Food-Gardening Lessons From A Wartime Victory Garden

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What Are the Best Hanging Basket Flowers For the High Desert?

 

Flowering purslanes are drought-tolerant, tough, succulent, and have ever-blooming flowers in a wide variety of brilliant colors.

“What are the best flowers to plant in hanging baskets for high desert? We have lots of wind also?” Question from Jill of Greybull, Wyoming

Answer: There are several options for you. All of the plants I will mention are tender in your area. Some can be brought indoors to overwinter while others are best treated as flowering annuals. In this list, I avoided the common hanging succulents, like string-of-pearls and donkey tails, because they lack impressive flowers. (Click here to learn more about these hanging succulents.)  Regardless of the drought-tolerant status of these hanging flowering plants, all will still require regular daily water in the growing months. They will also need to become well-rooted and established in their baskets before they are fully tolerant of dry heat and winds.

Plant all of these hanging basket plants in a moisture-holding potting mix so they can grow to their fullest outdoors. I recommend Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend, which is OMRI Listed for organic gardening, or Black Gold Moisture Supreme Container Mix. I also suggest hanging them along a porch or patio where they will get some protection from the high midday sun. If you bring any of them indoors as winter house plants, water them very little during the cold months because this can induce rot. (Click here to learn more about winter succulent care.)

Here are a few long-blooming hanging basket plants to consider for your high-desert garden.

Hanging Drought-Resistant Flowers

Firecracker plant trails beautifully and grows well in containers and hanging baskets.

Firecracker plant (Russelia equisetiformis):  Hummingbirds love the flowers of this trailing Mexican native. It has very fine foliage and becomes covered with red, tubular flowers all season long, with good care. It is tolerant of both wind and drought.

Trailing lantana (Lantana sellowiana): This extra drought-tolerant lantana produces many clusters of white-eyed lavender flowers that are visited by butterflies. It grows well as a seasonal ground cover but also looks great in hanging baskets.

Cobweb spiderwort (Tradescantia sillamontana): The silvery leaves of this drought-tolerant spiderwort from Mexico are lovely, and it bears lavender-pink flowers from early to midsummer. It also makes a great house plant.

Silverleaf geranium (Pelargonium sidoides): This tough, droughty geranium has pretty silver leaves and dark red flowers that bloom nonstop if you remove the old flowers. It grows well as a groundcover but also looks lovely in hanging baskets and containers. You can also bring this one indoors in winter.

Hanging Flowering Succulents

Flowering purslane (Portulaca umbraticola): You will want to grow these beautiful succulent annuals for their brilliantly colored flowers. They are perfect for hanging baskets and bloom all season long. You can also try the common and closely related moss rose, but it is a little less drought tolerant.

Everblooming iceplant (Delosperma Wheels of Wonder® Fire): There are several varieties in the Wheels of Wonder® series of iceplants. All are tolerant of drought and have very brightly colored flowers that bloom all summer.

Little pickles (Othonna capensis): This succulent from South Africa has starry yellow flowers that bloom all season. It also makes a lovely house plant.

 

I hope that you try some of these beautiful hanging basket plants in your high desert garden this season.

Happy gardening!

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

5 Big, Beautiful Wildflowers for Dry Western Gardens

This relative of hollyhock loves growing along the dry edges of cactus and succulent gardens.

The American Southwest is rich in wildflowers, and a few have proved to be exceptional choices for arid gardens.  When wildflowers perform well and are beautiful, they are ideal candidates for home landscapes filled with existing drought-resistant plants.  They also make exceptional problem solvers in desert gardens of cacti, succulents, and rocks where many other wildflowers fail to thrive.

The Big 5 Western Wildflowers

Parry’s Penstemon (Penstemon parryi)

 

Fast to grow from seed, this amazing heat-tolerant short-lived perennial is a great plant to seed into succulent gardens in fall.

This is one of the biggest most exciting late-winter bloomers for Southwest gardens. Super tall, delicate stems lined with hot pink flowers are produced. The plants are incredibly vigorous from seed sown in the fall and bloom in the first year.  Full sun exposures and soils with limited fertility and rapid drainage are required.  Once the plant has finished blooming, it produces a low rosette of leaves. This wildflower is reliably hardy to USDA Hardiness Zone 8. Flowers are bee pollinated.

Matilija Poppy (Romneya coulteri)

 

Matilija poppy is an enormous wildflower that thrives in full sun and sandy dry soils.

 

A California native, this is among the largest perennial wildflowers with an affection for sandy ground.  Big snow white blossoms with a golden ball of stamens resembling a fried egg cover the stems in spring and summer. The large, spreading subshrub reaches 5 feet in height and width and is reliably hardy to USDA Hardiness Zone 8. Flowers attract bees, butterflies, and other pollinators.

Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)

Brittlebush has golden spring flowers. (Image by Sue)

 

This is a more cold-hardy southwestern perennial that is reliably hardy to USDA Hardiness Zone 7 and ideal for foothill sites and rocky terrain. Mounding blue-gray foliage and bright yellow spring flowers offer reliable landscape appeal. Brittlebush is especially vigorous and has the constitution of a cactus, making it a desert garden staple. Offer it full sun and well-drained ground that is slightly alkaline. Flowers attract bees and butterflies.

Desert Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua)

 

This relative of hollyhock loves the dry edges of cactus and succulent gardens.

 

Vivid wands of orange flowers and silvery scalloped leaves make this 1-3′ subshrub stand out in spring, then die back in summer, much like Parry’s penstemon. It reportedly has the largest flowers and most drought tolerance of all the desert mallows. This wildflower is allergic to summer water, but reliably cold hardy up to USDA Zone 6, making it a good choice for gardeners in middle elevations of the Southwest ranges. Flowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

California White Sage (Salvia apiana)

 

Over-harvested to make smudge sticks, this perennial is proving quite adaptable to gardens.

A very long-lived subshrub that’s popular for smudge sticks, California white sage produces stems of small white (sometimes pale lavender) flowers and all parts emit a curious catty odor.  The fragrant oils protect these beauties from browsing by rabbits and other herbivores. Summer drought is required for garden success, and plants will survive in USDA Hardiness Zone 8, if provided full sun and dry, well-drained ground. Flowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.

Western Wildflower Culture

What seems to be the single unifying cultural requirement of all these plants is a need for porous soil. They are known to grow on rocky cliffs or sandy washes where their roots are free to travel far and wide.  Very little water lingers in the soil in these locations, and what does sinks deep down. Gardens with heavy soils and clay cannot support these plants. Only when grown on slopes or rocky outcroppings can these wildflowers survive the rainy season. On rocky ground, the water runs off so fast, the rootzone remains dry.

The key to growing them in heavier soils is creating beds with a combination of elevation and aeration. Raise the plant up above soggy ground in an island of porous soil. To achieve this you need a retaining wall, raised planter, or planting pockets created between loose boulders or wells of stacked dry stone.  Fill the cavity with super fast-draining Black Gold Cactus Potting Mix.  Make larger amounts of aerated fill, combining equal amounts of Black Gold Cactus Potting Mix with sandy garden loam.  Mix thoroughly in a wheelbarrow before filling your raised beds or garden pockets.

Water applied to plants in these pockets will pass through quickly to the dense soil below.  Because clay is slow to absorb water, it will gradually hydrate and provide moisture for the roots to tap into during the heat of summer.  This method is also helpful where it’s hard to keep plant root zones dry enough due to summer rainfall.

Brittlebushes are rangy subshrubs and among the most drought-resistant of all desert species.