While winter still grips the northern latitudes, the “Land Down Under” is basking in the peak of summer heat. It’s the perfect time to look to Australia—the native home of the acacia, eucalyptus, and kangaroo paw—for inspiration. These plants are the ultimate survivors for hot, dry desert climates, offering a “plant and ignore” lifestyle that every busy gardener loves.
If you’re planning your springtime planting, consider adding these low-maintenance, drought-tolerant beauties to your landscape.
1. Acacias: The Soil-Building Beauty
The Acacia family is a desert gardener’s dream: they love the sun, require very little water, and—as a hidden bonus—actually fix nitrogen in the soil, improving its quality for neighboring plants.
Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha): Australia’s national flower and the inspiration for the country’s green and gold colors.
Other acacias that thrive in our Southwestern gardens:
Cootamundra Wattle (Acacia baileyana): A fast-growing multi-trunk tree that brings a burst of fragrant, bright yellow blooms in mid-winter—a cheerful “genetic memory” of the Australian summer.
Prostrate Acacia (Acacia redolens): Need to cover a slope? This shrubby groundcover spreads up to 12 feet wide, thrives in poor soil, and features puffy, ball-like yellow flowers.
2. Eucalyptus: The “Dr. Seuss” Shade Tree
If you want shade and you want it now, Eucalyptus trees are your best bet. Famous for their whimsical, Dr. Seuss-like shapes, these rapid growers need almost no fertilizer—though an occasional dose of chelated iron can keep them looking vibrant.
Cider Gum (Eucalyptus gunnii): A hardy giant that can soar to 70 feet, showing off silvery-blue leaves and beautiful tan-and-green peeling bark.
Other Eucalyptus that thrive in our climate:
Coral Gum (Eucalyptus torquata): Reaching 35 feet, this variety features light green leaves and exotic flowers that look like tiny Oriental lanterns.
Silver Dollar Tree (Eucalyptus cinerea): A floral arrangement favorite. Keep it trimmed back to maintain the iconic round, silver leaves; otherwise, they eventually turn long and green as the tree matures.
3. Natural Companions & Color Accents
Looking for the perfect partner for your Eucalyptus? Try the Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthos). These perennials look like unassuming tufts of grass until they shoot up 2-foot spikes topped with fuzzy, tubular flowers.
The “Bush Gem” Series: Hybrids like ‘Bush Gold’ and ‘Bush Ranger’ are the sturdiest options, resistant to pests and a magnet for hummingbirds.
4. Echoes of the East Coast
If you miss the white birches of the Eastern U.S., the Australian Paperbark Tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia) is a stunning desert substitute. It features weeping branches and thick, light brown bark that peels away in papery layers.
Pro Tip: Use the peeled bark to line your wire hanging flower baskets—it’s both functional and beautiful!
5. The Bottle Brush Debate
Not all “indestructible” plants are created equal. While the Red Bottle Brush (Callistemon citrinus) is a common sight along California freeways, we prefer its more sophisticated cousin: Perth Pink.
Perth Pink Bottlebrush: While the standard red can look a bit “utility,” the Perth Pink variety offers hot pink blooms that are absolute showstoppers. It thrives in xeriscape gardens and, while sometimes harder to find, is well worth the search.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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!
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!
Here we are in September with weather that used to belong to July. With weather this hot it is too early to plant shrubs and trees in your garden. Wait until the daytime high air temperature is 90 degrees Fahrenheit or less. That 90F temperature is a useful indicator that the soil has cooled off enough. Hot soil can kill a newly installed plant within days.
Now, however, is not too early to plan adding tough native shrubs to help minimize the effects of the blistering heat next year. (And it will be blistering hot next year. You can count on it, as the climate changes.)
While you may think “I need to plant big trees to cool my garden”, in fact, shrubs can definitely help by shading smaller areas and the lower sides of your home. Shrubs also keep the ground beneath them cooler and your overall garden at a lower temperature. The shade shrubs cast can create a haven for small wildlife like birds, lizards, bees and other insects.
So here are a few favorites, most are evergreen and all, but two, are native to the U.S. Southwest. (And those two are tough Aussies!)
