afford to attend college a huge boost and a way to get the skills they need for a career. From single-family houses to modern apartment homes, NMSU offers daycare right on campus, maintains both a clothing closet and a food bank for "Aggies," and also has student garden plots available on campus. 

For single students, they can choose from vintage dorm living or modern suites. Some apartment-style dorms are available with exterior private entrances into each apartment, for the more mature students. Freshmen and those benefitting from more support can choose dorms with a main entrance, house mothers, peer helpers, and laundry service.

But it's the garden plots that amazed and pleased me. There is nothing like growing plants to give a student a feeling of belonging, of being a part of the very land the college stands upon. Little gardens are sprinkled through the entire married student villages. Acres of gardens are along the edge of campus, too. Going to college is hard, but NMSU makes it easier. It may not have the cachet of an "Ivy League" school, but in practical terms, it is unbeatable. And the new medical college is an added bonus! 

Retiring to Las Cruces has never been a better idea!

The Aggies Are Back This Fall

NMSU, the large state university located in Las Cruces, is open despite COVID-19 this semester, at least so far. Usually, avoiding University Avenue while college is in session is a good idea, especially around lunch time, but with such reduced numbers attending, traffic remains light and unchallenged by students pouring across every corner by using the automatic crosswalk lights. 

The NMSU campus is just gorgeous. It is shady (always a good thing here) compared to the surrounding area, and has numerous interesting flowers and foilage plants. It is kept immaculately clean, trimmed, and swept. It's a beautiful choice for a walk any time of year.

Beauty is hidden around every corner: Either flowers blooming in profusion, the surprise of a muskrat pond, expanses of lawn (very rare here), antique buildings, Spanish-style architecture, and more.

For seniors interested in keeping our minds sharp, sit in an undergraduate classes just like a regular student, for $5 per credit hour, up to 10 hours. You earn the credit, just as usual, but are on a non-degree-seeking track. If you want to seek a degree, you can, just pay the regular tuition instead of the reduced rate. 

The photographs show autumn's bloomfest of the Esperanza plant, also called Texas Yellow Bells. They are found all over the older part of campus, with blooms in the millions during the early part of October.

Come retire here!

Las Cruces Retirement in the "Palm" of Your Hand

The landscape in Las Cruces is punctuated by soaring palms, their fronts stirring in the desert wind. Unlike tropical palms swaying above a bay, our palms grow straight upward and do not bend in our sometimes-fierce winds. 

Some of the palms are date palms, and long trusses of ripe dates fall into your yard, ready to eat. Others you will see here, usually the pride of the whole landscaping, are Mediterranean Palms, which are good for petite yards at only 20 feet high at maturity, and California Palms, which soar into the sky to 40 feet.

The NMSU campus has many mature palms gracing its lovely grounds. 

 

The tallest palm here is the gorgeous Mexican Fan Palm, which dwarfs many others at 100 feet tall. These stick up all over town. These are the palms you see with a large "pineapple" growning beneath the fronds -- the "pineapple" is the cut ends of the fronts forming a bulged out area that looks like a giganitic pineapple.

If you want a very short palm, consider planting the Pindo Palm, which also produces delicious fruit. A palm that is short for about ten years before suddenly elongating is the Canary Date Palm. Finally, the Windmill Palm has a very wide crown and is short until about its tenth year. It's a show-stopper with the breadth of its fronds, which are also a lot larger than most palms'.

A mature palm adds value to homes here. When you move to Las Cruces, consider adding a palm if your yard doesn't have one!

Las Cruces Landscapes Still Vibrant in Autumn

We have a long growing season here in the Mesilla Valley, where Las Cruces is nestled. With relief from scorching summer temperatures, the plants seem to catch their breath and find the energy to put on another show before the curtain of winter falls.

Do you love to garden? Does lots of sunshine perk you up? Las Cruces might be a perfect fit for your retirement needs. It has all the amenities of a city, yet still has a rural feel, thanks to the large NMSU campus and all the agriculture up and down the valley and tucked into neighborhoods such as Mesilla. Urban farming is starting here, too, with micro-farms in backyards, sideyards, and vacant lots. 

This side yard brings joy to all who pass by. Even with limited water, the desert here blooms beautifully. Make your retirement home in Las Cruces, and bloom along with our plants!

Beauty All Around in Las Cruces

 

There's a special feature of many homes in Las Cruces and the surrounding area (Mesilla, Mesilla Park) that other parts of the country don't have: EBID rights. What? Elephant Butte Irrigation District water rights! For low fees, property that comes with EBID "rights" can purchase water from the Rio Grande. The water gets to these homes via many large and small "ditches" with "gates" and pumps along them. When it's a certain neighborhood's turn to get the river water, a "ditch rider" drives along the right-of-way along the ditches and opens the gates, times the water, and then closes the gates. While the water is flowing, the properties along the ditches open their gates, or sluices, and the water flows into their yards. 

This is magical water! Anything it touches, it replenishes and makes grow luxuriantly! Roses, apples, pecans, pomegranites, orchard grass, vegetables -- ANYTHING -- grows so beautifully with river water.

The mountain ash tree shown in this post and full of berries is located in the Garcia Park Botanical Garden, maintained by NMSU. It's right on a ditch and the plants receive all the good Rio Grande water they can drink! 

Of course, homes without EBID rights can also have lovely landscaping. Most landscaping away from the EBID ditches feature xeriscapes, which highlight native and desert plants and different types of rocks and gravel instead of lawns. But some people have lovely lawns and they shimmer like an oasis in the sunlight. 

The home we bought doesn't have EBID rights and is up too high from the valley to be near the ditches. But we have several mature trees that are gorgeous, and have put in some grape vines, too. And we have many flowers growing in galvanized stock tanks in our front courtyard!

Houses with EBID rights are very special. If you love gardening, consider trying to buy a home that comes with EBID rights when you retire to beautiful Las Cruces!