Category: flowers for desert gardens

Red and green for holiday color in a hot dry garden

If you had planted  “Wonderful” pomegranate shrubs last Spring, and did not harvest the fruit this Fall, you would have plants in your garden that appear to have big, brilliant red Christmas tree ornaments on them.  Of course, the leaves on your pom shrubs would have turned a glorious gold then fallen, so your red “ornaments” would be on bare branches now.  

Mother Nature’s holiday ornament!

If you are thinking of adding a pomegranates to your garden in Spring, you will be happy to know they are very drought tolerant, as you can read here. The name “Wonderful” designates one of the best varieties of pomegranates for private gardens.

If you are reading this post in Australia or elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, pomegranates bear fruit from March to May, rather than from September to February as they do in the U.S. Southwest.

Among the other plants that will give you green and red during the holiday is the very drought tolerant Heavenly Bamboo, (Nandina domestica), which has bright red berries, reddish leaves and is not a bamboo at all.  I am not a big fan of the shape of this plant; it looks too much like a cluster of sticks to my eye…but nonetheless I do love the winter color and the fact that it will survive with considerable neglect.

This Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina domestica) is beginning to change from summer green to winter red.

Surviving considerable neglect is also a prime characteristic of the sturdy bottle brush, another plant that I do not care for–well, I don’t like the big tall ones with red blooms that are used as center barriers along freeways in California. 

Dwarf bottle brush “Little John” as a low hedge beside ice plant in a very drought tolerant planting in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.

BUT I really love the dwarf bottle brush variety Callistemon ‘Little John’ which is very suitable for home gardens. Instead of primary colors of plain red and plain green, this low-growing shrub has a blueish-grey cast to the leaves and a burgundy color flower.  

This drought-tolerant, dwarf Callistemon “‘Little John’ grows slowly, rarely needs any pruning and is colorful in Fall and winter.

Now there is one other color for the holiday season and that is white, as in white Amaryllis, the ones that you force for winter.  They are big and bold and can be transplanted into a sheltered corner of your hot, dry garden to bloom again year after year.  I did exactly that in Las Vegas, but the next bloom came over a year later near Easter, rather than Christmas. Since then it has bloomed regularly in the Spring.

And be sure to put luminarias out for the holidays to line your patio or walkway.  The old-fashioned way to do them is put tea lights inside paper bags. On Amazon the manufacturers state that the bags are fire resistant. If you can find them I’d recommend terra cota luminarias, some of which are battery powered, and you can use them year after year.

Finally…I am moving after the first of the year so I will be publishing this blog only on an irregular basis until I am settled into my new home. Happy New Year to you!

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Surprise! Sun-loving Iris are drought tolerant, but daffodils–not so much

White iris Arlington Garden Pasadena

How I love the ruffled beauty of iris and when I discovered, after moving to the desert, that iris are tougher than their delicate flowers look I became an even bigger fan of these spring-bloomers.  They need only a little water and after the flowers have faded the iris leaves create an attractive upright element in a garden border.

Some people make the mistake a cutting the leaves back right after the flowers fade. True Confession: I don’t cut my iris back annually–only when I want to divide and replant them every few years. If you intend to transplant your iris, cut the leaves at an angle and 4 inches high before lifting them from the soil. Let the rhizomes dry out for a few days before replanting.

purple and white iris

The best time to plant iris is now so you will have flowers in spring. Unlike daffodils, lilies, crocus or other plants with bulbs which should be planted deep, iris have rhizomes (thick bulbus roots) which should be planted flat and shallowly in an area that receives at least 6 hours of sun a day. Just put a thin layer of soil over the rhizomes–not a thick layer of mulch.  It is important that the soil drains well; iris rhizomes can rot with too much water.  And using high nitrogen fertilizer is a no-no for iris.

Oh, one other thing: there are iris that bloom both in Spring and Fall.  When I first learned about them I was thrilled with the prospect of iris twice a year. It turns out, however, they’re really not suitable for arid gardens because they require a great deal of watering.

While I mentioned daffodils and lilies, etc. most of them will not survive in an arid garden. One friend is Tucson, however, planted Paperwhite Narcissus in a very sheltered corner of her garden and they have survived and bloomed again and again.

Gladiolus dalenii

Many gardeners in arid climates have success with South African plants that grow from bulbs like this Gladiolus Dalenii. This gladiolus does not have the big, flashy blooms we often associate with “glads”, but it will survive in an arid garden.  For other South African plants suitable for hot, dry gardens, take a look at the Pacific Horticulture Society website.  

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat