Favorite TOUGH Xeriscape plants

Thanks! I still have some...now where did I put them? Anyhow...there are plenty of the trees around here I can get seeds from...my favorite place to get them? The Division of Motor Vehicles....LOL Jo

I have yucca if anyone's interested in a trade. Mine looks like this type:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/2229/

roadrunner, thank you for the info.

Gourd, I would love some seeds. I promised roadrunner cottonwoods. If you would like a couple, I would be more then happy to trade you for your seeds. That is all I have to trade for the moment. But the cottowoods won't be ready until around Jan. I cut small branches then root them after the last leaves fall from the parent tree. It usually takes a couple months to get a good root system on them. Let me know and I can give you my address. Oh, and they are the cottonless cottonwoods.

Hi Judy,

sorry I took so long to answer... just send me your address and I'll get some seeds out to you. I don't think I can use the cottonwoods, I would love some, but the heat here would kill them, we don't have enough water during the summer months and I struggle to keep things alive. How do they do there for you, do you need to water them alot?...

Antoinette

Mine are doing beautifully. I do have to water them alot, but not everyday. I deep water them about twice a week. They were sticks when I stuck them in the ground. Heres a picture of the ones going down one side of our driveway. They've been in the ground for about 4 mos now.

And here's the mother ship, where I got all my cuttings from.

So I shouldn't start the Desert Willow in jiffy mix?

Hello from Albuquerque! If you love Desert Willows, you have to find a Chitalpa. It is the new "it" tree around here. It is a Desert Willow bred with a Catalpa. It has all the exact qualities of a Desert Willow- size, can be multi-trucked or can be trimmed as a single trunk, drought dolerant, etc. It has fantastic Catalpa flowers, which are much like Desert Willow but white with purple tongues and 3 times the size and flowers just as profuse as the Desert Willow. The leaves are about 3 times the size as well. Super trees!

And I have yet to see a bougainvillea overwinter here! It makes me quite sad actually.

Welcome to the Garden, rweiler...how do you "cross-breed" these trees? Jo

A few of my favorite xeriscape plants for full sun are:
1) Esperanza or Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans)- blooms all summer in this heat with no watering. Freezes back cold winters but root is hardy here. I usually cut it back in February (even if it hasn't frozen back) and it shoots up to 6-8 feet and blooms all summer.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/61000/index.html

2) Wooly Butterflybush (Buddleja marrubifolia) - very drough-hardy gray shrub with small globose orange flowers. Evergreen most winters here. As a bonus it attracts small butterflies.
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/54351/index.html

4) Copper canyon daisy - late fall-blooming perenniaI. I often cut mine back twice/year - once in winter and once mid-summer to keep it in check. It has a strong lemony-smell and deer won't eat it.
5) Black-foot daisy

Just a few to add to your discussion..

I love the yellow bells! Jo

Favorites:

Mexican Palo Verde - Parkinsonia aculaeta
Desert Willow - Chilopsis linearis
Chilean Mesquite - Prosopis chilensis
Yucca - Yucca brevifolia

How hard is Desert Willow to transplant? I have to do some stuff at our National Park this fall...and want to grow one at the visitors center...Jo

I don't think they're difficult to transplant, but it might be better to do so when they're dormant.

Perskay...that was my thought also...we thought we would wait until fall to work on this project...to get the soft, winter rains, instead of these gully washing monsoon storms! Thanks. Jo

You're welcome. Down your way you might even have to wait until around December, depending on how soon it gets cold there. If I remember right, some deciduous trees use cold to trigger leaf drop and dormancy.

We're new to this area, but fell in "like" with the ocotillo and plan to plant some here. Anybody out there think it will do O.K.???We're at 4500 ft on the Caprock near the NM/TX border W. of Clovis. Any ideas/hints/opinions??

Fouquieria splendens (Ocotillo) should do well for you as long as it gets full sun and plenty of heat. Take a look at http://www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Fouquieriaceae/Fouquieria_splendens.html for its requirements.

Hi,

I am new to this forum and xeriscaping, so will have lots of questions for all of you. I'm very excited to start my new hobby.
I am just in the midst of closing on a home in La Luz New Mexcio. I'm coming from the midwest, so planting will be a whole new experience for me. I'd like to get some ideas on what to plant in my area, as I will be moving in shortly.
My home is in the foothills of the Sacremento mountains. The soil there is mostly clay. The only problem with this home is no landscaping in the backyard. I have a contractor coming out to give me a price on a retaining wall; or something else I can do as I am getting all kinds of washout from the mountain where they dug into it for the foundation of the house, which is only 6 years old. I was told after solving this problem, I should put some plants in which will help the soil integrity, not to mention it really needs some color! Nothing has been done back there, and I look forward to making it look beautiful as well as helping my problem of erosion.
Any advice for a beginner would be much appreciated. Thanks!

If I am remembering correctly...you can search the Plant Files by zipcode...that should show you some plants that do well in your area...although we don't have that many active subscribers in NM...I see that you are near Alamogorda...you might have the same zone as me...we have clay, sand, and cilichie. )Sp)

OH! Welcome to Dave;s Garden...this is a wonderful place. Jo

Glad i found this forum. I, too, had looked and noticed that there were not too many DGer's that are from new mexico. But it's nice to know I've found a few others to trade gardening advice, etc. with. I've lived out here for about a decade now, here and there in the state. Albuquerque, Clovis, now Roswell. I'm glad to meet every!

Seems no one ever mentions globemallow. It popped up on it's own here and I just left it be, planting around it. It blooms all year here if I give it just a little occasional watering in summer. It's done so well I bought seeds of every type of globemallow I could find and going to plant this spring and see what happens.

Considering this area is so dry it makes the CA desert look like a rainforest I'm thinking maybe it's invasive in wetter climates????

Hi All- I haven't been here before either, but I really need some advice on drought tolerant plants. Not that we get a lot of droughts here in 7b North Carolina, but I have a place on the property where it is impossible to water other than a bucket full at a time and its very dry. Compacted clay soil and even after a good rain, its dry in a few days. I have had exceptionally good fortune with the Blue Flax I planted there. It wasn't anything to look at when I planted it, but its second year it has taken off and looks really great. I also have Crepe Myrtle and Irises that seem to be happy, but I really need a lot more plants that can not only take hot, dry conditions, but also an occasional soaking, especially in the winter. I was really glad to see some of the plants above that can take all of the abuse; the Rudbeckia (I should have known), zinnias and asters, but I really need some plants with year round interest as this is right at the main road here. Anything with berries would be especially nice since I have a lot of birds to feed lol.

Ansonfan I just wrote about my favorite xeriscape plants, which lucky for you they both are drought tollerant plants that thrive in clay soil and alkaline soil too and du dudu da They can handle quite a bit of wet feet, I know because I live in the desert but in a flood zone designated for flooding once every 500 years. Well we had our flood two years ago and these plants were submerged for 2 months in the cold winter 32 to13 degree night temps. Baccaris all varieties and atriplex chenopodiacia (salt bush=pretty eversilver),not to be mistaken for the salt cedar tree=ugly messy. Baccaris also is imune to fungus and molds from wet soil, it is a small hedge, bush or typically a groungcover used here for errosion control. There is a variety that can grow to 7 ft tall and is pretty lime green. It can be shaped too and both plants I love are real fast growing. Can you tell I love these plants? Dawn (#26 fan)

Maximillian sunflowers
chocolate flower
rosemary
butterfly bush

Catmint - wonderful
asters
shasta daisies
bishop's weed
yarrow

Mexican Firebush doesn't need watering once established. I've had two plants just outside my fence on the southwest side for years. I never watered them after they were well established. Of course, I've heard they can die if the temps get too low. Here it can get into the teens in the winter and they always come back in the spring. Kidneywood, Eysenhardtia texana, does well also once established. I have Desert Willow also, which does well here. Then there's Cenizo, which is an excellent plant to have. And Red Yucca...I really love it! I grew all mine from seed. Flame Acanthus can be drought-tolerant, although my plants do get watered. I also love the Yellow Bells. In the San Antonio area they have them in some places along the highways. Some of the things I have on my property that don't need to get watered are Damianita, Blackfoot Daisy, Fendler's Bladderpod, 4-Nerve Daisy, Skeleton Plant and Flor de San Juan. But I'm not exactly in a desert, so some of those might not be happy in areas of much lower rainfall.

I am in the desert and some of those do well in my zone but some I never heard of like yellow bells, 4nerve daisy, flor de San Juan. I will look them up though. thanks. I, really on the prowl for stuff I can grow from seed for my xeriscape side because I am not as actively working on that part this growing season. I need to concentrate on my lasagna bed for roses and vines, the rest is much larger an area so I will eek along on that in the next year.

Yellow bells is Tecoma stans, can't help you on the others!

Four-Nerve Daisy is Hymenoxys scaposa. Another name for Flor de San Juan is Rock Trumpet. I'm hoping I'll find a way to propagate it sometime. It found its way to my land years ago when a neighbor put in a fence on the property line...evidently the tools or equipment they used brought it there.
http://www.wildflower.org/gallery/result.php?id_image=9989

No better way to get something for free. thanks.

augenjj,

May be a little late but you are a bit colder than the indicated climate zones for Ocatillo. That doesn't mean it won't work for you. If you do try it very good drainage will be critical and some Winter protection will help. Perhaps near a South wall on your house would do well to keep it warm enough.



Some more plants that are quite hardy:
Both of these are nice medium shrubs that do very well in much of NM and grow native over a large part of the Western US.
Chamaebatiaria millefolium (Fernbush)
Fallugia paradoxa (Apache Plume)
Smaller shrub
Lavandula stoechas (Spanish Lavender)
Groundcovers
Sedum (Stonecrop) - many species: acre, album, reflexum(rupestre), spurium, and others

Note this list of plants do well at altitude (5000+ ft) but may not all like low desert areas. Many of the cacti that cover Southern Arizona don't grow here either.

We can grow that stuff here in the high desert but we are only like 2500- 2800 feet above sea level. Drainage seems to be the biggest issue here and alkaline for some of the plants.

I've got to tell you all that the Mexican Hats (four varieties coneflowers) of all colors that I sowed indoors last year did very well transplanted in 2008, then, they have reseeded on their own and there are tiny plants all over and much to my surprise the plants are still green even though we have had weather in the 20's and a couple of days in the teens only a few hours in the teens, I just trimmed them some, but still... that is what I was hoping for.

Also, the CA poppies are up already and have been for about 2 months, they also reseeded and I don't have anymore going yet. Hopefully I'll find more as the years go by for our area.

How is everyone else doing?

I wintersowed some lupines this year, I didn't have many seeds so don't know if they will come up. Now I really miss CA, they used to sell lupines in bulk at HD.

They still do. Not in NM?

I have had so much rain and cold in the last month, that I am almost a month behind on winter sowing, compared to last year. I am going to try to get some going tomorrow, since it is warm for a few days. I am so mad. I use water and soda bottles since they let light through and cut the bottles in half like a pez dispenser and drill holes for drainage and put a few in the cap to let heat escape until it warms up. I have a lot of work ahead.

Congrats on the successes, with your M. H. and poppies.

Drought is getting so bad here, we've been in exceptional stage drought since last year. The spring wildflower time will be pretty sad. But there are bluebonnets that came up on the front of my property. The little plants just haven't gotten bigger and bushy like they normally would.

We know what you mean. They are talking mandatory water rationing here in a lot of Ca.
We had some rain this year and it still falls short of the average rain fall totals. More than last year though.

We will have a great poppy season next month here with the cold and the timing of what rain we had. I hate drought, I long for rain and get panicked over it. Like end of the world type fear of no rain. I don't know why, it is just such a necessity.

Oh, if I only had room for a carob tree. Some of my favorites are Salvia leucophylla 'Figueroa', Winifred Gilman sage, Trichostema lanatum, Grevillea rosemarinifolia, Leonotus leonurus and my favorite new tree to my garden - Chilopsis linearis 'Monhews'. My front yard is an original on the block.

I wanted a Palo Verde, but I don't know how they do in high wind areas. Anybody know?

They do great here in Arizona...and we have some mighty hard winds. (are they the AZ State tree?) Jo