Easy-Care Desert Container Gardens
“Don’t Let Your Pots Stay Empty!”
The extreme temperatures create a more challenging scenario in our desert climate. With the lack of rainfall, the intense sun and heat, we must know what to plant, when and where.
We don’t always want to be wedded to our gardens all year long. Watering, deadheading, and pruning can take a toll on our bodies and mood. But there’s a container gardening style that can bring together bountiful color, low-water color, and succulents and cactus.
It is wonderful to look out to our garden and see living color happily moving in the breeze when we are home. A cold winter or our typical hot summers can deter going out and “being 1 with nature.” However, I feel the worse thing is to look out and see empty pots, especially when there is no reason to allow this to happen. If you are reading this and saying “But…”, what about just one easy-care pot? I think the energy you spend to make this happen will be “Priceless,” as the ads for MasterCard™ say.
Easy-Care Arrangements for Desert Pots
It’s All About Flowers
For most designs for easy-care pots, I focus on flowers that don’t need as much care. . I am not going to include cactus in these designs. I cover pots with abundant flowers that thrive in full sun or at least six-plus hours of sun.
Easy-Care Plants
My criteria for easy-care plants are:
- Thrive in full sun
- Annuals are long season, meaning they are productive from summer through fall or fall through winter.
- They do not require deadheading.
- They are not prone to disease or pests.
- They need a low or a moderate amount of water.
Easy-care flowers are strong and sun-loving plants. Summer is the most challenging time. Think about your experiences with large Dreamland™ Zinnias versus Vinca. You are lucky if the Zinnias make it past July, whereas Vinca starts performing as soon as the soil warms up until they freeze. Vinca can live year after year, even popping back up in early spring after a hard freeze.
You only get to know that by learning from me, asking from your nursery staff, or talking to other gardeners. If you have a really hot pot and it’s failing, you can ask others what plants they recommend to work in this kind of situation. Hopefully, you have already committed to 24-inch or larger pots.
Most of the plants that I’m going to talk about are lower water, but I even hesitate to say that because they’re not no-water or drought-resistant. You still must make sure they are receiving consistent, ample water.
The second benefit of easy-care combinations is little or no deadheading is needed. That is one of my criteria for most plants in this because, you know if we want something that we must make sure has enough water and that we pay attention to, but then we can step back and enjoy those that how I chose the plants that go into this.
3 Rules
Rule #1 – Size of Pots
My rule for full sun pots is that they should be an interior diameter of 20 inches or more. Now, in the summer, with our inferno heat, I recommend you go with pots 24 inches across and the same approximate height. To be safe, splurge on the bigger pots for your full sun locations, and you will be planting a winner every time!
The shape of the pot should have lots of room to hold the soil needed for the roots to grow and maintain a consistent moisture level which lowers the temperature of the soil. Appropriate pots will be a Belly pot, U-shaped pot or V-shaped pot.
Many of my pot designs are in pots from 28 to 32 inches wide, so they’re jumbo pots.
Rule #2 – Choosing Types of Pots
Pot material is essential to desert success. My first preference is a thick-walled, high-fired ceramic pot, which means that they are fired at a high temperature. Typically, these pots are glazed and therefore are not as porous. If you think of terracotta pots, they’re very porous, but if they’re high fired, you’re not going to have a loss of moisture through evaporation through the pot’s wall.
However, many potted gardeners would prefer working with lighter-weight pots. Again, you want a thick-walled pot, and you can find one with double-walled resin material. You can find these online if not in your local nurseries or stores, and I’ve even seen them on Wayfair and Amazon. Other light-weight possibilities are pots made from Polypropylene or fiberglass.
When choosing light-weight pots, don’t forget Rule #1 – Pot Size!
Please don’t use thin plastic parts in full sun
These will not insulate the soil at all going, and they will not hold up in our intense sun and heat. Plus, I believe your home deserves better.
Make sure you have a hole in your pot for drainage. Light-weight pots typically have a score for the hole, and you have to punch it out. But your ceramic pots should have a hole when you buy them. Double-check that because occasionally, they’ll miss that part of the assembly line. They’ll drill a hole if you buy them at a local nursery.
