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While most homeowners will tend to create beautiful interiors that they can admire and enjoy, they often forget that they have an outside to decorate too. If you live in a dry and hot region like Arizona, your landscaping challenges are even greater. Below are a few plants that you might want to consider when decorating your house’s landscape.
Deer Grass
Deer grass is an excellent choice for an Arizona landscape, since it is native to the area. Aside from it being a good candidate for those interested in xeriscaping, it also has very little water requirements, and grows rather fast.
Deer grass is a good option to soften the features of any landscape, especially when planted close to rocks or other hard surfaces. Its deciduous, fine foliage grows to a mound, and people often mistake it for a peculiar looking bush instead of grass.
Cleanup is also a breeze for this particular species, as it creates very little litter.
Arizona Sun Hyssop
Very few landscapers would think to use hyssop as part of a landscape, but this herbaceous plant is a great option to use due to its usefulness. A member of the mint family, hyssop has a multitude of uses in cooking and herbal medicine.
The Arizona Sun Hyssop is a great option for landscaping. Aside from being an Arizona native plant, its aromatic, licorice scent is a perfect choice to create a multidimensional landscape that is more than just visual appeal. Plus, the Arizona Sun Hyssop is a favorite of butterflies and hummingbirds, so expect a few friendly visitors to drop by.
This plant prefers direct sunlight, and will require low to medium levels of watering, although Arizona Sun Hyssop will die when left in standing water or when overwatered.
Pink Muhly
The Muhlenberg capillaris, or Pink Muhly as it’s commonly known, is a very interesting type of grass. It grows pink, wispy plumes of blades that provide a nice color contrast against most of the greens and browns that a lot of native plants have. Despite looking like a huge tuft of potential allergens, it is actually hypoallergenic.
Pink Muhlies are also easy to propagate, require very little water and can withstand being out in full or partial sunlight. It is also a pool safe plant, since they produce very little debris and do not grow the way creeper plants or vines do. Safe to say, it’s a very beautiful looking specimen that is very easy to care for.
Chilean Mesquite
When choosing plants for an Arizona landscape, it’s important to consider the water requirements of the species, as it can determine how easy or difficult the landscape will be to maintain. The Chilean Mesquite is a tree species that is a good choice to plant around any Arizona home, since it requires very little water to keep it alive.
Its growth rate is also very fast, growing 13 to 25 inches per year. Within 20 years, it will reach full maturity, and will provide a whole host of benefits to a home, helping with the heating and cooling, especially during extreme temperatures.
