Category: hot dry gardens

Fragrant and showy African plants for your hot, dry garden

November means fewer hot days in the Northern Hemisphere but in the Southern one, it’s Spring and plants are beginning to rise up toward the sun and bloom. Happily, many, particularly from South Africa, are suitable for our hot dry gardens.

One of the most fragrant South African flowers I know and love is the Freesia, a member of the Iris family. It blooms in Springtime and then the leaves die back to the ground. While often Freesia plants are grown in pots where they may flower year after year, in most of the desert Southwest the Freesia bulbs (also called corms) are planted in the ground. If you are brave try simply leaving them in the ground. Some people prefer to dig the bulbs up and replant. Properly cared for they will bloom again for 7 to 9 years. The hybrids come in many colors, but the white and yellow blooms seem to be the most fragrant. And–maybe best of all– they are very easy to grow: just stick the bulbs in a hole 2 inches deep, cover it and then water lightly. Come Spring warmth they bloom.

Another choice is the freesia-like Tritonia, originally found in Mozambique but now common in the Cape region of South Africa. It looks similar and is very tough. Many are very fragrant, especially after dark, but two, Tritonia Pink and Tritonia Cream are fragrance free.

Iris in a desert garden is unexpected

For a more showy plant in a garden border, choose Iris, a native of Egypt in northern Africa. Its flashy blue and purple and yellow flowers are surprising in any garden and moreso in a desert environment. In hot, dry climates they grow beautifully from rhizomes, a flat, lumpy and thick root-like structure. (Not a round bulb like the Freesia has.)

I recently planned to add Iris to my garden because, not only are the flowers a visual delight, Iris leaves remain upright after blooming and add structure to a garden border. But when I saw the price for one rhizome cutting I was surprised. Ok, they were rhizome cuttings from rare/unusual Iris, but–wow, they were much more than I anticipated. So I would advise you, if you already have Iris, split your own rhizomes, and replant so you have twice as many in late Spring. You might want to offer to swap rhizome cuttings with a gardening friend or neighbor to get different colors.

How to split Iris rhizomes

After you dig up the Iris rhizome, cut the leaves back to about 5 or 6 inches then divide the rhizome by pulling it apart at the joints. If it doesn’t break easily cut it into large pieces using a sharp, knife sterilized by dipping it in bleach and water.

Okay, now here is where planting Iris is different from most plantings. Do not use compost. Do not heap mulch around the plant. Do not plant it deep. Iris like it plain and simple. Just dig a shallow hole about ten inches wide by three or four inches deep and place the rhizome with a few leaves still attached on a low mound of desert soil in the hole. Then fill the hole with the TOP of the Iris rhizome still visible. Pro Tip: If the rhizome is soft and squishy, throw it out.

South Africa is the home of gladiolus

Yes. Those big, showy “glads” in American gardens come from the original ancestor in South Africa. And here are even more plants from there suitable for desert Southwest gardens.

Gladiolus dalenii


Gladiolus These Gladiolus (Gladiolus dalenii) are a delicate version of the large, sturdy upright “glads” of summer. Our European-style upright ones are hybrids based on these South African natives. These bloom in Spring.

You may be much better off planting bulbs native to South Africa, such as the or the Watsonia borbonica, also called the Pink Watsonia or the Bugle Lily. It, too, resembles miniature gladiolus.

I wish I could tell you to plant Agapanthus, yet another South African native, but, sadly, they do not survive in desert heat.

In the next newsletter look for information about the plants from another Southern Hemisphere locale, Australia. Some of their natives thrive in our hot dry gardens.

Visit my author’s site to see books I’ve written
and read a chapter of the children’s book free

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

5 tips for winterizing your desert garden

In winter there is much more variation in temperatures in the areas called “deserts” in the Southwest–the areas where annual rainfall is low. Winter in Phoenix gives gardeners a break from those 110F daytime highs of summer. The average daytime high in Phoenix in winter is 68F and in Palm Springs it’s 72F. The average daytime winter high in Las Vegas is 58F and in El Paso it’s 59F. That sounds like good news for desert gardens — right?

But that’s only part of the story. Then there are the winter nighttime lows. If you live in central Phoenix or Palm Springs your garden will not be frost-bitten in winters. You can safely garden without worry, 12 months of the year. (Phoenix suburbs and other towns in the desert southwest at higher elevations may end up with overnight freezing temperatures, so watch your local weather report.)