1. Texas Ranger (Leucophyllum frutescens)
Also known Texas Sage, is a staple in desert landscaping due to its low water needs and striking silvery foliage. Imagine how glorious a hedge of these will look as this hardy shrub bursts into a display of purple blooms when the summer humidity gets high. It thrives in full sun and poor but well-drained soils, making it an ideal choice for low-maintenance gardens. Whatever you do, do not trim your Texas Ranger into a lollypop shape. It is naturally a loose, open, and graceful shrub that reaches up to 6 feet in height and will live for as long as 30 years. ProTip: trying to bring on blooms by watering the plant, won’t work. It takes the increased humidity of the monsoon for the Texas Ranger to flower.
2. Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis)
Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis) can be grown as a small, messy tree or multi-trunk shrub. But messy as it is, the Desert Willow is popular because it will survive on its own with no extra water or fertilizer required. Grows two to three feet a year and reaches a height of 15 to 20 feet and will live for over 40 years, if planted no higher than an elevation of 5,000 feet. It can be found in the wild in all the major Southwestern deserts from Chihuahuan to the Mojave to the Sonoran and the Colorado desert. As a desert native it needs little care and will produce red, pink, white, and purple flowers for months on end, but, I repeat, it is a messy tree dropping those long, brown seed pods for you to clean up. Now read about the next tree, a tidier hybrid of the Desert Willow.
3. Chitalpa trees (Chitalpa tashkentensis)
Chitalpa trees can grow as large, multi-stemmed shrub or a single-trunk tree. Unlike its cousin the Desert Willow, Chitalpa trees were created by scientists to be sterile and do not have those long, pointy seed pods. Their leaves are wider and create more shade. For that reason, the Chitalpa, like its cousin, is often planted as a street tree that blooms for months on end without supplemental watering. This hybrid thrives in endless sunshine and grows very fast to 30 feet tall. It’s said to live up to 150 years which seems a bit unlikely to me, but it you can be sure it will be growing where you plant it even after you are no longer gardening. Hummingbirds and bees love its pink or white orchid shaped flowers.
4. Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis)
Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis) has been an ignored shrub of the Sonoran Desert and Baja. The oil from the seeds was used for centuries by native Americans to treat skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema. A few decades ago, young women who were advocates of natural skin care “discovered” it and the oil was added to many skin and hair care products as a hydrating agent as well as having skin health benefits. But, skin care aside, it is simply a nicely shaped, round shrub that grows to a height of three to six feet with gray-green leaves year ‘round with seeds that go from green to dark brown. Oil is relatively easy to express from the seeds. It is highly drought-tolerant and reputed to live for decades.
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5. Littleleaf Cordia (Cordia parvifolia)
Cordia parvifolia is a low maintenance plant which is not common in hot, dry gardens – but it should be. It is very drought tolerant once established. Ideally, it should be planted in locations with full sun and will produce large white flowers for months on end from early spring to fall with supplemental irrigation. This native of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts is a dense shrub with arching branches that grow up to 6 feet tall and wide, making it suitable for hedges or as a standalone plant. You may have to call around to garden shops or plant nurseries to find it and you may end up finding it at a native plant nursery. In a pot it is disappointing, but plant it in the ground and this shrub with its white flowers becomes a beauty.
6. Feathery Cassia (Senna artemisioides)
Feathery Cassia, a native of Australia, is smaller shrub with feathery leaves that can tolerate very high temperatures. Known for its wispy, gray-green foliage and bright yellow flowers, which bloom in late winter and early spring, this plant provides seasonal color while maintaining year-round interest. Its flowers are also very fragrant attracting bees and other insects. Feathery Cassia grows up to three to four feet tall and wide, making it suitable for smaller spaces or as a border plant. It thrives in full sun and well-drained soils, needing little water beyond what falls from the sky once it is established.
7. Lantana (Lantana camara)
This native of the African tropics and popular in Australia, has spread around the world because it thrives in hot climates and blooms with colorful flowers for months on end. In the U.S. Southwest the Lantana camara, the upright version of this shrub, can become an attractive hedge. (In places like the damp U.S. SouthEAST it has become an invasive plant to be eradicated if possible.) Please note that for a hedge or a taller shrub you want to get the Lantana camara, not the low-growing, mounding Lantana montevidensis, also called trailing Lantana. Planted densely, as shown in the photo, the upright version will grow to 6 feet tall and as wide as 5 feet and can be trimmed into a tidy hedge. And as for flower colors — they seem to be endless! Mix them up.
