Bloom Times? What's that?

Happy November from Desert Rose! In this month’s blog we will review the importance of having your landscape designed by someone who understands the bloom times of the foliage planted. Misjudging bloom times is an easy way to cause you to have an amazing yard in early summer but then no flowers for the rest of the year. In order to prevent that, we will discuss some simple steps to mix blooms times to make sure your yard looks good year round.

Let’s pretend we have a medium-large sized flower bed that needs to be planted. This pretend flower bed mostly receives full sun (+8 hours a day), so we need plants that can handle that much sun. The plants we will use are listed below, outlining all of their blooms times and the color of flower. Following the list (feel free to skip it) we will break down how your garden will change by season (for ease and cost-effectiveness, all of these plants are perennials that will come back year after year):

• Gro-low Sumac (tiny yellow flowers): Early spring, beautiful fall foliage

• Walkers Catmint (blue flowers): 1st: Late spring/early summer, 2nd: Late summer early fall

• Shasta Daisy (white flowers): Late spring to late summer (if pruned)

• Cotoneaster (white flowers): Late spring, red berries for after flowers stay on through the winter

• Munstead Lavender (purple flowers): 1st: Early summer, 2nd: Late summer early fall

• Stella De Oro Lily (yellow flowers): Summer to early fall (if pruned)

• Royal Red Butterfly Bush (red flowers): Midsummer to fall

• Japanese Anemone (white flowers): Late summer to fall

• Maiden Grass (golden brown plumes): Late summer and lasts through winter

• Witch Hazel (orange flowers): Winter to early spring

Spring: The Catmint, Shasta Daisy, and Cotoneaster will be blooming. The Gro-low sumac will get tiny yellow flowers that are easy to miss. The foliage of all the plants will also fill out to provide a nice green backdrop to the flowering plants.

Summer: The Lavender, Stella del Oro, Butterfly Bush, Japanese Anemone and Maiden Grass will add lots of color and texture to the yard. If you pruned the Catmint and Lavender after they finished blooming, you will get a second, smaller bloom.

Fall: The Catmint, Shasta Daisy, Lavender, Stella de Oro, Butterfly Bush and Japanese Anemone will still have some flowers on them (usually until it begins to get cold). After the colder fall nights the Gro-low Sumac will begin to shine with its dramatic fall colors. The Cotoneaster's berries will begin to show as the leaves fall off adding a festive look to your yard.

Winter: The Maiden Grass will still look good and will keep your yard from looking empty. The Witch Hazel will become covered with beautiful golden-orange flowers to brighten up those winter blues and get you looking forward to beautiful spring flowers.

We hope this helps give you an idea of what to think about before planting your yard. If this list seems overwhelming or you would just rather have someone else do it for you, give Desert Rose a call and we will would be glad to help design and landscape your yard for you!