Doña Ana County, NM Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

Section 350-507, Landscaping, buffering, and fencing, applies to new commercial, industrial, institutional, and multifamily development, plus street frontages of single-family subdivisions, and exists in part to preserve compatibility with the Chihuahuan Desert ecoregion. Subsection C sets up a plant preservation credit system letting existing vegetation count toward the landscaping a project must install. Under C(2), areas left in a natural condition, including post-development sites that have returned to their pre-development state, qualify for credit if they consist of no less than 50% native plants; an area meeting that threshold satisfies the landscape area requirement at a full 1:1 ratio.

A separate preserved-plants credit in C(3) lets individual established trees and other existing plants count toward the tree and shrub quantity requirements, at set ratios by caliper and square footage of live plant cover, though invasive species listed by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture or USDA cannot be used for any preservation credit. Beyond preservation, § 350-507E(7) requires that low water-use trees and plants make up at least 50% of provided live plant cover under the county's plant list in Appendix X, and E(8) bars any credit for high water-use plants, reinforcing the native/low-water direction of the whole section.

A landscape plan prepared by a professional landscape architect, or by an engineer or architect of record for smaller nonresidential projects, must document how preservation credits and plant selections are applied before permits issue.