Gardeners in Las Vegas, however, will have about 24 days of overnight winter frost. And dry El Paso? Wow–gardens there are enduring overnight frost as many as 75 times a year. So here are some tips about winterizing those gardens.

Tip 1: Protect against frost

Cover tender plants with frost cloths, burlap, or old sheets. Avoid plastic, which traps moisture and causes damage. Anchor coverings to the ground to trap soil warmth. Prioritize protection for citrus trees, succulents, and young ornamentals.

Tip 2: Know your plants’ limits

Not all desert plants are equally hardy. Many cacti, including the very popular Barrell Cactus, will tolerate a light frost, but suffer under prolonged hours of freezing temperatures. Prickly pear and saguaro are hardy, if they are not water-logged from too much irrigation.

Succulents, like aloe, are tougher, while others, like echeveria, are delicate. And it almost goes without saying, but I will say it anyway: non-native plants, including shrubs and trees, are especially vulnerable and can be damaged by night freezes. For example, my favorite palm tree, the Queen Palm, (Syagrus romanzoffiana) hates cold weather so I was unable to plant it safely in Las Vegas. It would have not survived the first cold winter there.

If you have plants in containers that are sensitive to freezing temperatures, bring them indoors or tuck into a sheltered patio.

Tip 3: Adjust your watering schedule

Cooler temperatures and fewer hours of sunlight mean slower evaporation so reduce watering frequency and duration to prevent root rot. Dormant plants need little to no water, while winter vegetables and annuals still require light irrigation. Pro Tip: Water before a freeze—moist soil holds heat better than dry soil.

Tip 4: Plant cool-season veggies and flowers

poppies rancho santa ana garden

Desert winters are perfect for growing leafy greens, carrots, peas, potatoes, and broccoli–particularly in raised beds. If your heart is set on flowers you can get seasonal color in winter with nasturtiums, lupines, poppies and snapdragons. They are best planted in a sheltered area. And companion planting helps maximize space and protect soil during cooler months. (More about companion planting in a future post, including wisdom from indigenous people.)

Tip 5: Mulch and enrich the soil

This is desert gardening 101: mulch, mulch and mulch some more. Moderately coarse organic mulch is the best because it performs two tasks: 1) heaped around plants it is a physical barrier insulating against summer heat, winter frost and evaporation and 2) as it decomposes gradually over time organic mulch helps balance the soil’s pH and provides nutrients to your plants.

We do not recommend using rock mulch close to plants. Rock mulch can heat up to 150 degrees Fahrenheit in direct summer sun and that will kill the plant.

And, finally, while you are working in your garden, check the drainage. Winter rains, like our summer monsoons, can clog natural flowing water paths and the water can pool and damage roots.

Happy gardening!

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Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

What to do when its too hot to garden

Today’s forecast in Tucson is for a high temperature of 111 degrees Fahrenheit. Too hot to do more than water the plants in pots and sweep up leaves from yesterday’s winds. It’s like this almost everywhere in the Southwest. Even southeastern California is scorching. (The exceptions are the sky islands of Arizona and Nevada. More about them later.)

So what’s a gardener to do? For me the solution is clear: visit the shadiest public garden nearby preferably in the morning and preferably with a gardening friend.

Seeing the wide range of heat-tolerant plants thriving in the public garden is the summertime equivalent of perusing seed catalogs in winter. You and your friend can look. You can even take notes if you see something very special. But you cannot really do anything about planting in your hot, dry garden until the weather cools months from now. Then after the plant-viewing is done, stop at the cafe in the public garden for a light lunch in the shade. Perfect!

Escape to a public garden

So, here are a few public gardens I’ve visited during the sizzling hot summer months over the past 20+ years I’ve been writing Hot Gardens. Often, I confess, my goal in recent years is to go for a shady walk in an appealing urban space and have a fun lunch with friends. Plants are just an extra.

(For a list of all the gardens I’ve written about on Hot Gardens, go here.)

I’ll start with the obvious: Tucson Botanical Gardens. It was founded in 1964 in the back yard of a horticulturist, Harrison Yocum, so the trees in parts of this garden are 60 years old and the walk ways are shady. Two new additions to this garden are an expanded cactus and succulent garden and a whimsical installation of model trains and model historic buildings in what was once an ignored corner of the garden. Both USA Today and TripAdvisor recommend this public garden. I do, too.

