It’s About Thyme
by Chris Winslow
During our recent two year drought (mercifully over!), gardeners at the nursery and the market on Saturday mornings would often congregate to talk about plants that can do okay without much rainfall.
My first tip for them is always the same: page through “Native and Adapted Landscape Plants,” a City of Austin/Texas Cooperative Extension book. They’re free, and you can pick up a copy at any nursery.
Starting with trees and going through shrubs, perennials and turf grasses, this book is a invaluable guide to choosing plants needing the least amount of water.
Please note: most of these extreme xeriscape plants need a helping hand to get established with a deep root system and an occasional watering during very dry conditions.
Here are some yuccas, agaves and a few more of my bullet-proof favorites:
Red yucca (Hesperaloe parvifolia) – Low-growing, reaches 2 feet in height, 4 to 6 feet in width, making it an excellent groundcover. It is evergreen and blooms from spring to summer with tall coral red spikes. Hummingbirds love them!
Softleaf yucca (Yucca recurvata) – Grows to six feet with soft foliage and beautiful spikes of white to pale green flowers.
Blue yucca or Palmilla (Yucca rigida) – This can reach over 10 feet and its blue tinged foliage makes it a very desirable addition to any xeriscape garden. It blooms in late spring to summer with showy white flowers born on spikes.
Beaked Yucca (Yucca rostrata) – Tall growing with beautiful white flower spikes. Their trunks make for a very attractive landscape addition.
Texas Sotol ( Dasylirion texanum) – Has light green leaves with sharp edges, short trunks, and fabulous white flower stalks that can get to 15 feet. There is also a silver leaf option called Wheeler’s Sotol.
Century Plant (Agave Americana) – This great desert plant can attain massive size and comes in an array of colors from green to silver, and blue. Known also as maguey, it has a spreading rosette of leaves and can attain a width of 8 feet. Its flower spike can reach over 15 feet. After flowering, the plant dies. The average life expectancy is 15 to 20 years, and during this time the century plant will produce a number of offspring. Tequila is produced from a similar plant called the blue agave or Agave tequilana. There are a number of cultivars of this plant which have striking variegated foliage (white striping along the centers or margins of the leaves).
Queen Victoria Agave (Agave victoria reginae) – A great choice for someone who doesn’t have the room to plant the larger agaves. Queen Victoria only gets to 1 foot by 1 foot. The foliage has beautiful white markings on the leaves.
Artichoke Agave (Agave paryii var. truncata) – Grows to 3 feet and has the appearance of an artichoke. They make gorgeous specimens in the landscape and are extremely heat tolerant.
A great idea for a drought and heat tolerant landscape design is to use some of these yuccas and agaves in sparse plantings with gravel or decomposed granite as mulch.
Most of these plants stand perfectly on their own: the beauty of the plant’s own architecture can be a stunning statement in any landscape. Adding a drought-tolerant, fast-growing tree such as paloverde in the background and some zexmania or blackfoot daisies in the foreground could make a beautiful, simple xeriscape garden.
Happy gardening everyone!
If you have a question for Chris, send it via email to iathyme@yahoo.com.?Or mail a postcard to It’s About Thyme11726 Manchaca Road, Austin,?TX 78748 www.itsaboutthyme.com
