Country

Curaçao: one ecoregion. Each with its climate now and toward 2050, and its conservation tier.

Curaçao belongs entirely to the Caribbean shrublands, a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion of the southern Caribbean's dry islands. That single classification says most of what a gardener needs to know: despite the tropical latitude, this is an arid island where cactus, thorny scrub, and drought-hardened shrubs are the natural vegetation, not rain forest. Constant trade winds and salt exposure sharpen the dryness. Planting that fights this, with thirsty tropical ornamentals and lawns, demands water the island does not have to spare; planting that works with it, using columnar cacti, succulents, and the native dry-scrub trees and shrubs, thrives with little help. The ecoregion's Nature Could Recover tier suggests the native shrubland can regain ground, and gardens full of its own species are part of how.