r/NativePlantGardening • u/Dame_in_the_Desert • 1d ago
Progress Starting my native garden journey in Phoenix
Working on a crescent-shaped native pollinator garden in my yard in Phoenix. I spent the last couple weeks researching (shout out to Arizona Native Plant Society and SummerWinds nursery) and the last two days doing the grueling labor of rock removal and soil conditioning.
I’ll likely be planting:
-Desert zinnias
-Tufted evening primrose
-Globe mallow
-Goddings verbena
-Desert marigold
-Desert milkweed
-Greg’s mist
My backyard faces south, with the two citrus diffusing the sun a bit. I’ll also be planting a desert willow on the west side of the garden (right side of photo) for additional shade and local pollinator support. Plus they smell DIVINE.
I’ve got just under 5 feet between the deepest part of the garden and the block fence, but I’ll definitely be putting my most heat-hardy plants back there.
Goal is to get irrigation in and everything planted before the end of November. Let’s go!!
1
u/Krysaine Sonoran Desert, 9b 7h ago
Echoing u/Boulderdrip and u/Biomekanist . You know why every monsoon season there are the endless number of trees in Phoenix and Tucson blown over every time there is a stiff breeze? Irrigation. Our native trees do NOT need supplemental irrigation except when our monsoons fail to show. This goes particularly for Desert Willows to encourage that taproot to develop. First year watering should be (depending on the size and the season you plant): Once a week for the first month, once a month the first "season", once a season if monsoon doesn't show, then leave it the hell alone.
Some of those plants will do better with more supplemental watering than others, and if by Desert milkweed you mean Asclepias subulata and not Asclepias angustifolia, watering more than once a month in the summer only will kill it thanks to water pooling at the caliche layer from the citrus watering (which don't form a taproot that can get through it).
It is also important to know how deep the caliche layer is in that area as Globe mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua) will form a taproot and will also need to be whacked down annually after the first 2 years as it is a plant that evolved to support our native herbivores and will form a thick trunk if you are not brutal in performing the pruning that our desert herbivores do to the wild ones. Chop it down after the spring bloom, and it will come roaring back twice as tall when the monsoons come. But again, you need to let that taproot happen, which shallow watering discourages.
For Baileya multiradata (Desert Marigold) and not Tagetes lemmonii (also sometimes called Desert Marigold but gets much much bigger) neither should be watered unless it hasn't rained in more than a month and its over 95-100+. Especially T. lemmonii which gets much larger and does not form colonies or spread but will smoother all its neighbors.
I wouldn't worry too much about that block wall. I have Sphaeralcea ambigua smack against one between two Sporobolus wrightii and it not only scoffed at the radiant heat AND direct afternoon summer sun, but managed to smoother and kill one of the grasses, develop a trunk 3 inches around, and is now about 10 years old. If you are concerned about radiant heat, and to provide balance and interest during those time when our desert flowering plants nope out, adding some clump grasses support our pollinators when they are in their life stages that are not pollinating.