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Arizona Gardening

Need tall shrub or small ornamental tree suggestion please

18 years ago

Hi Everybody,

Thank you for all your large tree recommendations - we got a chinese evergreen elm and a sonoran emerald. Now the side of the house is still barren and also exposed to hot western sun.

Any low water use large shrubs or small ornamental trees to 8 ft. tall that anyone has a good experience to share? I have been considering desert willow, cascalote but concerned about pods,and thorns. Orange jubilee would be nice but we have several on the property already.

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Comments (7)

lazy_gardens
18 years ago
Quail bush
Desert lavendar
Hop bush
Cordia parvifolia
Texas Ranger (some varieties)
Desert_Heat
18 years ago
Fern of the desert can be grown as a tree or shrub.
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Green X could use something dense that gets to a decent height in a decent amount of time. I would use Springtime Viburnum or Common Myrtle sheared into an egg. I love myrtle eggs. Mine gets pretty white flowers at this time of year. You may want to consider Duranta repens for the yellow x. A dwarf bottlebrush standard will weep for you, and they stay small. Brugmansia would look great. It sounds like an ideal spot for one. Put something like native sword ferns below so that you don't have to pick up all of the dead blossoms. I have a very nice Euphorbia that looks like a smoke tree- stays small, easy to prune into shape. It may live there. I'll take a photo tomorrow. I'd plant duranta up against the wood fence too. The variegated green and white ones would look great, and they get about ten feet tall. I love the shape of the path you laid out. Renee
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hoku1
18 years ago
I like hopbush. It is hardy and kind of has the look of bamboo. I like to watch it swaying in the breeze.
usha
18 years ago
I vote for hopbush. They come in green and red varieties. Very drought tolerant and low maintenance and provide interest most of the year.
Pagancat
18 years ago
Hop bush is a great suggestion (Dodonea viscosa and Dodonea viscosa 'purpurea'- the purple tends to come out when chilled - it's also a bit more frost sensitive, but next to a western wall it should be fine). I also love the Fern of the Desert (also called Fern tree, Fern bush, etc. - Lysiloma thornberi). You can also get the soft, lacy look from Guajillo. They are all very drought tolerant.

If you want some pretty blooms and a bright green leaf, I would suggest the desert willow, Chilopsis linearis. It has the added benefit of being deciduous, so that same western wall can warm your home in the winter.

I went down to Baker's last spring and looked at some of their trees, with the same parameters in mind - a number o the Eucalyptus are small, with yellow or red blooms. I bought a mulga - it has silvery leaves and bright yellow blooms that look just like catepillars. It grows to about 15 feet. Lemon Euc and Forman's Euc are two more you might want to look at.

There's tons more, we're lucky to have a large number of smaller trees. Don't forget the Texas Mountain Laurel (both green and silver leaf forms) many of the Acacias are smaller trees, the Screwbean Mesquite has very interesting seed pods, Caesalpinia cacalaco, mexicana & gilliesii are all very pretty, blooming trees.

HTH!
temperasher
18 years ago
small trees: lysiloma, yes.... chilopsis, yes... and chitalpa tashkenti (cross between chilopsis and of all things, catalpa) YES YES YES YES !!!
large shrub: tecoma stans ANGUSTATA (yellow bells, not orange bells, which is simply tecoma stans) can be trained as a small tree, if it doesn't get frosted...or else will be a large shrub if it occasionally gets frost nipped...you can roll the dice and train it as a tree, and see if you win (I'm doing that)
Ikeeptryingardener
18 years ago
I vote for the desert willow. It has beautiful trumpet flowers that the hummingbirds love and is drought tolerant.

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