Elizabeth Everson

In this spot, the plan is a small ornamental tree, something like a desert willow or a Texas olive. Both stay small, flower for months, and won't take over the space. Here are a few other small trees that would work too. Go with a 15 gallon and plant it toward the center of the bed so the canopy has room on all sides.

Native

Desert Willow (Bubba or Burgundy)

Small native tree with orchid-like dark purple-burgundy flowers all summer and light, airy shade. Hummingbirds love it, and the roots are well behaved.

Texas Olive

Small tree with big white flowers through the warm months. Mostly evergreen here, takes heat well, and stays a manageable size.

Golden Lead Ball Tree

Small tree with bright yellow puffball flowers off and on through the warm months and fine, ferny leaves. Stays compact.

Native

Kidneywood

Small native tree with fine, ferny leaves and fragrant white flower spikes after summer rains. Stays under 15 feet and fits tight spaces.

Texas Mountain Laurel

Evergreen small tree with glossy leaves and purple flower clusters in early spring that smell like grape soda. Slow growing and compact. The seeds are toxic, so keep that in mind with pets.

Pomegranate

Multi-trunk small tree with orange-red flowers and fruit in fall. Easy to keep small, and one of the easiest fruit trees to grow here.

You've already got rosemary and elephant food going here, and they look great. Here are a few more options that will cascade and trail out over the gabion edge, plus some lower growing shrubs and flowers to fill in behind them.

Cascading and trailing

Trailing Rosemary

Low, spreading rosemary that drapes over the rock edge. Fragrant, evergreen, with small blue flowers bees love.

Elephant Food

Succulent with small round leaves on red stems. Already doing well in this bed, and it spills nicely over the edge.

Trailing Lantana

Low, spreading lantana with purple flowers almost all year. Cascades over the edge and butterflies are always on it.

Silver Ponyfoot

Trailing silver ground cover that hangs down like a curtain over the edge of a bed. Soft and striking against the rock.

Purple Heart

Deep purple trailing leaves with small pink flowers. Spills over edges and gives you color from the foliage alone. Dies back in frost and returns.

Sunrise Emu

Low spreading ground cover with gray green leaves and yellow flowers late winter into spring. Trails over edges nicely.

Trailing Indigo Bush

Low silvery ground cover with purple flowers in spring. Spreads wide and spills over edges.

Lower shrubs and flowers

Autumn Sage

Small shrub covered in red, pink, or white flowers spring and fall. A hummingbird favorite.

Native

Pink Fairy Duster

Native low shrub with soft pink puffball flowers in spring. Stays small.

Angelita Daisy

Small mound of fine leaves with little yellow daisies almost all year.

Native

Desert Marigold

Native with soft gray leaves and bright yellow flowers spring through fall. Low and easy.

Native

Penstemon

Tall spikes of red, pink, or purple flowers in spring. Feeds hummingbirds and native bees.

Firecracker Plant

Upright stems with bright red tubular flowers that hummingbirds love.

Native

Desert Fuchsia

Native perennial with tubular scarlet flowers in late summer and fall, right when hummingbirds are migrating through.

You can't fit all of these. Pick 3 or 4 favorites and repeat them through the space so it looks planned and full.

This vitex needs its root flare exposed. The root flare is where the trunk widens out into the main roots, and it's supposed to sit at or just above the soil line. When it's buried under soil, mulch, or debris, the bark stays wet, the roots can't breathe, and roots start circling and girdling the trunk. It's one of the most common reasons trees look thin and struggle like this one. This video shows why it matters, with real examples.

Can't see the video? Watch it on YouTube.

How to do it

• Clear the debris and anything piled against the base of the trunk.
• Use a strong stream of water from a hose to blast the soil away from the trunk. It moves soil without damaging the bark, which a shovel can do.
• Keep going until you see the trunk flare out into the first main roots. On a tree this size, that can be several inches below where the soil line is now.
• Then build a water well around it with mulch, keeping the mulch a few inches back from the trunk so you don't bury the flare again.

What to look for

• A trunk that goes straight into the ground like a pole with no widening at the base. That means the flare is buried.
• Girdling roots: roots wrapping around the trunk instead of growing outward. Small ones can be cut; larger ones are worth having us look at.
• Soft, dark, or peeling bark at the base, a sign it's been staying wet.
• Small fibrous roots growing up out of the trunk into the soil. These are a sign the tree has been buried, and they can be gently cleared away.

If you'd rather we handle it, a root flare excavation is $200.

This spot is going to be the pollinator garden. Milkweed, Greg's mistflower, and globe mallow are the core, and here's the full list of what would work well together. Mix nectar plants (flowers that feed adult butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds) with host plants (the ones caterpillars eat), so you're supporting the whole life cycle, not just the adults.

