Recently responses of plant phenology to climate warming have become a hot topic both in the plant phenology and the climate change studies. However, reports of desert plant to climate warming based on a long-term observation are quite few. In this study, a 34-years observation was carried out to reveal the responses of phenology of 42 desert plant species (including mesophyte and xerophyte) to climate changes in Minqin, a typical desert area in the Northwest China. Results showed that spring phenophases were significantly greater than reported by others. In the process of climate warming, change of monthly average temperature in different months and change of annual mean temperature was not corresponding entirely. The influence on phenophase by monthly average temperature in the phenophase month was more obviously than that in the last month, and annual mean temperature influenced phenophase the least. The study area locates in China typical desertification areas and has an arid desert climate; air temperature rising in spring is faster than other regions. This is the reason of advanced spring phenophase in local area; it is also the reason that it has more sandstorms and the in-advance date of sandstorms over the past several decades in this area as well as China′s northwest sand area.