Choosing native plants for wildlife gardens in Tucson: Plant lists are crucial

In many of my articles, I write about the importance of planting with native plants. I usually also mention one of the challenges — choosing and finding the species you need. This article will help you pick out the plants you want for your native Tucson garden.

Native plants are hugely important, and never more so than in these times of increasing ecological problems. Pesticides, climate change and habitat loss are affecting millions of species worldwide, many of which humans don’t even notice — like insects. Since small animals like soil microbes and insects form the base of our food chain, whatever happens to them eventually happens to us.

Author and entomologist Doug Tallamy rang the alarm bell with his 2009 book “Bringing Nature Home”. He followed this up with a book in 2020 “Nature’s Best Hope” in which he outlines his plan for his Homegrown National Park movement. Tallamy argues that, since 83% of US land is in the hands of private owners, we can all help native species survive by planting native plants in our yards so these vital species have a place to eat, drink, live and reproduce.

Figuring out which native plants to use can be tricky in our desert. Many people have incorrect ideas about which of our plants are native. Also, some less-than-savory companies out there sell seed mixes that don’t contain native plants. Gardeners need to be able to suss out which species are native.

As all gardeners know, another challenge is to find plants that will do well in your yard. This means you need the information about what environmental conditions your chosen plant can tolerate, so you can match that up with the appropriate spot in your yard.

Finally, planting plants willy-nilly will not be nearly as helpful to wildlife as choosing plants with ecological needs in mind. In general, when planting for wildlife, the best policy is to have as much variety — that is, as many plant species — as you can. This increases the chance of finding plants that do well, but also increases the number of species those plants support. Since very few of us have infinite yard space and limitless watering budgets, plant choice is very important.

Many people like to focus on pollinators for their first foray into wildlife gardens. If you want to provide pollinators with a reliable food source, you need to put in an appropriate group of plants so that at least some of them will always be blooming every month of the year. This requires that you have information on when the plants you are considering are blooming. You will also want to have different flower colors and even flower shapes in your garden, as space allows.

A good wildlife garden will contain a variety of plant sizes and forms — a tree or two, some tall shrubs, some low shrubs, some vines, etc. The more variety the better, but of course, gardeners are limited by their available space.

So now we have an idea of the minimum information which a useful plant list will contain: environmental needs — like sun, water, shade and temperatures (or hardiness) — plus bloom time in the Tucson area and, ideally, flower color. You also need a list which includes trees, shrubs of various sizes, wildflowers, vines, grasses, and the like. Most importantly, you need to know whether a particular plant is native.

Such a list is a great place to start your garden planning. There are some caveats though. Just because a particular plant species tends to bloom in January in our area doesn't mean it will bloom in January in your yard. This is where the above-mentioned plant diversity pays off: plant a couple of species that bloom in January, so that at least one of them should bloom then. This will be subject to your space allowance, of course.

If you have very limited space (or budget), choose plants that flower outside of the usual Sonoran Desert bloom times. For example, many native plants in the wild will flower in the spring and/or after monsoons. You can therefore help wildlife the most by choosing plants that flower outside of those months (October through February or May and June).

Creating your own native plant list for wildlife

There are a number of resources which you can use to create your own plant list. First, I recommend using a spreadsheet. This is an easy way to keep track of the sun, watering and hardiness needs and bloom times of a given plant. For example, you can label your columns with the month, name, and then star or highlight the month that the plant is blooming (see my planting calendar graphic for an example). This will tell you at a glance whether you have all of the months covered. For extra utility, use different colored highlights to indicate flower color.

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Here are some great resources to help you put together your planting list:

• Arizona Native Plant Society’s plant list is the definitive guide to native plants. You can search by type of plant, sun exposure, water needs and other characteristics. When you click on a plant it gives you the flowering season.
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has another searchable database — and you can search by bloom time! This will return a list of native plants in all of Arizona, so be sure to select ones that will do well in our low desert.
• Tucson Audubon’s Native Plant Guide has some helpful plants to get started with. 

Get help with your Tucson wildlife garden

You may decide that you prefer to get help with your garden design. There are quite a few options if you decide to go this route. This is not a comprehensive list of companies; if you know of others, please email me so I can share that with our readers.

• Tucson Audubon can design and install a wildlife garden for you. Check out Tucson Audubon's “Hire Us” page for contact information, and their Habitat at Home website. 
• EcoSense Landscapes provides a number of useful services, including habitat design and rainwater harvesting projects.
• Rozet Nursery (which is listed below) also has a landscape design business.
• Strategic Habitat Enhancements is a woman-owned business specializing in designing native habitats and offers a variety of consulting and design services for different budgets. You can get plant lists with bloom times for your area. Full disclosure: I do some part-time work for this company.
• Earthcare Landscapes offers design and installation of habitats, as well as consulting.

Nurseries: Where to find native plants

Below is a selection of nurseries in town where you can get native plants. Again, this is not a comprehensive list, but it will get you started.

These nurseries focus on native plants; a few of their selections (like food plants and exotic succulents) may be non-native.

• Desert Survivors sells lots of native plants. They have a plant database as well as customized plant lists on their website which can help you brainstorm 
• Spadefoot Nursery has beautiful plants which do well in our tough landscape. They also have tons of information about native plants on their website.
• Rozet Nursery has a small nursery, and also does yard and landscape design.
• Borderlands Nursery & Seed is located in Patagonia and has great native plants. They have plant sales throughout the year and you can also get plants delivered to Tucson. It’s also one of the two reliable sources of native plant seeds.
• Bach’s Cactus Nursery is a great source of native cacti, including cholla.
• Tohono Chul Desert Corner Nursery has knowledgeable staff and grows many of their plants from seeds collected in their own gardens.
• Native Seeds/SEARCH: A great source of local, native wildflower seeds.

These nurseries sell native plants but also have a huge selection of non-natives. If you shop there, don’t be afraid to ask which are native.

• Plants for the Southwest is a small nursery packed with lots of cool plants. They carry exotic plants, particularly succulents, but have natives, too.
• Civano Nursery has a great selection of varieties of native plants, such as lots of desert willow varieties with different colored flowers. They have an online searchable plant catalog, but you can't search by native plant category.
• Harlow Gardens has a good selection of natives, particularly shrubs and perennials.
• Green Things Nursery has a searchable database on their website where you can hunt for native plants