Hi Brian, I have skyflower (Duranta erecta) with an eastern exposure near the house planted 3 years ago. Its now about 9 feet tall and is beginning to wake up from winter with a just few flowers blooming. Some of the leaves are light green but a few weeks from now it will begin to grow with darker green leaves and produce sprays of dark purple blossoms all summer. I don't fertilize (only because I forget) but I don't water nearly as often as you are. My schedule is once every three to four weeks in the winter increasing to twice a week in the summer. I have a 4 gallon-per-hour emitter and run my drip system for two hours each time. If it rains this plant gets a little extra water from the downspout nearby. The key to watering here in the desert is deeply but infrequently. Soils that are too moist prevent roots from absorbing iron which causes yellowing leaves. I'd suggest you water longer to push the water down to at least two feet in the soil - but less often and see what happens.

Hey there Amijo, I'm from NY originally and miss lilacs sooo much! Stephanotis is probably right about lilacs not blooming properly here because of the heat. We did get snow (for one day!) here in Tucson last year, and there were a few more blooms than usual on our Arabian Lilac bushes, but nothing to write home about. When we moved here there were two Arabian Lilac bushes - quite large. One ended up needing to be cut down to about 1 foot because it died, we don't know why. The other is still 6-7 feet, but even with regular watering, it doesn't *look* right, and when it blooms, there aren't many and they don't look right either. They are nothing like the lilacs I grew up with in NY. :( We're planning to compost them this year, or next... They were planted up against a pond, which we drained and it's possible the evaporation from the pond helped them to look good before - but when we moved in we just couldn't take care of the pond. Even so, they were known to us only as foliage bushes until one year they finally bloomed. Now we're in the middle of switching over all the plantings to low-water usage and mostly native plants. I thought this might be depressing as all-get-out, but surprisingly, there are quite a few lovely shrubs that bloom here! I ordered some **free** booklets from the Phoenix Dept of Water (can't find the URL, sorry) one called "Landscape Plants for the AZ Desert" and the other "Xeriscape" - both were incredibly helpful since I longed for pretty flowers, but hated using so much water for what I'd have planted in either NY or CA. If you get the Crepe Myrtle I hope you post about it, especially how much water they really need here. They look like they'd make nice small trees, too! We have some Texas Sage bushes that are wonderful, and cover themselves in blooms when deeply watered. Some other shrubs you might be interested in - Texas Mountain Laurel - Sophia secundiflora Little-leaf Cordia - Cordia parvifolia Sky Flower - Duranta erecta Emu Bush - Eremophila maculata Apache Plume - Fallugia paradoxa Baja Fairyduster - Calliandra californica I'm in the midst of considering all of these to replace the lilacs, and found them in the book - Arizona Gardener's Guide (by Mary Irish) that has a section on shrubs. They are all low water, all with blooms, some with lots o scent, and some with berries for the birds. If you decide to use any of these and have any luck with them, please post about it :)

Or a phoenix with wings of flame? It's been a long time since I looked for images in clouds. That's a good one!

I think Phoenix has had a lot of humidity lately like we have had here in New Mexico. The remains of Hurricane Emily just passed through there and it's also the monsoon season. My relatives moved from the area earlier this year, but they always told me the best time to visit is October through March. That's when I've been there and haven't been disappointed. The dry heat without the humidity is a very different heat from what you are used to. We have 10% humidity average here wher I live. Honestly, if you are standing in the shade, it's bearable. However, if the wind is blowing, it feels like youu stuck your head in the oven. I grew up in Arkansas which has an average of 65% humidity. There, it felt muggy even at 10 pm. Here in the desert, unless there are clouds in the sky, you don't feel sticky all the time.