Top 10 Flowering Plants to Include in Your Arizona Landscape Design
If you’re looking for unique desert plants with gorgeous blooms that will complement your desert landscape—you’ve come to the right place!
These ten flowering plants bloom during different seasons, so you can keep your yard looking bright and beautiful year-round. Plus, since desert landscapers in Arizona less commonly use these plants, you can be confident your yard will stand out compared to all the other homes in your neighborhood!
1. Texas Mountain Laurel
The Texas Mountain Laurel is an evergreen flowering shrub or small tree native to the Southwestern United States and Mexico. This plant has dark green leaves, and when it blooms, the flowers look like wisteria and smell like grape flowers in the spring.
These plants grow slowly, making them low-maintenance and an excellent addition for beautifully complementing small areas around your home.
2. Valentine Shrub
The Valentine Shrub blooms with red, tubular flowers in late winter, just in time for Valentine’s Day when most other plants are dormant. When the temperature begins to drop in December, the leaves start to take on a reddish hue until the warm spring weather arrives.
These shrubs maintain a natural round shape and a five-foot spread, so you’ll need plenty of room in your landscape design for them to grow. Its deep red flowers look great with other plants that bloom in white, purple, and pink shades.
3. Chaste Tree (Monk’s Pepper Tree)
The Chaste Tree, also known as a Monk’s Pepper Tree, is a deciduous multi-stemmed tree that is the perfect patio tree.
The tree’s leaves are dark green, and in the late spring or early summer, it blooms with small, purple cone flowers that flow off the tree from the top. The Chaste Tree is very similar to a Crape myrtle tree but much better suited to the desert climate.
4. Bells of Fire Tecoma
The Bells of Fire® Tecoma is an evergreen hybrid between a Cape Honeysuckle and Orange Jubilee. This shrub is bred to be more compact, so it’s great to plant against a wall, and it’s more drought-tolerant and easy to care for than other flowering plants, making it an excellent desert landscape addition.
This shrub blooms with bright reddish-orange flowers in the spring and summer. It has a cousin called “Sparky” Tecoma, with burgundy and yellow blooms, named after Arizona State University’s iconic maroon and gold coloring.
5. Blue Bells Emu
The Blue Bells Emu is a plant native to Australia that looks similar to Texas Sage. This rounded shrub grows up to three feet wide and is an excellent addition to a small front yard.
It blooms in from the spring to the fall with beautiful purplish-blue, orchid-like flowers that thrive in direct sunlight and heat, making them an excellent choice for Arizona’s desert climate.
6. Yellow Dot Wedelia
The Yellow Dot Wedelia is a fast-growing, evergreen groundcover plant that stays close to the ground. It has a dark green leaf, and when it blooms in the early spring, the plant becomes filled with small yellow flowers that look like daisies until the frost arrives in the winter.
Since this plant grows rapidly across the ground, it takes up a lot of space. It’s a great, low-maintenance plant to use in an area you’d like to add a little liveliness or color.
7. Firecracker Penstemon
The Firecracker Penstemon, also nicknamed the Firecracker Beardtongue, is a perennial plant (lasts 2-3 seasons) and a plant native to the desert southwest. This plant has dark green leaves that thrive with little water and in direct sunlight, and it grows to be up to two feet tall.
When this plant blooms in the late spring, it becomes covered with bright orange-red flowers that grow on tall spikes of blooms. These flowers also attract hummingbirds and butterflies.
8. Argentine Giant Cactus
This focal point cactus boasts a medium-green color that grows up to two-feet tall and three-feet wide. This cactus is native to Argentina, and in the spring, it blooms with large white, peach, or red flowers that open in the cooler Spring time morning.
This unique cactus requires plenty of space to grow since the cactus limbs tend to sprawl out and curl back up. If you desire a saguaro cactus in your desert landscape, the Argentine Giant Cactus is the perfect low-maintenance alternative.
9. Claret Cup Cactus
Native to the American Southwest, the Claret Cup Cactus is a small cactus that grows several short, vertical arms. It’s an eye-catching plant you can install around boulders or along a pathway to provide striking curb appeal.
In the spring, this cactus blooms with orange-red flowers on the tips of the arms. They look great next to Damianata Daises or other types of purple, yellow, or orange flowering plants.
10. Santa Rita Prickly Pear
The Santa Rita Prickly Pear is a gorgeous and unique succulent cactus with blue-grey pads that turn bright purple in the winter. In the spring, the plant bloom with yellow flowers that sprout off the top of each pad.
You’ll need space for a Santa Rita Prickly Pear to grow, but you can control how large they expand by cutting the off unwanted pads.
Design Your Dream Arizona Backyard with Wildflower Desert Design
If you’re ready to incorporate one (or more!) of these beautiful flowering plants into your desert landscape design, we’d love to help.
Contact our knowledgeable team at Wildflower Desert Design to get started with your free consultation.