Xeriscape - Drought-Adaptive Horticulture

The Gone Native Drought Adaptive Garden
Scenes from June 11, 2006

Click on each image to see a larger version; use your browser's "Back" button to return to this page.

When summer's heat sets in for the duration, a gardener on the Llano Estacado is thankful for a number of long-blooming plants that endure 100 degree temperatures. The explosion of diversity during the spring blooming period fades. One of the favorites of Llaneros is the Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora). Hummingbirds love the plant, and Bullock's orioles will eat the blossoms. Red Yucca will bloom until September. Ornamentation, such as the scepter holding the blue glass, helps to create interest in the garden.

The interior of the red yucca blossom is a soft yellow. Mountain States Nursery in Arizona has developed a cultivar that has pale yellow blossoms, and a hybrid that will have 10 foot tall bloom spikes.

Flameflower (Anisicanthus wrightii) will bloom profusely twice a year (once in the summer, and once in the fall). If the green seedpots are deadheaded, the blooms will continue to appear for another week or two. Hummingbirds go nuts over the flowers.

Standing cypress is native to the hill country of Texas, but is one of the most dependable annual flowers for seeding flower beds on the Llano Estacado. It blooms for most of June, and should be cut down after the seedpods turn dark. The seeds should then be scattered where wanted the next year.

A close up of standing cypress shows the tubular flower form that hummingbirds love.

A female black chinned hummer established her "watching post" on a branch of an English Hawthorne. Her nest was five feet away in a desert olive (Forestiera neomexicana). Just below her grows Giant Turks Cap (Malvaviscus mexicana), Salvia Grahamii (from Mt. Graham in Arizona), and standing cypress. She chases away any other hummer that comes to her area.

June is when the Midland County native tree Soapberry (Sapindus drummondii) blooms. Zillions of small insects nectar on its blossoms.

Zillions of small blooms attract the insects, and some of the blooms will turn into golden translucent berries that suds up when swirled in water. Soapberry sends up "suckers" from its roots and can be a problem for people with smaller lots and unwilling to spend five minutes a month removing them. Soapberries grow in the draws of the Llano Estacado, and in the sand dunes of the region.

A shady trail can be a pleasant path to each sunny bed at Gone Native. By 11 a.m. the temperature hits 90 degrees. In the right foreground is an Arizona Rosewood, an evergreen with white blossoms in early June.

Near this gazing ball and bench is a bed of Salvia farinaceae (Mealy Blue Sage). Beyond the bench is the 10 foot tall mother in law's tongue prickly pear.

It is fun to sit on the bench in the preceding photograph and watch the mealy blue sage for insects. Butterflies and bees love it, and the hummers will check it out too.

This caterpillar will do some damage to the salvia, but a mockingbird will eat him, so we let nature take its course.

Next entry in the Gone Native diary...