Saguaros at Tucson Botanical Garden
Shady pathway Tucson Botanical Garden

The San Antonio Botanical Garden is 38 acres of surprises. Rather than focus on drought-tolerant plants, the goal of this public garden is to showcase the wide variety of plants and eco-systems in Texas. Among the things you will see is the dramatic Lucile Halsell Conservatory complex with its towering glass buildings. There are also old residences surrounded by historic plantings. And contemporary displays of plants. And a bird-watching station. And a culinary garden. And…, well, it’s Texas so there is more, much more.

working after retirement ebook and paperback

Plan your visit to the Phoenix Botanical Gardens at night! From June through September there are ‘Flashlight Nights’ that let you see the gardens after sundown. Each of these nights has special events and snacks for desserts, too. The exhibitions of plants and the indigenous people of the Southwest are favorites of mine. The trails through the Gardens aren’t consistently shady so nighttime visits are best. Check the website for dates and times.

patio space with desert plants at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden

When I lived in Los Angeles, my go-to public garden was not the large L.A. Arboretum, but the much smaller and shadier Descanso Gardens, tucked back in the hills above Glendale. Originally it was a commercial garden with camellias and roses grown for sale. Now camellias and roses make up only two parts of Descanso Gardens. There is also a Japanese Garden with a tea house, a lilac garden with blooms in Spring, a small drought-tolerant garden, an Oak woodland with soft-underfoot trails, a little train for children to ride, and an art exhibition near the original home on the property plus a cafe for lunch under the pergolas near the entrance. (And the glorious poppy, below, is just for a beauty of it.)

poppies at Descanso Gardens

Historically, plants have not always been the primary focus of gardens. The ancient gardens of the Roman, Persian and Chinese empires always placed the enclosing architecture, the water features and the buildings as the most important elements of that protected, outdoor space we call a garden. Plants were more like ornaments in those gardens. The Getty Villa in Malibu and the Chinese Garden at the Huntington Gardens are both examples of the ‘architecture-first’ gardens. And both these gardens are also noted for their art collections. So if you go to California this summer, visit either or both of these for a more-than-gardens experience. I recommend lunch at the Getty Villa overlooking the Roman garden, below, and Pacific Ocean. The food is good; the view is better. And it’s always cool!

outer peristile at Getty Villa in Malibu
garden fountain at Getty Villa

Now about Sky Islands

Sky Island is the common designation for locations over 5,000 feet in elevation in mountains that rise up steeply out of hot deserts. Up there it’s cool — 20 to 30 degrees cooler than the land down at the foot of the mountains. Both Mt. Lemmon near Tucson and Mt. Charleston near Las Vegas are sky islands. Hiking and camping are comfortable experiences during summer months when you are that high up. And you can simply ignore your garden for a while. Stay cool!

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Lonely Cactus and a Giant Plastic Fish

At a visit yesterday to the Tucson Botanical Garden I found three of my passions combined: gardening in hot dry climates, art in gardens, and picking up trash from public areas.

I’m going to start with the picking up trash part in this post. [Full disclosure: I am a member of a Tucson environmental group called Trashy Divas and twice a month we pick up trash in public parks and along side streets.] Now, back to the ocean debris art.

Ocean debris turned to sculpture

The TBG always has interesting sculpture on exhibit in and around its many, small demonstration sites for drought-tolerant plants. Sometimes the sculpture is small and suitable for a residential garden. Other times the art is large — the ideal size for a public garden.

The fish at the top of this page, Priscilla the Parrotfish, is one of several sculptures now on display at TBG and it is large. The large Jellyfish, which hangs near the entrance, is unnamed for now. TBG is running a campaign to name it. I voted for the name Bubbles.

Both these sculptures were created by an environmental group called Washed Ashore based in Bandon, Oregon. All the materials have literally been picked up off Oregon beaches, then cleaned and refashioned by artists.

A few steps away from Priscilla the Parrotfish at TBG is another figure, a Rockhopper penguin, a native of islands around Australia and New Zealand. Nearby in the trees are a group of smaller jellyfish in sizes suitable for backyard gardens. One wonders if any of the materials in this penguin crossed the ocean from Australia to Oregon.

