Home Grown: Summer plants that survive and thrive

Here in the Desert Southwest, the hot summer sun can make us feel like wilting.

In this week’s Home Grown, we will learn which plants do the same in the heat, and which plants can survive and thrive.

By shopping at local nurseries, plant experts like Johnny Sullivan can help you determine which plants for your yard work best for Yuma.

“Summer plants that would be good for around this time they could essentially be planted during the summer. You have a wide variety of different things there’re things like: Texas sage, there’re several kinds of Cassius, there’s Arizona Yellow Bells, Orange Jubilees, Mexican Birds of Paradise,” said Sullivan.

Just because some of these plants are drought-tolerant, doesn’t necessarily mean the plants can survive in direct sunlight.

“You could have a plant that’s drought tolerant but if you put it in the middle of the sun, it might just die. Things like that you really have to watch out for,” said Sullivan.

Plants like the Texas Sage and Mexican Birds of Paradise, do well once planted in the ground, unlikely to become sunburned.

It is important to understand what makes a plant drought and heat tolerant.

“The thing that makes these certain plants able to grow throughout the summer is that they thrive on heat,” said Sullivan.

Some of these same plants can also be planted in the winter, but will not look as nice.

“A lot of them will go dormant, meaning they are going to drop a lot of their leaves. A lot of people think they’re dead at that point, but they’re not, it’s just like they’re going to sleep. Once it starts heating up again they thrive,” said Sullivan.

If you still aren’t sure what to look for when buying summer plants, here’s a tip:

“A lot of the times all of these plants are going to be labeled with some kind of tag. That’s going to let you know information about that plant,” said Sullivan.

Often times, cardboard plant stakes provide information about plants such as how much sun or water a plant needs in addition to what temperature works best for the plant.

“It’s going to let you know can it be in the full sun all day long, or is it going to need some shade, how often are you going to be watering it, how big is it going to get, things like that those are really the signs that you want to look for,” said Sullivan.

If you are struggling to keep your plant alive in the summer, here are some tricks to revive it.

“There’s plenty of fixes that you can do to make sure that it’s going to survive. Things like you can take a burlap sack cover up your plant and it’s not going to get as much sun as it would be getting. There’re other things like fertilizers and tree steaks. If you wanted your tree to stay upright so that it’s not hitting the ground since the ground is hot it’s very simple things to do,” said Sullivan.

After all, just like some of us can handle the desert heat better than others, the same goes for our plants.

“So really pay attention to those labels the labels will tell you but most of what you want to know,” said Sullivan.

For more information on Yuma Nursery click here.