This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Going Down(under)

I started writing a response to the man who asked about Australian
plants in use in the US. My answer became so long and involved that
rather than subject the whole list to it I've attached it to this mail
as a text file.

If the subject interests you, you can read the file...if not, you can
ignore it. I surprised myself once I started to compile a definitive
list of Australian species being grown in my part of the world--it's
really quite a few, from trees to perennials.

Len

23 June 02

This is in response to a query on GWL about Australian plants being grown in the US.

Here in the desert southwest of the US our urban landscapes have been noticeably impacted by a handful of Australian species. When I speak of the southwest desert cities, I mean Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Indio, Calexico/Mexicali, Yuma, Tucson, El Paso and Phoenix, and the towns surrounding them. Most of New Mexico except the far south and just about all of Utah except the Dixie/Virgin River area are too cold to grow most of the ornamentals (in particular the Australian ones) found in the other cities. Similarly, people think of Texas as the southwest, but for our purposes all of Texas except for the far west is either too cold or too humid for the recently evolved multi-source desert plant palette. And of course coastal California from the Mexican border to well north of San Francisco can grow just about any Australian ornamental they wish. Check out Jo at Australian Native Plant Nursery, between Ventura and Ojai in California http://www.australianplants.com/; she's got a lot of wonderful species and varieties I've not seen offered elsewhere in the states, all grown on an amazingly small plot of land in a valley with a nearly perfect climate.

I am writing from the fabulous resort town of Las Vegas, NV, aka "Sodom" or "Babylon in the Desert". As a city of 1.5 million fulltime residents plus what seems to be another half a million tourists at any time (plus all the golf courses and pleasure domes to serve them), we have a lot of landscaping to be done. No country has contributed more to the emerging landscape style than Australia. Old-fashioned Vegas landscapes used to rely heavily on Chinese and Mediterranean plants; these days we're using even more species from Spain, Greece and North Africa, but fewer from East Asia (mostly because so many of those require so much water). Temperatures seldom dip below 24 degrees F here, but we are still reliably frostier than Phoenix or Palm Springs, both also resort towns with a heavy investment in landscape. Tucson is just about as frosty as Vegas, but sits higher up and further south, with more effective summer than winter rainfall (Vegas being the opposite).

Anyway, back to the desert. As far as trees go, many parts of the desert failed with eucs for a long time because all that showed up in the retail nurseries were the species the coastal wholesale nurseries had deemed suitable. Trees like Corymbia ficifolia, C. citriodora, Eucalyptus globulus, E. rudis, E. camaldulensis/rostrata and the Angophoras just don't work in the hot, dry and alkaline inland deserts, especially those with enough continental influence to experience occasional frosts. Fortunately some obsessive plant people persevered, and a number of more appropriate species have now become significant parts of the arboreal landscape. I'll try to use the accepted common name if I know it. I have tried to limit my comments to plants that can be either purchased at major garden centers or ordered for a landscape job from regional wholesalers; the actual number of species available for those willing to search is probably close to five times as many (one Australian said to me once that Americans grow more species of Australian plants in our landscapes than most Australians do, particularly in the desert).

The most common of the eucalypt trees are:
	Eucalyptus polyanthemos (Silver Dollar Gum)
	E. sideroxylon 'Rosea' (Red Ironbark)
	E. viminalis (Manna Gum, Weeping Gum)
	E. microtheca (Coolibah)*

	//*various forms of this species are grown; especially popular are those with extremely white bark and extremely blue foliage like "Blue Ghost' and 'Snowfury'. There's a good chance that those varietal names are simply made up by local nurserymen, but that's fine if it sells trees, right? ;')

Less common but gaining in popularity are some of the mallees, gimlets and other smaller, often multitrunk eucs that are more in keeping with a residential scale. Favorites include:
	Eucalyptus nicholii (Peppermint Gum)
	E. spathulata (Narrow Leaf Gimlet)
	E. formanii (Feather Gum, Forman's Gum)

Specialty nurseries and some adventurous retailers have also been selling some of the eucs primarily grown for ornamental flowers or fruit capsules. These include:
	Eucalyptus torquata (Coral Gum)
	E. forrestiana (Fuchsia Flowered Gum)
	E. nutans (Red Moort)