8.Creosote (Larrea tridentata)
Why no photo for creosote? When doing research for this post, I asked the artificial intelligence ChatGPT for a list of native desert shrubs suitable for residential gardens to see how its list compared to mine. The first on its list was creosote. What?? Creosote is basically a weed in most Southwestern deserts. In Tucson there are actually neighborhoods with acres and acres of creosote “forests” dense with volunteer plants that are about 5 feet tall. They provide privacy to homes built in the back of the property decades ago, but no one planted the creosote bushes; they just grew. Creosote’s one claim to fame is that it/they can live for centuries. It’s true. New plants spring up from the roots of the older ones forming an ever-widening circle of creosote. One creosote circle in the Mojave was dated to 10,000 years old! Maybe one day ChatGPT will “read” this and realize that it gave bad advice. Don’t plant creosote.
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.)
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.
You’re probably happy with your gardening efforts — with good reason. After all, you… – planted a tree on the south or west side of your home to cool it – removed your front lawn…and perhaps kept some grass in the backyard for a children’s play area – even added one (or more) shrubs along that concrete block wall to minimize the heat.
So congratulations!
But this post is about why you should take a second look and see your garden through the eyes of a hummingbird, lizard, butterfly, quail, ground squirrel, or other wild creature that may live in your area. (But not javelinas or bears. They are clearly not animals you want to encourage.)
You may even want to re-think your garden as a haven–a kind of “happy place”–for wild creatures in your neighborhood and, thus, deserving of being a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Complete with an official metal plaque you can order and post in your front yard.
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the Arizona Wildlife Federation set standards for having a Certified Wildlife Habitat and the official plaques come from them. They state that in order to be Certified a garden should provide wildlife with food, water, cover from predators, shelter for raising the young, PLUS do all this sustainably.
Start with food for wild creatures
For wildlife food the NWF suggests that you plant natives with colorful flowers and lots of seeds. It’s not necessary, however, to install only native plants because natives often bloom all at once. Other drought-tolerant plants that bloom and produce nectar or seeds at different months during the year can be suitable additions to your wildlife-friendly habitat. For example, you could plant South African natives Pink Trumpet Vine (Podranea ricasoliana) or Cape Honeysuckle (Tecoma capensis) for summer nectar for bees and birds. Humingbird and birdseed feeders can also be good additions to your backyard.
Then next to those vines, for example, plant a desert native Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) and Mexican Gold Poppies (Escholtzia mexicana) to produce seeds. (Click below to see images of each.)
Daily water is a must-have
To provide water, small shallow plant saucers or bowls are your best bet. Backyard fountains look glorious, but given the water problems–and potential water rationing–in the American Southwest, fountains should be disconnected and turned into planters.
Add a few small stones to the plant saucer to help smaller creatures, such as little lizards or little birds, drink comfortably from this water source.
Hidden from danger
Like humans, wildlife wants shelter from predators and shelter to raise young. These can be identical. Trees and shrubs–from short to tall–are excellent hiding places and nesting sites for birds, as well as havens for insects and lizards. These two photos, taken at the Tucson Botanical Garden, demonstrate wildlife-friendly gardening with shrubs at various heights combined with tall trees. There are also hiding places between the pots shown in the second photo.
What you don’t see in these photos are wide stretches of rock mulch with one or two plants. In a good wildlife garden at ground level, attractive ground covers, like cacti and succulents as well as Lantana montvidensis, hide small creatures from predators. Lantana is also a good food source for bees. (In the first photo a fountain appears in the back right side, but we do not recommend adding fountains these days!)
Now, the last requirement for Certification as a Wildlife Habitat is that the garden is sustainable. You probably already do much of this: minimize or eliminate lawns, harvest water, avoid pesticides, use natural mulch, and use only drip irrigation.
Do all this and you, too, can have a Certified Wildlife Habitat. You can take the first step here.
While this post is primarily written for gardeners in the arid U.S. Southwest, these standards for a wildlife-friendly garden apply worldwide including Australia, the U.K., Cyprus, and Middle East where many Hot Gardens subscribers live. And where many native creatures are now struggling to survive due to climate change.