Another bird sculpture in black and white is Sebastian the Puffin. As a work of art it must be close to 10 feet tall; in real life puffins are only 2 to 3 feet tall.

Here are close-ups of elements that have gone into these creations. The image on the left is some of the plastic trash that makes up Priscilla the Parrotfish. On the right is the foot of Sebastian the Puffin with California poppies blooming behind. Every bit of this debris was at one time bought by someone in a store for some purpose, used and then discarded–perhaps in the ocean or perhaps nearby in a waterway leading to the ocean.

Puffin feet

The lesson here: dispose of your plastic trash properly in a garbage can or recycling bin. As charming as these art works are, we do not need any more of them made from plastic debris.

On to the lonely cactus

From the 1950s through the end of the 20th Century, lawn was the landscape solution for builders of large developments in the Midwest and East Coast. Sow grass seed to cover the lot with lawn, then plant a very small tree or a couple of small shrubs and call that landscaping. Cheap and fast.

Here in the desert, developers have continued this “fast-and-simple” approach to landscaping around new homes, but with one big change: instead of lawn they dump a truckload of rock mulch and spread it all over the lot. Then plant a small cactus and very small tree and call that landscape.

So now there are solo cactus in front of homes all over the Southwest. In reality cacti look better when planted in groups and give a home a more established, upscale appearance. Adding a mix of larger rocks adds to the sense of a natural environment.The image below shows denser plantings of a mix of cacti on a berm–an artificial hillock. You can see another example of planting on a berm here.

But this is not to say that an all rock mulch garden can’t be beautiful as this newish Japanese-style garden at TBG demonstrates. But you will have to rake it every day to keep it looking good.

And finally, back by the butterfly house, there is a new addition to Tucson Botanical Garden: a garden flowers kaleidoscope. The tube the girl is looking through has been created with a kaleidoscope refractive lens. It was fun to look through as the bowl of flowers spun slowly around.

A final note: The Washed Ashore sculpture will be on display through May 18.

Where to get a free or cheap tree for your home.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Fixing that neglected side yard

It’s long. It’s narrow. And a home’s side yard is usually given little attention. Perhaps the original builder or an earlier owner spread a layer of rocky mulch on the soil and added a few stepping stones along the unused passageway from the front to the back of your home. But often it is not even considered part of the garden.

I have to confess that I ignored my current home’s side yard. A previous resident had, in fact, covered the 10 foot wide strip with reddish brown rock mulch. No stepping stones, however. There are pockets of grass where baby Mourning Doves huddle together and, in another corner, one rugged, volunteer Lantana plant survives. On one side of this passageway is a 6 ft. tall wood fence and on the other, the pale, sand-colored stucco wall for my living room. No windows — thank goodness.

Then, one day this last summer when it was once again 110 degrees fahrenheit outside here in Arizona I realized how much cooler that side of my home–the south side–would be if I planted something tall and shady there–a tree that was very drought resistant and wouldn’t die in relentless 100F+ heat.

Two drought tolerant trees for shade

My first thought was to install a Palo Verde tree in late October or November, when Fall planting season starts. I love this Arizona native’s brilliant yellow blossoms in April but once the flowers are gone, it would only provide a light screen effect with its leafless branches. Not much help countering the blasting sunlight in summer.

Then, I thought, what about another favorite of mine, the long-blooming Chitalpa (Chitalpa x tashkentsis)? Its branches would be ladened with pink flowers for months on end. And Chitalpa trees have leaves to cast more shade than the Palo Verde. Better yet, they grow fast and are so tough that in Las Vegas and Tucson they’re planted as street trees.

But I had to face reality: the passageway is only 10 feet wide and both the Palo Verde and the Chitalpa should be planted a minimum of 15 feet away from the side of a house.

So, a tall, skinny tree was called for–like an Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) which I know grows in Los Angeles and the Mojave desert. I haven’t seen many of them here in Sonoran desert gardens. A friend in Vegas planted a wall of them but looking at her garden now, maybe that is not the solution–especially when I check the price for 5 or 6 trees. I’ve been told that they suffer from red mites and if not watered deeply they will die.

Thanksgiving and cooler weather arrived and I stopped thinking about shady trees for my side yard. But in that doldrum week between Christmas and New Year, I began to consider it again.

