Plant of the month: Arizona rosewood | Home & Garden

The Arizona rosewood (Vauquelinia californica) is a great Sonoran desert indigenous alternate to oleander. It is a large evergreen shrub, potentially increasing to 30 ft in height and 10-15 toes in width nevertheless it typically stays under 20 feet tall in our weather. It responds effectively to some pruning and can be utilized as a semi-formal flowering hedge, but do not shear it.

The Arizona rosewood is from the rose family. The bouquets are a attractive creamy white and increase in clusters and attract pollinators. The leaves are a deep eco-friendly, and about 4 inches very long, narrow, with serrations alongside the edge. The bouquets turn into smaller brown fruits, which drop, so if you’re anxious about patio messes, you could want to plant these a bit farther back again from hardscape areas. The plant grows comparatively bit by bit, though it will speed up a little bit the moment it gets set up if you give it standard irrigation. It is extremely hardy (down to 10 F) and drought-tolerant.






Just after the bouquets and seeds fall off, the Arizona rosewood has clusters of attractive brown seed heads.


Dominika Heusinkveld



Due to the fact of its significant sizing and thick vegetation, it tends to make for a excellent screening hedge and windbreak. It also supplies habitat for area birds. The plant is also a larval host for the two-tailed swallowtail (Papilio multicaudata), a spectacular butterfly with yellow, black and blue wings.

Individuals are also reading…

The Arizona rosewood tolerates our whole sunlight and even does perfectly with mirrored sunshine. The plant likes well-draining soil, but prefers little natural subject (so really don’t incorporate any amendments when you plant it). When set up, you can water it just when a thirty day period, while much more frequent watering could assist it mature a bit faster. If you want to command its size, maintain the watering to when a thirty day period and it will likely keep significantly less than 10 feet tall. It can also be pruned to the condition of a modest tree. It is vulnerable to Texas root rot, so do not plant it in regions exactly where other plants have been infected.

As opposed to oleander, which is poisonous, the Arizona rosewood is nontoxic. It is a perfect plant for larger, hot spaces if you have time for it to improve to its impressive dimension. It is not aggressive, and will not distribute in your garden.

For much more gardening facts and articles or blog posts on gardening in the Tucson space, subscribe to the totally free Tucson Yard Guidebook e-newsletter!

Do you have any gardening subject areas you would like to see included in the Tucson Backyard garden Manual? E-mail me at [email protected] with your strategies and questions. Thanks for looking at!