CHRISTINA EICHELKRAUT / PVT The Pahrump Valley Garden Club's cactus garden outside the Pahrump Valley Museum thriving on a beautiful spring day. CHRISTINA EICHELKRAUT / PVT Pahrump Valley Garden Club members Walter Roesch, left, Charlie Gronda (wearing the hat) and Margo Publow harvest cotton from the club's cotton patch outside the Pahrump Valley Museum. Advertisement

The desert doesn't usually conjure up images of lush gardens and landscapes, but for the Pahrump Garden Club growing things in the harsh climate is a challenge they readily accept.

And their success is visible all around town, from the corner garden they maintain at the University of Nevada extension office on the corner of Dandelion Street and Calvada Boulevard to the landscaping work they maintain outside the Pahrump Valley Museum.

The garden at the museum, along the fence facing Basin Avenue, includes a cactus garden and a small cotton patch planted in memory of Mona Hurd, a former Garden Club member who was killed in a car accident last year.

Her memory--and the cotton--were still living on and thriving last Monday as several members harvested the seed-laden tufts planted from 40-year-old seeds donated by Tim Hafen.

The bulging bags of cotton were already slated to be donated to the Fiber Arts Club to be spun into beautiful homemade crafts.

For people with green thumbs who move to southern Nevada from radically different climates, the club is also a perfect way to learn how to plant seeds in the sand and watch them grow.

"It helps show the people of Pahrump how to grow things here and that the desert can be pretty," Carla Stevenson, president, explained.

That's why Sophie Franke, the club's secretary, joined about four years ago.

Franke came to Nevada from Texas, or as she put it, from 45 inches of annual rain to 4.5 inches.

Bill and Margo Publow recently moved to Pahrump after being in Las Vegas for over 30 years and are hoping to add a new garden to their new home here.

"Hopefully we'll be more intelligent about a garden here than we were in Vegas," Bill said.

But the club offers much more than a place to meet people with a common interest.

They also host a number of events that help people enjoy and learn more about gardening.

On Saturday, March 8, for example, the club will host special guest speaker Leslie Doyle, more commonly known as "the tomato lady," who will give tips not only on growing the fruit (that's right, not a vegetable) but on more general desert gardening practices as well.

The event will take place at 9 a.m. at the 4-H building next to the UNVR extension office where the club's regular meetings take place.

Continuing to celebrate spring, the club will also host its second annual Landscape Tour, which is exactly what it sounds like--members travel around the town and visit eight homes with beautiful garden landscapes.

Tickets are $5 dollars and the proceeds from last year's tour went to purchase a Garden Club bench placed near the labyrinth in the Master Gardners garden at the extension office.

Last year's tour also brought Walter Roesch into to the club.

His home was featured on the tour and since he likes to change his landscape and keep his place up, he decided to join the club.

Although a separate organization from the Nevada Master Gardeners, who undergo several months of intense training and study to earn the title, the two groups often work together and several people are members of both organizations.

"They work with us and help us out," Stevenson said. "They're the expert group."

The Garden Club has its roots in the mid-1990s and today has about 40 members.

They meet every second Saturday at the UNVR extension office at 9 a.m.