Rule #3 – Use a quality planting mix
I talk and write a lot about planting mixes for your desert pots. My basic guideline is to use Black Gold All Purpose Planting Mix. Another brand recommended by my fellow potted gardeners is Fox Farms. Many local nurseries have created their blend. Just be sure it is rich brown and does not have twigs or large particles. The make-up of the materials is small, consistent-sized particles, and it smells good.
A Summer Easy-Care Combination
This XL (24″) pot shown in the photo was planted at a small apartment complex in central Tucson. The owner wanted something that took up space but did not want a ground planting in the square bed. It receives water from an irrigation system and is in full sun. You can see it is thriving in this July photo!
This Recipe:
This combination will need its flowers changed each season (i.e., winter and summer), but the tree will live in the pot for years. You don’t have to use a Mexican Bird of Paradise, and you can substitute any shrub or tree form you like. If you have followed me, you know I love using Euonymus – either the Golden or Siver King varieties.
For this 24″ pot, you would need the following plants:
1 True Mexican Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia Mexicana) (1 or 5 gallon, pruned into a tree form)
5 Red Vinca “Pacifica” (4”)
4 White Vinca “Mediterranean” (4”)
1 Purple Verbenas (4”) (You can substitute another Scaevola if you like.
3 Purple Scaevola (“Fan Flower” (4”)
What About the Mexican Bird of Paradise?
I want to be very clear about this plant. This is not the orange-red shrub you see in every desert landscape. That is the Red Bird of Paradise (Caesalpinia pulcherrima.)
Although this tree is not in bloom, it is a heavy bloomer beginning in March or April and blooms most of the year. It is much more cold-hardy than its red cousin. It may get a little scraggly looking, but it is a lovely evergreen, fast-growing plant in mild winters. I had several in our first Tucson house, and they exceeded ten feet in height with a three-inch trunk. The thing to watch is just like the Red Bird of Paradise, and the Mexican variety produces seeds from every flower cluster. They will pop off the tree with a snapping sound, and you will find volunteer babies around your yard and in neighboring areas. Be sure to pull any unwanted volunteers as soon as you see them.
Changing It Up
As I said above, you can vary the specific plants you use for the statement plant, here shown as the Mexican Bird of Paradise.
You can also use a citrus tree like a Mexican Lime or any Kumquat. Be sure of your micro-climates to know how cold the winter gets, and be prepared to protect the tree if needed. Since this is an easy-care combination, perhaps colder areas do not warrant a plant that you need to cover every winter.
You can also change the flowers to fit the criteria listed above. Remember – easy-care is the key to these arrangements!
Where to place this pot
This arrangement should be in full, all-day sun, 12 months a year. It won’t hurt if it gets some late afternoon shade in the summer, but it is unnecessary. With its large size, when fully grown, you can place two other pots making a trio. The other two pots should be about 22″ wide and tall.
Care
This combination needs consistent water, especially in the summer. You will not have to deadhead it, but it will benefit from my standard recommendation of a water-soluble fertilizer application every two weeks all year. You can prune to shape the tree and the flowers as desired, or let it go wild!
A Winter Easy-Care Combination
This jumbo window box was one of my earliest plantings when creating container gardens for commercial clients. After that, I worked mainly with restaurants in Tucson with dining patios. This is pictured at the former Elle Restaurant in Broadway Village Plaza at Broadway and Country Club, and I think it is now Sushi Garden.
A rather frustrating property in the beginning because they had small window boxes. While they were 30” long, they were only six inches wide and about 5 inches deep (soil depth.) As you know, this is not large enough for full-on western exposure in the desert.
After one year of the trials of losing plants repeatedly, we talked the owner of the Plaza into adding supporting boards to the railings and much larger window boxes. Due to the weight of these jumbo size boxes, we felt we had to use heavy-duty plastic. However, with the additional volume of space, they retained a good amount of moisture. They were on a battery-operated drip system dedicated to these 13 boxes, and in the summer, we ran it twice a day.
This Recipe:
This is a combination of a Red Yucca (yes, even in a pot on a daily drip system), burgundy Pansies, white Alyssum, Crystal Palace Lobelia, and on the back-left side, pale blue Pansies.
