Soil salinization and freshwater scarcity increasingly constrain vegetation restoration in arid regions, creating an urgent need to integrate saline-water utilization with salt-tolerant plant establishment. Here, a three-year field experiment was conducted on highly salinized soils in the Dananhu area of Hami, Xinjiang (China) to evaluate growth performance and biochemical regulation of three representative halophytes, Haloxylon ammodendron, Tamarix ramosissima, and Nitraria roborowskii, under saline drip irrigation. Five irrigation salinity levels were applied: 0, 4, 8, 12, and 16 g L- 1. Annual increments in plant height, basal diameter, crown breadth, and new shoot length were measured during 2022-2024, whereas biochemical samples were collected in 2024 at the same growth stage to determine chlorophyll a, malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase activity, soluble sugars, and proline. Species identity significantly affected all measured growth traits, whereas salinity effects varied among years and traits. Significant species & times; salinity interactions occurred for all traits in 2022, for plant height, basal diameter, and crown breadth in 2023, and for crown breadth and new shoot length in 2024. Across salinity treatments, T. ramosissima generally exhibited greater annual new shoot increments than the other species, whereas H. ammodendron showed higher basal diameter increments under several treatments, and N. roborowskii had larger crown breadth increments. Chlorophyll a decreased with salinity, whereas malondialdehyde and proline increased. SOD activity peaked at 12 g L- 1 and declined at 16 g L- 1, while soluble sugar content showed a similar unimodal trend in H. ammodendron and T. ramosissima but remained relatively high in N. roborowskii across saline treatments. These findings provide a field-based framework for integrating species selection with saline-water management in highly saline arid environments.