Tough shrubs are a shady solution

Shrubs, I decided. Big, leafy, drought tolerant shrubs–maybe 5,6 or 7 feet tall–planted like a wall of shade next to the house. They will never grow tall enough to shade and cool the roof, but drought tolerant shrubs could block some of the blasting sunlight heating up the stucco. (Yes, Yes, I know I wrote about shrubs to cool concrete block walls last January. I’m now following my own advice.)

lantana hedge in Pasadena

Texas rangers (Leucophyllum frutescens) and upright Lantanas (Lantana camara) immediately came to mind. Both bloom often throughout the year, usually after some rain falls.

With some strategic trimming colorful Lantanas, like the ones in a hedge in Pasadena, can be encouraged to grow to 5 feet high. The Texas Rangers, however, I plan to leave untrimmed. I hate what commercial “gardeners” do to these beautiful, loose shrubs: whacking them into a lollipop shape with most of the lovely purple flowers cut off.

I’ll plant in February when we have had more rain and the soil is beginning to warm up. Now to figure out what to do to my back yard where a neighbor’s small tree died last year. It shaded both our yards and cut off the view from two homes behind us. Maybe that’s the right place for a Palo Verde or Chitalpa. I’ll let you know.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Turn a love of gardening into extra cash

Mother Nature can be your BFF if you want to turn your love of gardening into a source of extra spending money. And it is so simple. All you need are inexpensive pots you can buy on Amazon or your local garden center, some potting soil and patience. Then, on a sunny Saturday, hold your “garden sale” on your driveway.

Here is how to start creating cash from plants

varigated pelagornium geranium

Take cuttings from special plants in your garden and plant them in small plastic pots–like the ones you see in the local garden center. Actually, the plants don’t have to be rarities, but they do have to be healthy. For example, if you have a sturdy geranium (Pelargonium) with pretty blooms or varigated or scented leaves, take a few 4″ to 6″ long cuttings for starters. Then stick the cuttings in a inexpensive plastic pot filled with good potting soil. And water frequently. If you think that your geranium seems too ordinary, keep in mind that you liked it enough to buy it, so, no doubt, other people will like it too. You could even have an example in bloom nearby during your garden sale so people can see how attractive it is. It may take six weeks for the geranium cutting to take root.

Divide to multiply

Another example of a plant to sell would be iris, which grow well in hot dry climates as well as looking beautiful. You should divide iris rhizomes every 2 to 5 years anyway, so why not keep some and offer others for sale? Be sure to cut the leaves back to 5 to 6 inches and clearly label the color and if the iris is a rebloomer.

Depending upon where you live, you may also have agapanthus in your garden and they are good candidates for dividing. Simply dig up the root ball, cut it into 2 or 3 large size pieces, replant one section in your garden and sell the others. You should probably divide the iris and the agapanthus just before your driveway garden sale. They should not dry out before replanting. It might also be helpful to your customers to have a little note to give them about planting iris and agapanthus. Each has different requirements.

Then there are seedlings–pick your favorite annual flowers and herbs–which should be started in very small pots again like at the garden center. Then water and wait.

Mother Nature should do her work within a few weeks. The cuttings will have taken root and the seeds should have sprouted to produce seedlings.

Advertise your private garden sale

Then hold a “garden sale” on your driveway on a Saturday morning. Post signs around your neighborhood. List your garden sale online on Craigs List or Next Door. Post notices about it on community bulletin boards. 

Before the sale begins do some research about pricing. As you probably know, iris rhizomes are expensive and agapanthus, too, so price yours accordingly. But geraniums are priced lower and herb seedlings even lower at garden centers and yours should be, too. And at the end of the garden sale day, you pocket the money you made and move any unsold pots into your back yard to continue growing until you hold your next garden sale.

Selling unusual plants for microclimates

Hot gardens plumeria blossoms
Plumeria blossoms are exceptionally fragrant and the plant–a small tree–can grow indoors.

Not long ago we spoke with a man at a California farmer’s market who had trimmed an old tropical Plumeria tree in his back garden and put the 2 foot long ends of the trimmed branches into big plastic pots filled with rich potting soil.  Several months later, when he was confident the cuttings had taken root, he held a garden sale on his driveway based on one ad on Craigs List. And he earned over two thousand dollars over two weekends.

A few weeks later he showed up at a farmers’ market with the few remaining potted Plumeria and proceeded to sell them in another couple of weekends. His goal for his garden sale was to raise money for his daughter’s college education.

