I'm in temperate rainforest land so it's rather different, other than high winds.
I've found some useful resources amongst forest gardening writing. Breaking up the force of the wind helps. Mixed species and height windbreaks. I don't have specific calculations for distance from eg house.
We had to put up a 6-7ft trellis fence blocking the prevailing winds for our nature center demo garden in Kansas. We were able to grow a lot of vines on it and had a ton of birds taking advantage.
As you’ve said you’re in piñon/juniper land, but piñon have been dying of bark beetles and juniper pollen is a hazmat situation in the spring, you’re probably too low for ponderosa even at 6600 ft and they’re all rather slow growing.
Have you considered billboards? Or a row of cell towers?
i don't know much abt 🌬️gardening, but our place in eastern WA was THE place to be for tumbleweeds for 100s of miles. couldn't get rid of them fast enough. so maybe, find out if yard waste pick-up will take tumbleweeds, or if your composter gets hot enough to☠️the seeds, or how to cook them to death.
Are you familiar with Native American Seed Co? They're based out of central/west Texas and grow and sell seeds for native plants (esp. grasses and wildflowers!) Might cover your area.
Also! I know there's a native plant society of TX-- probably there's something similar for NM?
An enthusiastic "YES" to LBJWC, & I've heard good things about Native American Seed. If native plants are a goal, that is, but I'm a member of the Native Plant Society of Texas.
Native Seed Search is, I think, out of Arizona, but they cover the American southwest broadly and may be another good resource. https://www.nativeseeds.org/
Did you know that they have a cabin on their farm y
that you can stay at??? We spent Thanksgiving there with my family and the owners told us that we could forage anything on the property so we collected an unbelievable amount of prickly pears and made syrup, which was delicious.
There seem to be others out there too, but I can’t speak to any of them — I have, however, ordered from the one I linked above for home gardening with decent success, as did family who lived in Albuquerque at the time.
(My stuff is all container though, despite wrestling with high winds aplenty.)
I’m in dry windy N Nevada. I planted windbreaks using hardy native shrubs & trees. Siberian peashrub and three-leaf sumac have grown well & the deer WILL NOT eat them. Others have done well too but needed some protection from deer until they matured.
There are many trees and shrubs that they browse on. They do the most damage during “the rut” in the fall. Trees have to be caged to protect their bark from rubbing antlers.
We have Aleppo Pines that work quite well. We planted two rows of them, staggered, then a few years later another two rows behind the first two. They don’t need a ton of water once they’re established and can handle cold and heat.
Please share what you do with the restoration and the windbreaks, because I've had zero success over the years here in Western New Mexico and I'm always looking for ideas.
We have some ferocious wind up here in Allenspark, CO. The trick seems to be getting trees that grow tall enough but don’t get knocked over by the wind. Unfortunately those are slow growers. Up here the Ponderosa pines do a pretty good job, but I suspect they would not like your elevation.
Also IDK if blue spruce does well where you are but it's our wind break of choice. We are also working on getting elderberry established as those make large shrubs with edible berries for us and wildlife
There is a blue spruce plunked in the middle of the walled garden and it is just…so wildly out of place. Like, it could go ANYWHERE and they dropped it like a lost Christmas tree.
Since mountain just gonna assume largely mono directional winds, walls and baffled are the two ways most plants are baffles, trees waving in the wind is baffling the wind. House is a wall to the wind. Walls create wind shadows baffles slow wind speed.
For plants either need a strong plant to work as baffle OR layers of plants. In the front could be tall grasses followed by some sturdy shrubs and than short trees and last tall trees. Those plants in front reduce the loading of wind on the tall trees. Behind this wall of layered plants will be a
Big slow wind zone. Of course you can mix a wall into the plants (big rocks, sheds, barns, grand statues of red pandas etc) since in general the goal is like a beaver dam, not to stop the wind but to slow it.
@tkingfisher.com, meet @amorse.bsky.social - I would venture to guess she knows exactly who to connect you to re: restoring rangeland in ABQ, along with all manner of other wonderful outdoors and artsy local knowledge.
If there are oak trees native to your region, they aren't usually bothered by high winds. The oak trees around here sometimes hold onto their leaves in winter.
I have not managed to get more than a couple of containers going out here yet, but a lot of folks in the East Mountains will have some sort of covered bed so they can protect from hail, wind, & sun. (Pictures from the East Mountain Gardeners FB group)
My parents in Cap-Pelé (Cape Bald, for the absence of trees, built their house in a previous potatoe field), did cluster planting of local species from weeds to shrubs to trees over a few years. The lower protecting the higher as it grew strong enough.
The people who bought the house were very invested in the concept of Cap-Pelé I guess, they cut most of the 30 yo trees after buying it, even though they were planted specifically to not block the view of anything interesting. I can't look at their aribnb listing - it breaks my heart.
If native plant use be a criterion, which may or may not be, eastern (Thuja occidentalis) isn't closer than Iowa or more south than North Carolina, & western (Thuja plicata) no closer than Montana.
FYI, they are on the list of things deer will eat. I know someone with a line of arborvitae that look like someone poodle shaved them (the parts above deer reach are fine; below is just empty branches).
Visit Parker’s greenhouse in the spring to get trees already acclimated. Also because Parker’s is great. Lots of ideas. Close to you. Another fun place is new greenhouse and cafe just north of frost road on north 14. I forget its name.
New Mexico forestiera or nm olive. Great trees for that area. Grow fast and tolerate wind. When we lived in the east mountains I grew several on a very windy site.
I’ve got feral nm olives on my 20ac in the Zuni mtns at 7500 feet. They’re nice, but more like scraggly bushes, not one is much taller than me. I didn't think of them as windbreak material.
The area was clear cut in about 1930, and burned, but the ponderosa have grown back 50 feet tall.
You can prune them into a tree or let them be bushy. They are very forgiving when you prune them. They can put on two feet of branch growth in a year at times.
Comments
I've found some useful resources amongst forest gardening writing. Breaking up the force of the wind helps. Mixed species and height windbreaks. I don't have specific calculations for distance from eg house.
https://www.ciudadswcd.org
https://aces.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/2008/053108.html
https://extension.nmsu.edu/areas/garden.html
Have you considered billboards? Or a row of cell towers?
They claim to be fast growing drought tolerant and hardy, but I don’t know.
Sorry, not very helpful. I don’t recall seeing any successful windbreaks growing on the eastern plains.
Also! I know there's a native plant society of TX-- probably there's something similar for NM?
Apologies that all my resources are Texas-leaning!
that you can stay at??? We spent Thanksgiving there with my family and the owners told us that we could forage anything on the property so we collected an unbelievable amount of prickly pears and made syrup, which was delicious.
(My stuff is all container though, despite wrestling with high winds aplenty.)
https://www.highcountrygardens.com/?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkJO8BhCGARIsAMkswyhV9xUaQVwkZnLituGpiTQ09lmzLYo7P0rRu9fQ4RS_-LJAaOguOcAaAs-vEALw_wcB
We moved here in 1985. Central Arizona, scorching summer temps, 6-7 inches of rain in a good year.
I've never watered the arborvitae. They survive on the meager rains and some roof runoff. I'd say they're pretty durable.
Also if some walls are a good height for sitting on, they can be handy seating as well....
The area was clear cut in about 1930, and burned, but the ponderosa have grown back 50 feet tall.