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 Sky flower shrubs are evergreen and can be used as screens. They grow up to 8 feet tall.
Dean Knuth / Arizona Daily Star
Komatsu Equipment Co Mechanic General CORT Warehouse Supervisor Health Care Rio Salado College PA's/Online Instructors Education Assessment Technology, Inc Social Studies Content Writer General CORT WAREHOUSE/DRIVER at HomeGarden color out of the blueTucson, Arizona | Published: 09.24.2006
Desert landscapes are noted for their many types of beautiful orange and yellow flowering shrubs. Yellow sennas, yellow and orange flowering birds of paradise and orange flowering Mexican honeysuckle are but a few reflecting common desert colors.
Pinks and purples are also readily available when selecting flowering shrubs, but rare are those shrubs with blue flowers.
Besides being unique, blue provides a cool contrast to the warm tones of yellow and orange. It's also a color in the landscape that glows with soft morning and dusk lighting.
Here are some of the best "true-blue" flowering shrubs for desert landscapes:
● Sky flower is an evergreen shrub with bright-green, showy foliage and spikes of small, medium-blue flowers topping long, upright stems. Small blossoms like crape myrtle appear in late spring and remain until early fall. Plants grow up to 8 feet tall and spread up to 5 feet. The open form of the shrub makes it easy to prune and maintain at a smaller size.
Sky flower prefers full sun to light shade and soil enriched with organic amendments. It is not drought-tolerant and frequent watering is required during hot weather. In colder locations, sky flower may suffer some stem die-back, but it will recover rapidly in the spring.
It can be used as a specimen plant, to provide a screen or as a background plant in shrub borders.
● Mexican blue sage is a small flowering shrub often used as a ground cover at the base of trees and larger shrubs. It grows in a mounding form to a height and spread of 2 feet.
Mexican blue sage has small, light-blue flowers. The flowers are scattered on spikes set above small, but dense, silvery-green foliage. Most of the blossoms appear in spring and fall, but flowering can be extended into the summer with regular weekly irrigation.
Mexican blue sage grows best in sun or partial shade in soil amended with a small amount of organic matter.
● Cleveland sage is a mounding plant that grows 3 to 4 feet high and up to 6 feet wide. It has blue to violet-blue flowers, arranged in a tiered effect on tall upright spikes. The flowers, most abundant in spring and early summer, are long-lasting and ideal for dried flower arrangements. The leaves of this sage are green and aromatic, and have been used to make teas.
Cleveland sage grows best in full sun. Water every week or two from fall through spring. After flowering has ceased in late spring, water only enough to keep the soil from becoming bone-dry. Cleveland sage goes summer-dormant and may rot if overwatered then.
● Blue plumbago is an evergreen shrub with light to sky-blue flowers. It has a mounding form that provides a cascading effect when planted in containers. When planted in shrub beds, it grows to a height of 3 feet with a spread of 4 feet.
Blue plumbago has attractive medium-green foliage and its large clusters of phloxlike blue flowers cover the plant from May through September. In colder locations it will freeze back some, but it rapidly regrows in the spring.
Blue plumbago grows best in light to medium shade and soils amended with organic matter. This is not a drought-tolerant plant, so abundant water must be provided during hot weather.
● John P. Begeman is the urban horticulture agent for the University of Arizona-Pima County Cooperative Extension. If you have questions, call 626-5161 to reach a master gardener.
Gardening
Advice by John P. Begeman
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