You’ve probably already heard about ChatGPT, the new artificial intelligence program by OpenAI that is being called “scarily good.” Well, okay, I thought, maybe it is scarily good about techy stuff but how good is it with gardening advice? So I asked it this fairly basic question.
What causes plant leaves to turn yellow with green veins?
Here is what ChatGPT answered:
“Leaves on plants that turn yellow with green veins is a condition known as chlorosis. Chlorosis is caused by a lack of chlorophyll, which is the pigment that gives leaves their green color. The green veins on the leaves indicate that the plant is still producing some chlorophyll, but not enough to fully color the leaves.”
Okay — so far so good, I thought. And it continued…
“There are several causes of chlorosis, including:
Nutrient deficiencies: A lack of iron, manganese, zinc, or other essential nutrients can cause chlorosis. This is often due to a lack of these nutrients in the soil, or a pH imbalance that makes it difficult for the plant to absorb them.
Disease: Some plant diseases can cause chlorosis, such as leaf spot or rust.
Pest infestations: Pests such as spider mites or aphids can suck the sap from the leaves, causing them to turn yellow.
Environmental factors: Extreme heat, cold, or drought can stress plants and cause chlorosis.”
Item 2 is where ChatGPT begins to slip off the track. Leaf spot or rust do not look remotely like chlorosis; they are orangy yellow round spots on leavesnot yellow leaves with green veins.Spider mites and aphids can damage plants but the effect is also spotty leaves–smaller spots–not leaves yellowing.
Then Chat GPT goes for the solution:
“To fix this issue, you need to find the root cause of the problem and take appropriate action. A soil test can help you determine the pH and nutrient levels in your soil and make recommendations for correcting any imbalances. You can also consult with a local nursery or botanical garden for help identifying and treating any diseases or pests that may be affecting your plants.”
That’s where ChatGPT ends.
My conclusion is that it offers basically good advice–as I did in an earlier post about yellowing leaves. But it falls short of the detailed information I wrote about, including short term, fast fixes to out-of-season yellowing leaves. ChatGPT clearly hedges its bet by suggesting that one should consult with a real local human being. (Or maybe a Master Gardener!)
Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
OpenAI, the company that developed this A.I. warns not to trust what ChatGPT says completely — that it sometimes just makes things up. This is a failing of other artificial intelligence programs, too. My guess is that it doesn’t want to appear ignorant — which, of course, opens the question about whether an artificial intelligence computer program can behave as if it is embarrassed by a lack of knowledge — but that is for another blog. Not this one.
I have another gardening question for ChatGPT — one that should be more challenging, but, unfortunately, the Open AI website is so busy that I haven’t been able to get on it again. I’ll report about it, if I can talk with it again.
Okay, you removed that thirsty grass in your front yard. You’ve also planted a tree or two or three around your home, shading at least part of your yard and the house, reducing the temperature. But off to the edge of your property–if your home is like most in the U.S. Southwest–is a dreaded gray concrete block wall.
That wall, if left bare, is a heat magnet. Nakedly exposed to direct sunlight the concrete absorbs heat during the day, even on cool days. Then after sundown, the wall releases the heat into the air creating a pool of warmth surrounding your home — just when you’re trying to cool things off at days end. And as the climate changes the wall-heater effect will only grow more intense. So what’s a smart gardener to do?
4 ways to help walls keep their cool
Plant shrubs in front of the wall. In one of my gardens I planted a row of the “Wonderful” variety of pomegranates (Punica granatum). These fast growers will reach a height of 6 to 10 feet. You may want to keep them trimmed to match the wall height because they can reach twice that height. Pomegranates need very little water. A special bonus with pomegranates is, of course, the fruit you can harvest in the late summer. In Fall the leaves turn a lovely shade of yellow before they drop. If you do not harvest the fruit you will have shrubs with bright red “ornaments” on them during the holidays. To see other shrubs for hot dry gardens, go here.