One of the reasons he was so successful was that Plumeria trees had just begun making a comeback in popularity after 50 years of being pretty much ignored.  His Plumeria was also of a rare color, which made it all the more desirable and allowed him to charge higher prices.

It’s important to note that Plumerias need a sheltered microclimate in a Southwest desert garden; their leaves will burn when subject to intense, all day sunlight. (Sorry, Phoenix, no plumeria trees for you.) On the other hand, they do well in Mediterranean climates where the temperature doesn’t rise over 90-95F very often.

Cacti and condos – meant for each other

A retired couple we know sell succulents and cacti in small, colorful pots at a local open air market for extra retiree income. Cacti and succulents are often the plants of choice with apartment and condo owners because they grow very slowly and can be ignored for weeks without whithering and dying. Of course, cacti and succulents are the mainstay of many desert gardens so homeowners are also potential buyers.

And as with the other garden sale ideas in this post, Mother Nature does most of the work in producing the products you sell. And you harvest the profits.

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Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Birds and cactus on the move

On Christmas Day the Audubon Society turned out thousands of its members for the 122nd annual bird count.

The goal of the bird count is not only to calculate how many of which birds are where, but if there are any changes. Changes like non-appearance of certain birds which could mean that a bird species has moved to a new area or, in the worst case, become extinct.

While the results and post-count analyses of the 2021 Christmas Bird Count have not yet been finalized, results of previous years’ counts have.

And what past bird counts tell us is that almost all North American birds are under pressure by the changing climate to move northward. For example, in California the ranges of many bird species are now 200 miles north of their traditional habitats.

NOTE: There is a new international bird count in the works called the Great Backyard Bird Count. It is held later in the year.

What does this have to do with hot gardens?

Yellow finch on Sunflower

Depending upon how severe the changes are in your area, birds that formerly ate pesky or damaging insects may be long gone. New species may arrive in your neighborhood from further south, but they may have different diet needs. It may be that the newcomer birds are seed eaters or leaf-lovers like the Yellow Finch in this photo, rather than bug eaters.

For other birds the impact is more complex. As an example, take the Cactus Wren which makes its home in saguaros. In the Saguaro National Park, the saguaros are now “moving uphill”–growing at higher elevations on the hillsides. According to a SNP naturalist the saguaros will only grow within a specific elevation range and no higher. They are close to that maximum elevation now and their range has become much narrower. So as the older cactus die out at lower levels that means fewer homes for Cactus Wrens and less food for saguaro pollinators like the white wing dove and the long-tongued Mexican bat.

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So what’s a hot gardener to do?

Well, I’m not going to recommend that you build a bat-house in your back yard. (And–yes–there is such a thing as a bat-house as you can see in the photo on the left taken at the Tucson Mission Garden.)

New Year’s Resolution No. 1: feeding the birds

But hanging a bird feeder, especially if you live in a winter-snow part of the desert, and keeping it stocked can help birds in your area. Mourning doves, like the ones shown at the top of this post, have moved northward and definitely need food help surviving over winter.

Resolution No. 2: plant a large shrub or two

While almost every environmental group is recommending planting large trees to shade the earth, I think water-wise shrubs--large ones like Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) in its shrub form or a fast-growing Photinia (Photinia x fraseri)–provide better nest habitat and shelter from predators for birds as well as adding cooling shade to your hot dry garden.

For whatever it is worth, Mourning Doves have made a home in a Mexican yellow oleander (Cascabela thevetia) in my back yard for years as you can see in the photo at the top of this post. I don’t recommend planting a Thevetia, however, because it is highly toxic to humans, but the Mourning Doves don’t seem to mind. And I love to wake up in the morning to their calls.

So make planting a bird-friendly shrub one of your New Year’s Resolutions.

Resolution No. 3: keep tabs on what’s happening

Set up a free gardening blog/journal online and post something daily to keep track of how your garden is changing as the climate changes.

What to post? To make it easy, keep it short. So how about…
– a single flower photo
– a sentence or two about what is new in your garden
– notes of dates you installed plants or planted seeds
– a picture of your Little Free Plant Stand
– a photo of children playing in the garden or
– snow covering everything
If posting daily is too much for you, post weekly.