Several nice Acacias have become common. One, Acacia stenophylla has now almost completely replaced various willows as the primary weeping trees in the landscape. Among the weepy acacias in use are:
	Acacia stenophylla (Shoestring Acacia, Shoestring Tree)
	A. aneura (Mulga)
	A. salicina (Willow Acacia)
	A. spectabilis (Mudgee)
	A. pendula (weeping Myall)
	A. subporosa (Bower Wattle)
	A. subporosa 'Emerald Cascade'

Other less grown but available Acacias include:
	A. baileyana (Cootamundra Wattle, Bailey's Acacia)*
	A. dealbata (Sydney Golden Wattle)
	A. aneura (Mulga)**
	A. notabilis (Golden Wattle)
	A. melanoxylon (Blackwood)
	A. saligna (Blue Wattle)
	A. peuce (Waddywood)

Another four dozen or so tree-form Australian acacias can be found in special gardens, parks and arboreta, and several large growers (in particular Arid Zone Trees http://www.aridzonetrees.com) are providing test specimens to determine suitability for use in desert landscapes. A number of shrub acacias are also in use; see below.

	//*which has problems in high alkalinity areas, especially in its ''Purpurea' form.
	//**whose oddly gray leaves have found it favor for use in very low water commercial landscapes mixed with the southwestern native Palos Verde.

Other Australian trees grown in these desert cities include:
	Grevillea robusta (Silky Oak)*
	Callistemon viminalis (Weeping Bottlebrush Tree)
	Brachychiton populneus (Bottle Tree, Kurrajong)
	Brachychiton acerifolius (Flame Tree)
	Ficus benjamina (Weeping Fig)
	Ficus macrophyllus (Moreton Bay Fig)
	Ficus rubiginosa (Rusty Leaf Fig)
	Geijera parviflora (Australian Willow)
	Pittosporum phillyraeoides (Weeping Pittosporum) 
	Casuarina cunninghamiana (River She-oak)
	Casuarina stricta (Beefwood)
	Melaleuca leucodendron (Paperbark)

	//*of limited use in really windy areas because of brittle wood

Among the shrub acacias, the reigning queen is A. redolens, Creeping Acacia or Low Ongerup. It can be found by the hundreds of thousands in golf courses and along freeways, particularly in zones intergrading between lushly irrigated landscape and natural desert. Particularly important is the extremely low form 'Desert Carpet', which gets no more than six inches tall while spreading up to ten feet in each direction.
Other shrub acacias are used mainly for the curiosity factor because of their distinctive leaves/phyllodes, but also because of their extreme drought tolerance.

Shrub acacias:
	Acacia redolens (Creeping Acacia)
	A. redolens 'Desert Carpet' (Desert Carpet)
	A. triptera (Three Wing Acacia)
	A. cultriformis (Knife Acacia)
	A. craspedocarpa (Leatherleaf)
	A. glaucoptera (Clay Wattle).

The closely related Cassias (some of which may have been reassigned to the genus Senna) are also popular, with Cassia artemisioides battling the long-established oleander and more recent leucophyllums (shrubby snapdragon relatives from Texas and Mexico) for the position of number one dry landscape shrub:
	Cassia artemisioides (Feathery Cassia)
	C. eremophila (Desert Cassia)
	C. phyllodinea (Sickle-leaf Cassia)
	C. sturtii (Sturt's Cassia)

A number of shrubby grevilleas have penetrated the market. One in particular sold as Grevillea x 'Canberra' has been planted here for at least 25 years; we don't really know what it is because while it has pretty much exactly the flowers of G. x 'Canberra Gem', it can grow to six feet by eight feet or more ('Canberra Gem' is supposed to top out at three feet). Whatever it is, it was followed a very few years later by G. x 'Noelii'. Apparently G. rosmarinifolia, G. lanigera and G. thelemanniana were introduced at the same time but failed to thrive. Since then a wide variety have shown up at plant sales, specialty nurseries, and sometimes even Builder Supply Garden Centers (remember that in coastal California the number of Grevillea species and varieties in use is vast; here in the desert the number is much smaller):
	Grevillea x 'Canberra'
	Grevillea x 'Poorinda Constance'
	Grevillea x 'Noelli'
	Grevillea x 'Long John'
	Grevillea x 'Red Hooks'
	Grevillea x 'Robyn Gordon'
	Grevillea x 'Ivanhoe'
Some of the other Proteaceae are showing up, in particular some promising looking Banksias.

