Not sure what your conditions are in southern NM, nlhj, but I lived in Santa Fe at 7000 ft altitude and the sun was pretty strong. At the time I was raising my semps, those few years were pretty dry and as a result of lack of water, the fauna sought to eat whatever greenery it could including the succulents I was raising outdoors. To help protect them in their pots and flats, I raised them up on barrels and left them outside all year round. To protect them during the hottest part of the seasons, I placed shade cloth over them. With no irrigation system and lack of sufficient rainfall, I hand watered the pots during the Spring and Summer.
Now if where you live, you do have the problem of animals wandering into your yard, brutal sun all day and lack of water then it will be quite a chore to raise Sempervivums and Sedums in the ground. Semps don't have very deep root systems so they don't need a lot of water. Sedums need a little more water and a little shade. You might want to consider growing these outdoors in containers to give you more flexibility in care of light exposure and watering. If these plants could be planted into a protected space with sun at a lower altitude and water enough to keep them healthy, then it might just be a fun experience to indulge in these plants.