You will have to pick a name for your online journal/blog and I’d recommend that you include your location in that name. For example: CatherinesLasVegasGarden or SamGardensinSydney.

And keep this in mind: this online gardening blog/journal is primarily for yourself to help keep track of changes caused by climate change, so don’t be concerned about having or building followers. That can end up taking all your gardening time and then some! Interested people will eventually find what you are posting and enjoy it. Free blogs are available at WordPress.com and other sites.

working after retirement ebook and paperback

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

A one color garden–no, make that two

Gardening writer Vita Sackville-West’s ‘White Garden’ at Sissinghurst Castle in the U.K. was revolutionary in 1950. And inspiring to this day.

Instead of a garden filled with billowing rows of mixed-color flowering plants–a style that had dominated English gardens for generations–Sackville-West installed only plants that bloomed in one color: white. According to her weekly gardening column she decided that the plants themselves must have either green or gray leaves. No yellowish or reddish leaves for this garden.

In fact, despite what she said, it was mostly a green garden because the white flowers bloomed only once a year for a brief time. The green color leaves endured year round.

While a garden as lush as seen, above, in this recent photo of Sissinghurst, would be challenging and an utterly wasteful use of water in a hot dry climate, the idea of a one or two color garden continues to appeal to garden designers.

One color and water wise in Las Vegas

Back in the early 2000s a one flower color, water-wise garden took root in Las Vegas. Garden designer Victoria Morgan told me that her primary goal was to create a water-wise green garden. Even back then, the water level in the Colorado River which supplies Las Vegas was falling so drought tolerance was a must, she said.

The flower color that she chose was yellow–and not much of that: just a few Lantana montevidensis by the fountain and nearby. Some additional color came from non-plant sources: painted furniture under the arbor, tiles around the fountain and large blue pots in front of the home, as you can see in this slide show.

grape vines with colorful patio chair and table

Another requirement she set was low maintenance, so there were no flowers to dead-head or fertilize. Shrubs like the Korean boxwood were trimmed once or twice a year. And the tall, shady nut trees that took up a large part of the garden needed attention primarily during harvest. For more photos of this very soothing orchard garden, go here.

Morgan’s use of green with yellow was a natural choice for a Southwestern U.S. hot, dry garden: many native plants (or non-natives like Lantana which thrives in our climate) bloom yellow. Some cacti, of course, produce pink flowers, but yellow is the dominant flower color in the desert, especially when rain comes and sweeping fields of yellow wildflowers spring up among the cacti.

Where to get a free or cheap tree for your home.

Yellow blooming plants and shrubs

Should you decide to plant a green-plus-yellow garden here are a few plants–some native, some not–you could include. In order they are:
Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)
Mexican Gold Poppy (Escholtzia mexicana)
Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata)
Lantana (Lantana montevidensis)
And for larger shrubs:
Mexican bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia mexicana) and
Thevetia (Thevetia peruviana), sometimes called Yellow Oleander, it is pretty but poisonous. (I have one in my backyard; someone else planted it.)

A good tree to include in a green/yellow garden is the wildly popular native Palo Verde (Cercidium parkinsonia). Planted in home gardens, parking lots and growing naturally along dry washes, it is the Arizona State Tree. Blooming brilliant yellow in Spring, it doesn’t offer much shade, however, because its leaves are tiny.

And for yellow color in the Fall–plus shade in summer–a good choice can be the Fan-Tex Rio Grande Ash, below.

Of course, you could choose another color for your one color garden–reds, pinks, purples and magentas–but yellow seems to be a natural garden design choice for the hot dry gardens of the Southwest. Most native plants bloom in yellow.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

So your garden died. What’s next?

While there are two ways to combat plant death-by-dehydration, it is probably too late for many in the U.S. Southwest, especially Arizona and Nevada, after a weeklong stint of record setting heat. (For those of you outside of the SW, there were high temperatures of 110-120F (43-48 celsius) for 8 days in a row and it continues.)

If you still have hopes for some plants in your garden you can do this:
1. Deep water plants more frequently than usual.
2. Hang shade cloth over your plants.

Realistically, however, dead plants — especially vegetables that were planted not long ago–are the new normal in Southwest gardens.

So what comes next?

For starters you can add those dead plants to your compost pile, so all is not wasted! And do not regularly fertilize any plants during summer months in desert climates. Even sturdy native plants are simply hunkering down and trying to survive until cooler weather arrives. Give them water, and in late summer, a tiny taste of fertilizer–that’s all.