Plant tall grasses in front of the wall
On another wall in the same garden, a previous owner had planted Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana). After a summer’s growth Pampas grass will be 8-10 feet high plus another 5-6 feet of seed plumes. And it does all this with little need for irrigation or fertilizer. By mid-winter, this perennial should be cut back to 18 inches tall. Be sure to wear gloves and a long sleeve shirt when you cut it back because the leaf edges are rough and serrated. It will re-grow to the same height in the following summer.
Avoid planting the variety of Pampas Grass called Cortaderia jubata which is a highly invasive weed. Given the right conditions — usually by a stream — it will self-seed and spread wildly forcing out native plants.
If you want to avoid Pampas grass — and many people do–another choice would be Deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens) which grows to about 2 feet tall during the summer. It too grows seed plumes in Fall, but they are more modest in size than the ones of Pampas grass. While Deer grass will not cover up the entire height of your wall, it can be a base plant used with other shrubs. Unlike Pampas Grass it does not need to be trimmed back in winter. Needs very little water. To see other ornamental grasses for hot dry gardens, go here.
Install trellises along the wall
Plant climbers on the trellises–like aTrumpet Creeper (Campsis radicans) from the eastern U.S. It is a self-attaching vine with bright yellow and orange blossoms.
This vine can grow as much 40 feet in one year! Because it is such a vigorous grower and can become invasive, it is best planted in a large container beside the trellis or arbor. It is tolerant of a variety of soil conditions and of heat and cold. Needs moderate water in summer.
Paint your concrete block wall with “Kool Deck” or another heat-reducing finish normally used on pool decks. These finishes come in a variety of colors so you can give your garden walls a custom look.
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?
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’sResolution 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.
I have always loved what I call the “Tucson Gardening Style“. No broad swathes of grassy lawn browning in the sunshine. No water-guzzling attempts at English flower garden borders limp and dying in the heat. Just native plants left where they were growing before any house was built: prickly pear cacti squeezed side-by-side with creosote bushes and saguaros and agaves and chollas and mesquites. And most of the time these Sonoran desert natives grow right up to the side of the house.
But on June 5th, after the Bighorn wildfire burst into life north of Tucson, this native plant gardening style suddenly seemed less charming and more threatening.
At first the Bighorn fire was just billowing smoke high up in the Santa Catalina Mountains. By June 9 when I drove around northern Tucson to to take photos for another blog, I began to realize an inferno would result if this fire reached down into the upscale Catalina Foothills neighborhood which had only hours before been designated as a threatened evacuation zone.
As I took a few pictures I also realized that in California, where I used to live, the “Tucson Gardening Style” would bring the fire service knocking at the door armed with chain saws and big fines. The law in California is that there must be a 100 foot cleared open space around a home and it is aggressively enforced.
There is, however, such a live-and-let-live “Nobody’s going to tell me what to do” outlook by many Arizonans that it is unlikely that type of regulation would ever be passed here.
Okay, while I live in Arizona now I’m going to ignore local attitudes regarding plants because wildfires happen here and throughout the Western United States. Here are some recommendations about garden plantings to help prevent your home turning into an pile of burnt rubble from an urban or wild fire.
First, clear plants away from the sides of your home and other buildings. Don’t let any shrubs or trees touch or almost touch a building. If the plants catch fire — even if ignited by sparks from a neighbor’s BBQ instead of a wildfire–your home could burst into flames before you even notice it.
While many trees suitable for hot dry climates have oily leaves, the Australian-native Eucalyptus trees are among the worst. Sure, they smell so good, but they are 50 foot high torches just waiting for a little spark to light them. As much as they seem to be great trees for hot dry climates (fast growth, low water usage, lovely dappled shade), they are not. As witness: the massive fires racing through the Eucalyptus forests of Australia in recent years.
I have also seen palm trees burning as 50 foot high torches in Los Angeles during an urban fire, but while embers fell from the palms, they did not seems as potentially dangerous as a flaming eucalyptus with its branches whipping in the wind casting sparks all over the area.
For very a different reason don’t plant a Cottonwood, a major water-sucking plant. Again, it is a fast grower, but will guzzle every drop of water in the ground around it and deprive other plants of water, leaving them tinder-dry. Cottonwood roots will also invade your plumbing and septic systems.
