Desert Crest Press

Approaching summer is a great time of year to consider adding more color and bloom to your landscaping in Peoria, AZ. Desert plants for beauty, like Chaparral Sage (Salvia clevelandi) is an excellent candidate for Arizona yards and gardens. It thrives quite well in the rainless summer months. While this member of the Salvia family is native to the low desert of California, you’ll find it fares very well in the middle and low deserts around greater Phoenix. Including Chaparrel Sage in your Peoria landscape design give you great color and rugged xeriscape qualities.

Professional Peoria landscapers like to use Chaparral Sage in many designs. The fragrant gray-green foliage is very aromatic and this bush is huge. Mature Chaparral Sage can grow to five feet tall by six feet wide. Plus, the striking flower spikes provide the plant’s greatest visual attraction. Flowering plants in the spring and fall are full with clusters of blue/violet blooms all throughout the plant. While not a candidate for small area garden design in Peoria, AZ – it’s an excellent candidate for any spot in your yard that needs a burst of early and later season color. When not in bloom that unique foliage gives welcome contrast from other plants in any planting theme.

Chaparral Sage dies add dramatic visual appeal in bloom to any desert landscape design. Plant one of these gorgeous members of the sage family and watch all the butterflies and hummingbirds appear. When it comes to having great curb appeal landscapers in Peoria will suggest its use as a dominant plant in your Peoria, Arizona landscape design. You will want to remove the spent flowers from your Chaparral Sage in the late winter and early summer to keep these desert plants at their most attractive best for manicured landscaping.

In extremely hot climates, Chaparral Sage needs to be planted in your desert landscaping, where it can get some relief from the hot Arizona sun. Landscapers in Peoria, AZ will always select a spot in your professional landscape design that this xeriscape beauty plant can mature in all its glory. Even though you live in the desert, plants from the Sage family require great soil drainage to prevent any fungus occurring. So be sure to test the soil before planting this in your xeriscape design, in clay you must amend the soil properly for long lasting looks and low maintenance plants.

As we turn our interest to desert landscaping in an effort to conserve water and trim household bills, it is important to remember that xeriscaping is not zero-scaping. Chaparral Sage will be low maintenance and desert climate tolerant, but it is recommended to water Chaparral Sage every 7-10 days. As any professional Peoria, AZ landscapers will tell you, correctly watering all desert landscape plants is the secret to a beautifully xeriscaped yard and low maintenance landscaping in Arizona. You want actively growing and healthy desert plants or you can forget all about increasing your curb appeal. A little regular watering reduces the cost of Peoria landscaping.

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Depth, color and many layers of interest are found in this gorgeous xeriscape landscape design in Phoenix.

If you know enough about desert plants and those that will thrive in the drastic climate of Arizona, it does make selecting the right ones to create a low maintenance landscape a lot easier. Anyone can research which xeriscape plants require the least water to make them easy to grow around a home in Phoenix. Yet, not everyone can take those same desert plants and arrange them to become a work of art. Phoenix landscaping is far more than picking the easiest plants you can find. Beautifully landscaped properties will always be the work of an artistic person who is also a landscape designer.

The process of laying out the planting plan of a xeriscaped yard is just the frosting, the final touches that make your Phoenix landscape design become something attractive, let alone stunning. Every perennial flower, ornamental grass, succulent or cactus, shrub, tree and vine is an important player in a well orchestrated ebb and flow of any xeriscape design. Pulling the entire scene together also leans heavily on precisely placing the hardscape elements of pavements, stone or stucco walls, fountains, statuary and even landscape boulders.

The brightest plant on the right of the walk, Blue Agave looks even bluer with all the yellow around it.

To really have a fabulous desert landscaping display, form and line is just as important as color, texture and form. The well skilled and talented Phoenix landscape designer will be able to visualize the scene that is developing as each new item is placed on the paper that becomes a map to building a wonderful yard. Everything has a place and a color in this fine example of a lovely desert landscape. Yellows, blue and purple, earth tones and finally different shades of green are mixed and placed just right for flow and mass, accent and background. To add even more depth each area has a singular accent plant that arrests more attention than the others.

There are no vibrant flowers beyond the soft Yellow Bells along the walk. Not that this particular Phoenix xeriscape design won’t have a variety of brightly colored blooms, because in other parts of the year it will. The thing is that any landscape design that is done well, will have this much contrast and depth to it whether something is in flower at the moment or not. This is what separates a mediocre Phoenix landscape designer from the best. It doesn’t matter whether you live in the desert of Arizona or the verdant rolling valleys around the Mississippi. Landscape design is the most intricate form of art that requires more skill, knowledge and talent than most people assume. Unless of course, you don’t mind that your Phoenix landscaping isn’t anything special.

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Desert landscaping doesn't have to be boring! It can be very colorful.

Your home here in Arizona can have so many different colors and textures in the landscaping design. Phoenix area homeowners can enjoy low maintenance, drought tolerant plants without giving up beauty and style. Creative use of unique colors and contrast of foliage plants and cactus carries a great deal of visual impact even when few desert plants that flower are in bloom.

It isn’t just the selection of desert plants that create a stunning and pleasing high color xeriscape design for your home. Placing the flowering plants and colored foliage must be done with some vision of how it will flow in all stages of a year’s display. To be able to do this, the landscape designer must have many plants and their attributes memorized along with each stage of their growth, the mature sizes and flowering through the months of the calendar. This ability requires far more skill in desert areas like Phoenix, than the more verdant regions.

Here we have Golden Barrel Cactus in the foreground of the xeriscape design, echoing the mounded Yellow Bells and the bright yellow variegation of the container grown Agave on the pillars. When in bloom, the Purple Prickly Pear tosses more yellow into the planting scheme, just the foliage picks up the blue flowering Creeping Rosemary and a tone in the boulders beside the sidewalk’s lower steps. The orange of the Lantana is the right hot accent to really set of this exquisite Phoenix desert landscaping design.

Vibrant xeriscape landscaping in Phoenix featuring beautiful blooming plants.

Well thought out xeriscape design for Phoenix curb appeal will be beautiful and well layered from any viewing angle. Height from great ornamental trees like Palo Verde and Acacia mixed with architectural cactus and hardscape structures like the pillars are important parts of front yard landscaping. Adding really wonderful and unusual xeriscape plant colors like the steel blue spiky leaves of the Century Plant Agave give your landscape design excellent accents of high interest. The art of beauty in Arizona landscapes always begins with the assistance of a professional xeriscape designer.

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A lovely display of light blue-purple blooms spring through fall from Desert Ruellia in Phoenix yards.

While form and size is important to consider when selecting the shrubs, trees and perennials for different spots in your yard, color is what most people look for in plants.

There are many choices in yellows, orange and white in flowering desert plants normally used in Phoenix landscape design. Reds and pink hued blooms are also available in good numbers. When it comes to blues and purples that don’t head toward pink, your Arizona plantings will gain better dimension with these flower colors present.

For height that allows a canopy that you can see beneath the small ornamental tree shape of Vitex or Chastetree is lovely. This allows you to plant beneath it next to the patio of leave it clean and sparse as a specimen in the xeriscape design. Chastetree is covered with lilac shaped blooms in April-June and reaches 10-25 feet high and wide in your Arizona landscape design.

Blue Solarum or Blue Potato Plant offers height and lovely blue-purple blooms for spring against a silvered leaf perennial plant. Finding a good spot for this 6 foot wide and 10 foot high plant will be easy for Phoenix landscape design as it offers you good foliage accent in summer and fall.

If you’re hungry for royal blue blooms that will color your Arizona yard from spring through fall, the perennial  Victoria Blue Salvia, also known as Mealy Cup Sage is absolutely wonderful. The green leaves of this desert landscaping plant add good looking texture topped with masses of those beautiful blooms from March-November. For sunny spots in landscape design where consistent color is wanted at 1 foot to 4 foot high.

Another long blooming plant that is really popular for Arizona landscaping is the Mexican Petunia or Desert Ruellia shrub. Here you have a lovely little evergreen shrub that will even fit under windows in a Phoenix landscape design. Maturing to 3 foot high and wide, you have flowers in light blue purple in your desert landscaping from March-November with this plant in your yard. In the heat of the desert sun, the foliage of this particular shrub takes on a metallic blue tone.

You’ll enjoy a vibrant array of blooms from May-June with Chaparral Sage well placed throughout a Phoenix landscape design. In full sun this perennial plant is right at home in the Arizona xeriscape planting. A native plant from the Baja that has nice form even after blooming, it will reach 4 foot high and 6 foot wide.

For enchanting rich purple flowering vines Blue Coral Pea (also known as Lilac Vine) is an excellent plant for Arizona landscape design. It can be used as a scrambling ground cover in part shade or for accenting adobe walls grown on a trellis. This evergreen climber is popular in Phoenix for its delight for its April-May blooms with consistent moisture.

While there are a few other blue-purple blooming plants that will do well in your Arizona landscaping, the blooming is less showy and best enjoyed up close. From a Phoenix landscape designer point of view, the more blued purples lend more impact with reds and pinks than the pinker hued purple blooms will.

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Beautiful to behold, the Ghost Gum Eucalyptus tree is great for Phoenix xeriscape design landscaping.

There are two different types of Eucalyptus that do great in Phoenix landscaping. Pay no attention to the varieties grown around old Arizona homes, they have given these lovely, evergreen trees a bad reputation from brittle wood and a messy habit. Actually there are hundreds of types of Eucalyptus, so do yourself a favor and take a good look at excellent selections for landscaping in Phoenix without the mess.

The best Eucalyptus for your xeriscape landscaping will be continually full of pretty leaves and mature rapidly to create welcome shade. These wise choices tolerate drought well, but grow more rapidly to cast shade with regular deep, wide watering to encourage rapid root development. The best way to ensure fast growing shade in your Phoenix landscaping is with the use of drip irrigation from an automatic sprinkler system.

Unlike those shady characters found in old neighborhoods around Phoenix, these three Eucalyptus trees do not get so huge they become a problem. All of the following types of evergreen shade trees are lovely in their own unique way and small enough to be just right for home landscaping in desert areas. None of these are brittle wood trees, making them great for windbreaks to shelter your home from high winds.

Red Cap Gum (Eucalyptus eruthrocorys) has long, narrow foliage that is dark green and glossy, along with a nice upright natural shaping. Blooming from fall through spring, the rich red flower buds are very showy on their own, but then burst open to display clusters of brilliant yellow flowers. A great tree that is moderate to fast growing for full sun that will be right at home in the lawn areas of your Phoenix landscaping even fully mature at 25’ high and wide. You’ll also enjoy the wonderful color and texture of the bark on the Red Cap Eucalyptus Tree which is tan and white becoming interesting due to its peeling habit. No brittle qualities at all from this little shade tree that loves the full sun of Arizona.

Coolibah Tree (Eucalyptus microtheca) has handsome blue-green leaves that are long and narrow. Due to its fast growth habit and evergreen hardiness in the Phoenix climate, it is a popular addition to desert landscaping. Not only does the Coolibah tolerate that Arizona sun at full blast, it will also do just fine under the strain of reflective heat. Blooming fall through spring in your Phoenix landscaping, the white flowers are not as decorative as those on the Red Cap Gum. A multi-trunked shade tree offers your yard a beautiful shape and readily adapts to our Arizona soils. This particular Eucalyptus will give you spreading shade at 30 – 40‘ high and wide.

The beautiful, slightly weeping silhouette of the Ghost Gum (Eucalyptus papuana) is sensational looking on the powdery white trunk. Your desert landscaping in Phoenix will find wonderful accent from all parts of this gorgeous tree. The light green leaves are large and contrast just right against that ghostly trunk. You won’t have messy droppings to cleanup from the Ghost Eucalyptus, it is such a wind tolerant and great candidate for desert xeriscape it is the preferred tree for city streets and highways in Arizona. Rugged and oh so lovely, the Ghost Gum is evergreen with white flowers from fall through spring, maturing to 40’ high by 20’ wide.

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There are some very lovely plants that will deal with light to moderate shade in your Phoenix landscaping.

In fact, many plants that will take full sun will be more productive at flowering and even bearing fruit if they have some shady protection from the blistering afternoon summer sun here in Arizona.

The most attractive vines for foliage and blooming will be those that prefer light to medium shade. When it comes to true Xeriscape plants that vine and do well in the shade you will want to use flowering Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans). Depending on the selection, Trumpet Vine can bloom in soft melon to vibrant flaming red accented orange. Just as in most regions of the country, Phoenix landscaping plants that like a shadier situation do require consistent moisture.

Don’t despair, this is easily provided without you needing to remember to keep them moist with automatic drip irrigation. For moister soil and vibrant orange blooms in light shade, Cape Jasmine (Tecoma capensis) is a rambling vine that looks gorgeous cascading over walls. It is also useful for screening and will tolerate the sun so is a great candidate for creating shade and privacy beneath your patio ramada shade structure. Cape Jasmine is somewhat drought tolerant, once established in your Arizona landscaping.

Some of the most handsome flowering vines for your Phoenix courtyard walls or other shaded areas give you the choice of some really wonderful blooms and even lovely scents. For purples and lavender colored blooming, take a look at Purple Vine Lilac (Hardenbergia violacea). In bloom showy sprays of light grape hued flowers add an excellent showiness to the evergreen foliage. This particular vine does well in shade and tolerates drier conditions than many climbing plants well suited for shade plantings in your Arizona yard.

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For part shade landscape design in Phoenix, the vibrant yellow blooming Cat Claw Vine (Macfadyena unguis-cati) will create quite a show rambling along and spilling over courtyard walls or trellises. While drought tolerant, you will be far more please with the lush, shiny evergreen foliage with the addition of drip irrigation. There are other plants that can be successfully grown in light shade for climbing walls in Arizona landscaping, but the rest of them are not as hardy as these selections are.

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