Arizona wild cotton (Gossypium thurberi) is a deciduous shrub with lovely fall color. Also called desert cotton, and Mt. Lemmon cotton, this shrub can grow up to 10 feet tall by 4 feet wide. It has beautiful creamy white summer flowers and its palmate leaves turn yellow and red in the fall before they fall off and the plant goes dormant.
It’s pretty fast-growing and quite hardy — the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum reports its branches are hardy to 20 F and roots are hardy to at least 15 F. Even if it freezes completely to the ground it recovers quickly once temperatures warm up.
Various butterflies and moths love it, so it’s a great addition to a pollinator garden. It doesn’t use much water, but you’ll get the most blooms with some irrigation, particularly during the summer. It’s not very picky about soil types, and prefers a fair bit of sun, although it can handle some partial shade.
It can be pruned into a small tree form if you so desire. It’s native to rocky foothills and canyon slopes from Arizona to Texas and Mexico, so it likes well-draining soils. It prefers elevations from 2,500 to 5,000 feet.
The plant survived eradication efforts in the 1930s, when it was mistakenly thought that it hosted a weevil that affected the non-native cotton crops. Fortunately, these efforts failed, and we have a lovely native plant for our landscapes.