One grass is on the Do Not Plant list:
Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L., or Pennisetum ciliare L.) is often called white fountain grass. An African native, it grows and blooms quickly, then dies back to leave dry, quick-burning fields waiting for a lightning strike to start burning. This grass, a threat to native plants including Arizona’s famous Saguaro cactus, has been mentioned as a key factor in the origin of the Bighorn fire. You can view a new webinar on the topic of buffelgrass damage to the Saguaro National Park .
Red Fountain grass does not spread wildly like White Fountain Grass. And it looks lovely when the wind blows.
Instead of Buffelgrass, consider Red fountain grass (Cordyline) which is less invasive and stays where it is planted. The much larger South American-native Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana) will also stay where it is planted in a desert climate, but not if there is a pond or stream nearby. In that case it becomes invasive forcing out native plants.
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Now onto something more positive. While the evidence is anecdotal, a few homeowners have sworn that their huge water-logged agaves saved their homes during a wildfire. I’ve seen the photos and the agaves encircling the homes look as if they have melted, but the houses were spared. It’s important to note that there was a cleared space between the house and the agaves and beyond the agaves, too.
As for planting any trees or agaves, wait until fall. It is too hot now and there is a great risk that anything you plant will die of heat at this time of year no matter how much you water it. Don’t let the landscape guy tell you otherwise!
The Bighorn fire is still burning on June 19th, but because of a wind shift, it is moving northeast, away from Tucson proper. A photo of it taken yesterday is at the top of this post. According to reports over 3,000 Saguaros have already been destroyed, but–happy news–most of the wild animals in the fire path, including baby mountain goats, have escaped. And there has been no loss of homes or human life so far.
In recent weeks TV weathercasters in the desert Southwest have been laughingly referring to the “non-soon” as the annual summer rains got held up in West Texas. And, to make it worse, even fewer clouds came out of the Sea of Cortez. No rainstorms from either direction. Finally in late July one storm dropped enough rain to begin bringing Texas Rangers (Leucophyllum fructescens) into bloom.
Since then even record setting temperatures have not slowed the rush to flowering by these heat loving shrubs, native to the Chihuahua desert. They are a visual joy in blue, purple, lavender, and white!
Thanks to Starbucks in Marana AZ this Texas Ranger has been left untrimmed, although perhaps with too much shade on the plant. It prefers full sun.
Better yet, as SW natives the Texas Ranger thrives in very alkaline soil of .8 to .9 pH. While these 8 foot to 10 foot tall shrubs bloom in concert with the monsoon, they prefer fast draining soil to keep their roots almost dry so be sure to add plenty of organic material when you plant a Texas Ranger. And only irrigate them–lightly, if at all–during the summer months. Stop watering at the end of the monsoon in late September. And as for fertilizer? None needed at all. Fertilizer makes them spindly and weak.
NOW FOR MY RANT: Do not trim Texas Rangers into lollipops! Commercial groundskeepers seem to be the worst offenders of this practice, as you can see in the photo below. Texas Rangers have a beautiful loose shape and should be allowed to keep it. If you feel you absolutely have to cut back a plant, do it in March–one time during the year, only once! Or maybe plant a dwarf “compacta” variety instead. END OF RANT.
These 4 Texas Rangers in a parking lot have been severely trimmed. Whoever developed the horticulture plan for this commercial area should have chosen the Leucophyllum frutescen ‘compacta’, the low growing variety of the plant.
Amazon Burning- what you can do
The new President of Brazil ran on a platform of developing the Amazon. What we are all seeing now is that landowners, particularly cattle ranchers, took that to give them a greenlight to start burning their way deeper into the life-giving jungle after he took office.
Now we can all be outraged as Presidents Macron and Trudeau have been on Twitter or we can actually do something about it in the real world. Countries like Pakistan, India, China, Senegal, Nigeria and even tiny Nepal have already embarked on programs to plant millions of trees.
While we can have no hope of getting support from the current administration in Washington D.C. for a massive tree planting effort in the U.S. I am confident that local groups, like the Tree People in Los Angeles or the National Forest Foundation, will continue and expand their Plant-A-Tree programs in cities, towns and forests across the country.
If no organization near you is doing it at the very least plan to add a tree to your garden this fall when planting season begins. If every person in the U.S. planted just one tree we would have 329 million new trees which would help offset the damage being done right now in the Amazon.
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