Replanting right away is, obviously, not a good idea. Many gardeners now seem to be considering planting only natives when they replace what they lost this summer, but wisely they are waiting until Fall.

I’m thinking about pots on my patio overflowing with non-native Lantana (L. montevidensis) which seems to be able to survive almost anything and continue to flower.

Adios tomatoes and peppers

My vegetable growing experiment of this year will not be repeated. It has become a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I can buy organic veggies and support organic farmers while I eat healthy.

While I have stopped wasting water trying to help my sunflowers, tomatoes and peppers survive, I am still trying to help birds and other wildlife stay alive. I’d suggest that you do this, too.

Set out a shallow plant saucer filled with water and refill at least once a day. It can be a lifesaver for birds, insects and other creatures suffering from the intense heat and scarcity of water.

I’m not sure which creatures drink from this water source on my patio, but at least this Mourning dove has. You could also set up a trail camera to learn which wildlife comes to visit your garden.

Turning your garden into a kind of wildlife preserve may be the best use of that space as climate change brings hotter and dryer conditions. This extreme heat may not be the last.

Where to get a free or cheap tree for your home.

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Little Free Plant Stands and other tips for Spring gardens

Many of you may have heard, seen–or even used–the Little Free Libraries. They are those small boxes erected in front of homes where neighborhood people deposit books to be given away for free to anyone who wants a book.

Then, recently I saw some Little Free Pantries. It’s a similar concept where non-perishable food is kept in a small box posted in front of a home or business or community center for anyone to take for free. (Here is a link to the post I wrote about little free pantries in Tucson.) Which bring this to the Little Free Plant Stands…

Swap your plants at a Little Free Garden Stand

This concept of hyper-local donation “boxes” has now extended to Little Free Plant Stands. It’s like a public neighborhood plant swap that operates by itself unattended. It’s an ideal way to freely exchange plants, etc. while maintaining social distancing.

As far as I know this movement does not have a national organization, unlike the Free Libraries or Free Pantries. I like that! It’s a purely spontaneous local activity by neighborhood gardeners and it seems to be proliferating like wild.

How to set up your own free plant stand

If you plan to set up one of these, you will probably need to “prime the pump”, so to speak, by placing plants, cuttings, seeds, old worn pots, gardening books or tools–whatever you have to spare–on the shelves of a little stand like this green one. This green “stand” is clearly home made and very charming. This generous gardener in Phoenix even added a bowl of freshly harvested lemons.

Photographer Danica Tuxbury retains all copyrights.

A plant stand doesn’t have to be elaborate. I saw another plant stand that was simply concrete blocks with painted boards laid across them–like a bookshelf, but filled with small plants and old pots. Definitely fast and easy to assemble.

If this inspires you to set up a stand similar to this, check out the growing number of Facebook groups in the categories of “Little Free Plant Stand” and “Little Free Garden Stand” for ideas and suggestions. You may even find some near you. But if you don’t, you can easily set up a FB group for your town or neighborhood to spread the word about your Little Free Plant Stand and to encourage other nearby gardeners to get involved.

Be mindful that your city or Homeowner’s Association may have rules about stacking stuff in front of your home. And it may turn out that you have more takers than givers and everything could be gone overnight.

One solution may be using “drinks cart” or tea cart with wheels that can be rolled out in front of a home during the day and back inside at sunset.

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Free Flower pots

Keeping with the idea of free stuff for your garden this Spring, take a look at these “flower pots”–every one a conversion of an old object into a useful plant container instead of being tossed in the garbage. I especially like the last one in this slide show where all you need is a newspaper and some folding skills!

While you are out in the garden take a good look at your patio furniture. If it is looking drab or sun-bleached, you can revitalize old furniture–even those cheap and oh-so-useful plastic chairs–and refresh your outdoor living space for the cost of a can or two of spray paint.

Next, make this year the one you string white Christmas tree lights on the inside of your patio table umbrella to let you enjoy outdoor dining later into the night. Come July you will love it!

Happy Springtime!

working after retirement ebook and paperback

Read our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Hot Days, White Nights, How Design a Moon Garden
  2. Australian Plants for a Desert Garden
  3. Cover up that naked wall
  4. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  5. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  6. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat