Full Sun, Part Shade
Medium WaterMature Size: 2’X 3’
Blooming Season: July-August
Flower Color: Blue-purple
A very popular, low-care shrub that’s perfect for landscape or flower beds. It needs only average garden soil to thrive. Hundreds of purple-blue flower spikes cover the mature plant in late summer. Cut back 1/3 of its previous year’s height in spring to encourage heaviest flowering. Butterflies love this shrub!
Full Sun, Part ShadeMedium WaterMature Size: Climbing X 15’
Blooming Season: Summer
Flower Color: Red
What’s not to love about a plant named for one of the major food groups? Alas, the common name refers to the brownish red flower color rather than the flavor of its tasty (but not even remotely chocolate) purple-brown fruits. This graceful vine with slender stems and finely divided leaves is semi-evergreen in warm microclimates, and an asset where a light shade canopy or tracery of foliage against a north or east facing wall are needed.
Full SunMedium WaterMature Size: 60’X 50’
This majestic round-crowned conifer is found growing along the Mediterranean coast in hot, dry places subject to salty sea breezes. Ponderosa Pines, native to the mountains of the Southwest, are moving higher upslope as bark beetles cull those too stressed to thrive in increasingly hot environments, but Stone Pines seem perfectly content as the urban temperatures creep to new highs.
Full SunMedium WaterMature Size: 40’X 18”
Pine trees provide visual interest in a landscape and much-needed greenery in the coldest, most barren months. Afghan Pine is one of the best desert pines. It thrives in heat, wind, poor soil and it is relatively drought tolerant. However, it cannot tolerate temperatures below 0 degrees F. Its evergreen leaves (needles) grow in pairs and reach 5-6 inches long. This relatively fast-growing tree is great for windbreaks and for creating a “visual screen” between properties.
Full SunMedium Water
Mature Size: 30’X 20’
Blooming Season: Early Spring
Pinon Pines are one of New Mexico’s most recognizable native trees. Horizontal branches make for a bushy, domed shape when mature. Its needles, which grow in pairs, are short, stiff and dark green. Its spherical cones produce seeds (also known as Pinon Nuts) that are prized by wildlife and humans as well. Pinons are often used as accent plants, and specimens with gnarled trunks are especially prized. It grows best in foothill elevations, but can stand up to the heat and cold of most New Mexico locations