Other shrubs commonly encountered:
	Alyogyne huegelii / Blue Hibiscus (half dozen cultivars)
	Callistemon citrinus / Red Bottlebrush
	C. pallidus / Lemon Bottlebrush
	C. rigidus / Scarlet Bottlebrush
	C. subulata / Littleleaf Bottlebrush
	Calothamnus quadrifidus / Calothamnus
	Chamaelaucium uncinatum / Geraldton Waxflower
	Chorizema cordatum / Flame Pea
	H. v. 'Mini Ha Ha' & 'Baby Purple' / Dwarf Australian Lilac Bush

Ground covers (minus the acacias):
	Atriplex nummularia (Australian Saltbush)
	Myoporum parvifolium / Myoporum (numerous cultivars)
	Calocephalus brownii / Cushion Bush
	Scaevola aemula 'Purple Fanfare' / Purple Fanflower
	Scaevola x 'Mauve Clusters' / Mauve Clusters

Australian vines are showing up more and more in the desert marketplace:
	Hardenbergia comptoniana / Purple Pea Vine
	Hardenbergia violacea 'Happy Wanderer' / Lilac Vine
	H. v. 'White Icicles' & 'Alba' / White Lilac Vine
	H. v. 'Rosea' / Pink Lilac Vine
	Hibbertia dentata / Black & Gold
	Hibbertia scandens / Guinea Gold Vine
	Kennedya nigricans / Black Pea Vine
	Kennedya rubicunda /Dusky Pea Vine
	Pandorea jasminoides / Bower Vine ('Rosea Superba' & 'Lady Di' most common)
	Sollya heterophylla / Bluebell Creeper

+++++
In case this is all too much, here's a short list of the plants you'll find in almost every garden center, retail nursery and home center in the desert areas of California, Nevada, Arizona, far southern New Mexico and far west Texas (I'm certain I've forgotten something, but oh well):

Acacia aneura (Mulga)
Acacia cultriformis (Knife Acacia)
Acacia craspedocarpa (Leatherleaf)
Acacia glaucoptera (Clay Wattle)
Acacia redolens (Creeping Acacia)
Acacia redolens 'Desert Carpet' / Desert Carpet
Acacia salicina (Willow Acacia)
Acacia stenophylla (Shoestring Acacia, Shoestring Tree)
Acacia triptera (?)
Alyogyne huegelii / Blue Hibiscus (half dozen cultivars)
Atriplex nummularia
Brachychiton populneus (Bottle Tree, Kurrajong)
Callistemon citrinus / Red Bottlebrush
Callistemon viminalis (Weeping Bottlebrush Tree)
Calocephalus brownii / Cushion Bush
Cassia artemisioides (Feathery Cassia)
Cassia eremophila (Desert Cassia)
Cassia phyllodinea (Sickle-leaf Cassia)
Cassia sturtii (Sturt's Cassia)
Chamaelaucium uncinatum / Geraldton Waxflower
Eucalyptus polyanthemos (Silver Dollar Gum)
Eucalyptus microtheca (Coolibah)
Eucalyptus nicholii (Peppermint Gum)
Eucalyptus spathulata (Narrow Leaf Gimlet)
Grevillea robusta (Silky Oak)
Grevillea x 'Canberra'
Grevillea x 'Noelli'
Hardenbergia violacea 'Happy Wanderer' / Lilac Vine
Hardenbergia violacea 'Mini Ha Ha' / Dwarf Australian Lilac Bush
Hardenbergia violacea 'Rosea' / Pink Lilac Vine
Hardenbergia violacea 'White Icicles' & 'Alba' / White Lilac Vine
Hibbertia scandens / Guinea Gold Vine
Myoporum parvifolium / Myoporum (numerous cultivars)
Pandorea jasminoides 'Rosea Superba' / Bower Vine
Pandorea jasminoides 'Lady Di' / White Bower Vine
Scaevola aemula 'Purple Fanfare' / Purple Fanflower
Scaevola x 'Mauve Clusters' / Mauve Clusters

Lenadams Dorris (Starfarmer)
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index