November Blooms
I love flowers. In fact, it was my love affair with flowers that inspired me to get my degree in horticulture. I figured that life is too short to not do what you love, so working as a horticulturist allows me to be around blooming plants throughout much of the year.
As the weather begins to cool, blossoms begin to lessen, but one of the many benefits of living in the Southwest is that there are always some plants showing off their flowers.
Today, I’d like to share with you just a few of the flowering plants that I saw during the past couple of weeks, which are decorating the fall landscape.
Pink Fairy Duster (Calliandra eriophylla) flowers in spring and fall, is extremely drought tolerant, thrives in full sun and is hardy to 10 degrees F.
Creeping Indigo Bush (Dalea greggii) is a groundcover, which flowers in spring and fall, is drought tolerant, thrives in full sun and is hardy to 10 degrees F.
The Cascalote tree (Caesalpinia cacalaco) flowers in fall and on into early winter, is drought tolerant, thrives in full sun and is hardy to 20 degrees F. While thorny, there is a new variety with a smooth trunk, called ‘Smoothie’.
Pink Muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris) is an ornamental grass that flowers in fall, is drought tolerant, thrives in full sun to filtered shade and is hardy to 0 degrees F.
Blue Bells (Eremophila hygrophana) flowers all year long, is drought tolerant, thrives in full sun to filtered shade and is hardy to 17 degrees F. Still in bloom in November
These are but a few plants that are still in bloom in November in my zone 9 climate.
How about you? What is blooming in your garden or neighborhood?
A Beautiful Centerpiece for November’s MGB
Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
Where in the world did you get a Cascalote smoothie tree? As hard as I have tried, I cannot find one. I live in CA now, which makes shipping even harder because of state laws. Also, there are discrepancies as to when it flowers. I bet you know!
Where in the world did you get a Cascalote smoothie tree? As hard as I have tried, I cannot find one. I live in CA now, which makes shipping even harder because of state laws. Also, there are discrepancies as to when it flowers. You mentioned late fall, others say spring.
Hi Cheryl,
I’m sorry you are having trouble finding this tree. I’m sending you a link to a wholesale nursery that has this tree. You can contact them to see what nurseries in CA they may have sent some too. Oh, and by the way, they do bloom in fall/winter 🙂 http://www.mswn.com/plants/database/plant/caesalpinia-cacalaco/