The Queen palm is an elegant palm; graceful with its shiny, feathery green foliage that droops down, casting lovely light shade to those underneath it. Small, creamy white or yellow blossoms are produced during the warm season, and followed by little orange, edible fruits. Because fronds can be damaged by high winds and cold weather,…
Pygmy Date Palm is a small, often multi-trunked palm that produces edible fruit! In their younger years, before developing much trunk height, these palms have the distant appearance of a large, fine-textured shrub. While their trunks are slow to develop, they put on foliar growth much more quickly, which allows them to replace frozen winter…
Queen’s wreath is a fast-growing, self-climbing vine with bright green, heart-shaped foliage. Light pink to hot pink blossoms appear amongst foliage in chain-like clusters throughout spring, summer, and fall; birds are especially attracted to them. Queen’s Wreath loves hot spots in the garden, including hot walls with reflected sun. This deciduous vine will happily grow…
Every Landscape in the southwest should have at least one of these drought tolerant, colorful beauties! They seem to be made for our arid climate, greeting the scorching desert heat with clusters of dark orange to yellow flowers that butterflies and hummingbirds find irresistible. ‘Radiation’ is one of the taller shrub lantanas that has proven…
Across the arid southwest, Quail bush offers a humble beauty that is rarely found in plants that are as beneficial to native habitats and natural landscapes. Tolerating intense heat as well as bitter cold, this deciduous shrub can grow in salty, alkaline, or poorly drained soils, and easily survives through extreme drought on natural rainfall,…
This small, ornamental tree provides Tucson gardens with a burgundy leaf color that is truly unique in our desert setting. The cultivar ‘Krauter Vesuvius’ is especially recognized among the Flowering Plums for having the darkest foliage, and for producing little to no fruit – a feature that makes this an ideal tree for shading patios…
Purple Hopseed Bush is native or naturalized in many arid regions of the world; an adaptability that is echoed by this plant’s usefulness in a wide range of landscape styles and situations. Valued for its shiny, dense, purple to bronzy-green foliage and its coarse, tropical texture, this evergreen shrub needs little to no pruning to…
Moss verbena is native to South America, which means it’s no stranger to sun, heat or drought. This hardy groundcover makes itself equally at home on slopes and banks, in rock gardens, and in planters and hanging baskets all over Tucson. The tiny colorful blooms are borne in large round clusters on the ends of…
This evergreen vine is native to Australia, where it is most frequently spotted scrambling over rocky banks, using any neighboring trees and shrubs for upward support. Here in Southwestern U.S., Purple Lilac Vine is more cultivated and tame, often supported by trellises, where the twining, intricate growth patterns and delicate, cascading clusters of tiny purple…