The Aravalli West Thorn Scrub Forests stretch across the northwestern Indian subcontinent, running along the ancient Aravalli Range through the Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir before crossing into Pakistan's Punjab and Sindh provinces. This is xeric thorn scrub: a stunted, open canopy dominated by Acacia species rarely taller than six meters, mixed with Prosopis cineraria, Salvadora, Grewia, Ziziphus, Anogeissus, Capparis, Gardenia, and Carissa. The climate is hot semi-arid to arid, with summer daytime temperatures exceeding 45 degrees Celsius and winter nights that can drop below freezing. Despite heavy clearance for agriculture and grazing, the ecoregion supports a notably rich carnivore community, with the Indian desert cat as its flagship species alongside leopard, caracal, striped hyena, and grey wolf, plus more than 400 bird species including the great Indian bustard and lesser florican. Only about four percent of this vast landscape is protected.

The Deccan thorn scrub forests stretch across the semi-arid heart of India's Deccan Plateau, spanning the states of Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, and reaching south to the Northern Province and Jaffna Peninsula of Sri Lanka. The vegetation is open, low-canopied thorn woodland in which spiny Acacia species dominate, giving way to Euphorbia scrub on the driest, rockiest ground, interspersed with patches of dry deciduous forest and grassland. The climate is hot and seasonally arid, with annual rainfall under 750 mm concentrated between roughly May and October, little to no rain from November through April, and summer temperatures reaching 40 degrees Celsius. Though classified as a critically endangered habitat with only a sliver of its area protected, the region remains the last refuge of the rediscovered Jerdon's courser and supports the great Indian bustard and blackbuck. For gardeners in similar hot, dry climates, this ecoregion is the native home of ornamental genera such as Cordia, Capparis, and the wild date palm Phoenix sylvestris, as well as the rare endemic cycad Cycas beddomei of the Tirupati hills.

The Godavari-Krishna mangroves form a coastal mangrove ecoregion along the eastern seaboard of India, occurring in discontinuous enclaves across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry, with the largest stands concentrated in the deltas of the Godavari and Krishna rivers in Andhra Pradesh. The forests are dominated by salt-tolerant mangrove genera including Avicennia (notably Avicennia marina), Rhizophora, Bruguiera, and the succulent Suaeda, forming a dense canopy over an undergrowth of climbing plants and shrubs. The climate is tropical and strongly monsoonal, shaped by the southwest and northeast monsoons and moderated by the adjacent ocean, with the coast regularly battered by cyclones and tidal surges that the mangroves help buffer. These wetlands are an important refuge for wildlife such as the water monitor lizard and saltwater crocodile and host well over a hundred bird species, among them painted storks, spot-billed pelicans, and flamingos. Much of the original mangrove has been cleared, and only a small share of the ecoregion lies within protected areas such as Point Calimere, Pulicat Lake, and Bhitarkanika, with prawn farming, freshwater diversion, and coastal development the leading ongoing threats.

The Indus Valley desert occupies the heart of Pakistan's Indus Valley, stretching across northwestern Punjab Province between the Chenab and Indus rivers and flanked to the west by mountains. Its sparse vegetation is dominated by drought-hardy xerophytic trees and shrubs, with Prosopis (the khejri) and Tamarix being the characteristic genera, their small waxy leaves adapted to the heat. The climate is one of harsh extremes, swinging from near-freezing winters to summer temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius, with low annual rainfall. Despite these conditions it ranks among the most densely settled deserts on Earth, yet because farming and grazing remain limited its natural habitats are largely intact, sheltering large mammals such as the Indian wolf, striped hyena, caracal, Indian leopard, and Punjab urial alongside roughly 190 bird species, with the red-necked falcon as its flagship. For gardeners drawn to arid-adapted natives, the khejri (Prosopis) is a signature tree of this landscape.

The Afghan Mountains semi-desert covers three disconnected interior valleys on the northern slope of Afghanistan's central mountains, the Koh-i-Baba range and the wider Hindu Kush, reaching from the Hari River valley near Chaghcharan through the Bamyan Valley to Badakhshan Province in the east. These high, dry valleys carry an open cover of thorny shrubs and small trees generally under 1.5 metres tall, with wild almond and pistachio among the characteristic woody plants. The climate is arid and strongly continental, with large seasonal temperature swings and warm summers, and the ground is roughly two-thirds herbaceous cover and one-third bare. Several threatened animals persist here, including the endangered Kashmir musk deer, which serves as the region's flagship species, and the Persian leopard, though overgrazing by livestock presses on the vegetation and the wildlife that depends on it. The ecoregion overlaps Band-e Amir National Park, Afghanistan's first national park and an IUCN-recognized protected area. For gardeners in dry continental climates, the region's native wild almond (Prunus) and pistachio (Pistacia) are familiar drought-adapted genera.

The Alashan Plateau semi-desert straddles the China–Mongolia border, sitting between the Tibetan Plateau to the south and the more arid regions of the Gobi Desert to the north and east, of which it intercepts a large portion. Its basin-and-range landscape carries sparse, drought-adapted vegetation, where salt-tolerant halophytes and xerophytes such as saxaul (Haloxylon ammodendron) and Reaumuria soongorica stabilize the soil, alongside wormwoods (Artemisia) and bean caper (Zygophyllum), with desert poplar (Populus euphratica) and Tamarix along watercourses like the Yellow River. The climate is cold and very arid, with frost and snow on the dunes and very low annual precipitation (around 95 mm/year). The region shelters notable wildlife including the wild Bactrian camel, snow leopard, and Saker falcon, and the black stork serves as its flagship species, though protection remains limited amid threats from illegal mining and overgrazing. For gardeners in cold dry climates, its hardy native genera such as saxaul, Reaumuria, and Artemisia point to plants tolerant of harsh, low-water conditions.