Best AZ Native Flowering Plants for Low-Water Beauty
The Sonoran Desert features some of the most beautiful and interesting flowers in the world if you know where to look. If you’d like to make a hummingbird or butterfly refuge out of your backyard, check out some of these Arizona native options.
Starting with bushes, an easy favorite is the Globe Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua). They can be found blooming bright strands of pink, orange, or fuchsia through the spring and into the early summer before going dormant until the next spring.
There are several species in the genus Penstemon which provide perfect, long-lasting pink or red flowers for hummingbirds and humans alike to enjoy. The Penstemon eatonii, in particular, can live for several years without going dormant or dying.
The Chuparosa (Justicia californica) grows in a network of blue-green stems with bright red trumpet flowers, another hummingbird favorite. After periods of rainfall they sprout leaves quickly followed by blooms, before eventually turning to mostly sticks during dry or cold times when they can be cut back until the next growth spurt.
Fairy Dusters are popular flowering bushes used in landscaping around the city. Pink Fairy Dusters (Calliandra eriophylla) in particular is native to the Sonoran Desert and is known for blooming in the winter.
Ocotillos (Fouquieria splendens) can take a couple years to get fully established, but once they do, they create strange columns of bright red flowers that are vital to the survival of Arizona hummingbirds. An interesting fun fact: the ocotillo is not a true cactus or a succulent, but rather a very interesting-looking drought-deciduous bush.
Small groundcover flowers that you and the ecosystem will love include Desert Marigold (Baileya multiradiata), Blackfoot Daisy (Melampodium leucanthum), Lupines (Lupinus sparsiflorus), Mariposa Lilies (Calochortus species), and several others. You’ll need to plant these in the ground, as they do not like being in pots.
Moving away from bushes, you can’t ignore the beautiful blooms of Sonoran Desert cacti. The Hedgehog Cactus (Echinocereus) is a genus of small, clustered cacti that produce huge pink, purple, or orange flowers in the late spring.
The Prickly Pear (Opuntia) genus contains dozens of species of succulent desert plants, with each species blooming in the late spring and early summer with waves of orange, yellow, or pink flowers, depending on the species. Their fruits (and paddles) are edible if you know how to safely harvest them!
Other blooming cacti and succulent plants include Buckhorn Cholla (Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa), Barrel Cacti (Ferocactus), Pincushion Cactus (Mammillaria grahamii), and of course, Saguaros (Carnegiea gigantea).
These are just a few of the countless examples of plants that create stunning blooms in the Sonoran Desert. If you take a hike in the desert in the springtime or after a wet monsoon season, you’ll see thousands of examples to give you inspiration for a low-water native garden of your own.
At ELS Maintenance & Construction, we install and maintain plants that make sense for the area, following Sustainable Landscape Management (SLM) guidelines. If you know of a community or commercial center that needs new landscapers, contact [email protected] and we can get started!
