Oh so yellow, gravel gardens and no mow rewilding

When April comes in Tucson and the temperature reaches to the high 80s F (30C) the Arizona native Palo Verde (Parkinsonia florida) trees burst into dazzling bloom. Street after street are lined with them and, were gas prices lower, I might be tempted to spend a hour or two every day driving around the city taking photos of them.

The Palo Verde is a good basis for a two-color garden–green + one other color–and yellow is a good color to pick because so many plants for hot, dry gardens bloom in yellow.

Plants for a yellow green garden

So here are a few plants to use in a green and yellow garden with almost no extra watering is required.

Two Palo Verde trees across the street from my home. Look closely and you’ll see others further on down the street. The only water this garden receives is rainfall of about 14 inches (35 cm) a year, most of that during the summer monsoon. In Spanish Palo Verde means green stick — the trunk and branches stay green year ’round. The leaves are tiny and, overall, the Palo Verde is not great as a shade tree –but awesome in April!

Going native with yellow flowering plants

yellow flowers on purple prickly pear cactus

Prickly pear cacti (Opuntia) in bloom. The variety on the right, the Santa Rita, has the bonus of bringing purple to your garden after the flowers fade. Another bonus with prickly pear: the fruit is edible and especially good as jam.

If you want a garden like an Arizona native, plant a Brittle Bush (Encelia farinosa) with its daisy-shaped yellow blooms. Actually, they grow well with little attention in both the Mojave and Sonoran deserts–that means in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

If you don’t care about native v. non-native a golden yellow Lantana (Lantana montevidensis) fits right in a yellow-green garden theme. Whoever planted this South American native slipped in a couple of small purple Lantanas, but they are not as long-blooming or hardy was the golden yellow ones.

Of course, you can always add an annual like the Sunflower — Ukraine’s national flower–or Rudbeckia, a low-growing perennial with sunflower-shaped blooms. And your local plant nursery may have other suggestions.

Gravel gardens — a new trend?

While it may not be apparent in these photos, none of these gardens have lawn. The one near my home, has–as you can see in the photo–simple Arizona dirt underlies the garden. The Lantana was planted in fine pebbly mulch in a Southern California garden.

So I read with some amusement of the “new” trend toward gravel gardens in the U.K. and in the U.S. northeast. Basically, they are what we call desert gardens with rock mulch. In the northeast and U.K., however, the aesthetic choice seems to be grey gravel instead of golden or red sandstone colors. But planted lawns that have to be mowed, watered and intensively cared for — they’re out!

Rewilding roadsides may be dangerous

Another trend out of the U.K. is the rewilding of roadsides. It seems to have taken hold as more and more towns across England simply let the verge alongside roads become home to native plants and grasses instead of mowing them. Traditionally, May is the mowing month. But no longer.

In truth, many of these roadside gardens are not purely native: they receive a little boost with seeds of wildflowers scattered among the volunteer plants. While I like the rewilding idea, just letting plants and grasses grow along roadsides can create added wildfire danger here in the American West.

So while I can cheer the trend toward no lawn “gravel gardens”, I have problems supporting letting native grasses and plants grow uncontrolled along the Western roads and highways.