This planter is 40” x 13”. For this size, you would need the following plants:
- 1 Red Yucca (one-gallon plant)
- 4 White Alyssum (4”)
- 2 Crystal Palace Lobelia (4”)
- 4 Burgundy Face Pansies (4”)
- 4 Pale Blue Pansies (4”)
Since this planter is seen from all sides, plant the Red Yucca in the center and arrange the other plants relatively symmetrically around the planter, keeping in mind that the Alyssum and Lobelia should be on the outer walls. Hence, it drapes over the rim of the container.
What About the Yucca?
You might be asking how I can put a succulent into a container on daily drip irrigation. This was my first experiment with using a Red Yucca this way. Summers on this patio are brutal, and the reflected heat from the building walls and solid brick pavement everywhere in the plaza burned up everything.
Looking for a solution, we finally came to the Red Yucca and trailing Lantana. This was when we still had the 6” planters on the railing. When winter came, and it was time to change out the summer plants, I could not discard the Yucca. We decided to give it a try and added winter flowers to the boxes. The Red Yucca held up beautifully!
The following summer, we upgraded the boxes to the jumbo size, transplanting the Yucca into them. If they were doing so well, why fix something that is not broken? With these larger boxes and better moisture, we could forego the Lantana and add summer flowers to the Yucca.
Here is one of my summer designs. Sweet Potato Vine in Chartreuse and Blackie, Vinca, New Look Celosia (the red plumes) and Nierembergia. The Sweet Potato Vine did wilt some in the worst part of the summer, but it always recovered by morning. You can see how the growth of these plants shaded the soil, maintaining a relative degree of coolness, less than the 95°F degrees we had previously recorded of the soil temperature!
Changing It Up
You can certainly use other combinations for this same planting. We have a series of similarly planted pots running down the railing in the following picture. The changes are only in the color of the Pansies, and the yellow is an excellent contrast to the Crystal Palace Lobelia’s deep blue shade.
You don’t have to run out and buy window boxes either. I would hate for you to figure out where you will place them! Any round, square or rectangular pot will be nice for this arrangement. Think about if the pot will be seen from the front or all around, and place the Red Yucca in the back or center depending on this view.
The quantity listed for the window boxes would also fit a 24” pot. An 18” pot would only need the Yucca and two each of Alyssum and Lobelia plus three Pansies.
The pot color is wide open for this design. Anything from organic desert shades to terra cotta, cobalt blue or Chinese red will all be lovely.
Where to place this pot
The flowers in this arrangement are on the smaller side. However, as you see in the photos, plentiful flowerheads come from individual plants making a bold statement no matter how far away you place them.
These plants will all do best in five hours of sun but can take the desert winter’s sun for a more extended period. The all-day sun will be fine for these flowers.
Combine with Other Pots
You might want to combine this arrangement with other pots in a grouping. I advise you not to add an abundance of colors to the other pots. See how nicely the boxes on the railing move the eye along. If you get too busy with many colors and textures, the eye does not know what to do and will never come to rest. This creates a sense of confusion in your mind rather than calm. You want the combination of colors to bring a smile to your face, even when you stare at it for a while.
Perhaps you can see what I mean in the photoshopped image below. The values of the white are intrusive, and the blue doesn’t go with anything else in the floral colors.
Care
I did say easy-care for these plants. Only the Pansies will need deadheading. Be sure to cut the long stem of the dead flower back to the origination of that stem. Review my article on this plant if you need to trim the Alyssum.
This jumbo window box will give you beautiful flowers all winter with consistent watering.
Unfortunately, as always, I have to say, “However.”
All these flowers do well with the same amount of water. They want to be kept evenly moist, not soggy and not allowed to dry out.
Here is the, however. The Lobelia is not cold-hardy, and it will freeze and probably die at 32°F. If you are in a colder area, you will need to protect it very well or bring it inside. If your nights stay above freezing, it will be OK.
What I want for you is a backyard full of pots this lush and full and, well – happy.
There are many methods to be learned to make this happen. I hope to share these techniques with you so that you don’t have to go through years of failures to have a garden like this.