Plant in groups of two or three of the same plant rather than one of everything. Pollinators find a patch of color much more easily than single plants scattered around.

Native

Desert Milkweed

Native milkweed with tall gray green stems and creamy flowers. A host plant for monarch butterflies, so expect caterpillars, which is the goal.

Greg's Mistflower

Native with fuzzy lavender flowers that butterflies cover from spring through fall, especially queen butterflies.

Native

Globe Mallow

Native perennial with apricot orange cup flowers in spring. A favorite of native bees.

Native

Penstemon

Tall spikes of red, pink, or purple flowers in spring. Feeds hummingbirds and native bees.

Native

Desert Senna

Native low shrub with bright yellow flowers spring through fall. A host plant for sulphur butterflies.

Black Dalea

Low, airy shrub with silvery fine leaves and deep purple flowers in fall, when bees need it most.

Native

Desert Marigold

Native with soft gray leaves and bright yellow flowers spring through fall. Low and easy.

Autumn Sage

Small shrub covered in red, pink, or white flowers spring and fall. A hummingbird favorite.

Native

Desert Fuchsia

Native perennial with tubular scarlet flowers in late summer and fall, right when hummingbirds are migrating through.

Native

Velvet Pod Mimosa

Native shrub with fine, ferny leaves and fluffy pink puffball flowers after summer rains.

You can't fit all of these. Pick 3 or 4 favorites and repeat them through the space so it looks planned and full.

Same idea here: pollinator plants and sages that work in conjunction with the citrus tree. Bees that visit these will also pollinate your citrus blossoms in spring. Keep new plants outside the citrus canopy's drip line, or at least a few feet from the trunk. Citrus roots are shallow and don't like competition or digging right around them.

Autumn Sage

Small shrub covered in red, pink, or white flowers spring and fall. A hummingbird favorite.

Lavender

Fragrant gray foliage and purple flower spikes. Does best with good drainage and a little afternoon relief, which a raised bed gives it.

Greg's Mistflower

Native with fuzzy lavender flowers that butterflies cover from spring through fall, especially queen butterflies.

Native

Penstemon

Tall spikes of red, pink, or purple flowers in spring. Feeds hummingbirds and native bees.

Native

Pink Fairy Duster

Native low shrub with soft pink puffball flowers in spring. Stays small.

Angelita Daisy

Small mound of fine leaves with little yellow daisies almost all year.

Trailing Rosemary

Low, spreading rosemary that drapes over the rock edge. Fragrant, evergreen, with small blue flowers bees love.

You can't fit all of these. Pick 3 or 4 favorites and repeat them through the space so it looks planned and full.

Along the back wall, here are the plants I'd look at for covering it. Pick one and run it the full length so it reads as one clean line, planting about 3 feet off the wall. Barbados cherry is the one edible option. It does best with a little afternoon relief, so it's the pick if this wall gets some shade later in the day.

Hopseed

Fast evergreen with narrow bright green leaves. Gets tall and full enough to cover a wall.

Native

Arizona Rosewood

Native evergreen with dark green leaves. Dense, handles full sun, and makes a solid screen.

Barbados Cherry

Glossy evergreen shrub with small pink flowers and bright red, tart, vitamin C packed cherries several times a year. Does best with some afternoon relief and regular feeding.

Orange Jubilee

Big clusters of orange trumpet flowers spring through fall. Hummingbirds love it and even nest in it.

Twisted Myrtle

Evergreen with small glossy, slightly twisted leaves and fragrant white flowers. Dense and refined.

Here's a short video on orange jubilee: watch on YouTube.

Under the trees, clover or dichondra would make a soft, living ground cover in place of bare ground. Both handle the filtered shade under a canopy better than they would in full sun.

Clover

Low, soft ground cover that fixes nitrogen from the air and feeds the soil around it. Grows best in our cool season and loves the filtered shade under trees.

Dichondra

Green dichondra forms a low, lush carpet of small round leaves. Great for shade under trees where grass won't grow.

Types of clover

• Micro clover: smaller leaves, lower growth, and fewer flowers than regular clover. The most lawn-like option and the tidiest look.
• White Dutch clover: the classic. A little taller, with white flowers bees love. Very easy and inexpensive.
• Strawberry clover: handles heat, alkaline soil, and wet spots better than the others, with pink flowers. A good choice for our area.
• Crimson clover: an annual with tall red flowers in spring. Best for a seasonal pop of color or as a winter cover crop, not a permanent ground cover.

All clover pulls nitrogen from the air and feeds it into the soil, so it's actually feeding your trees while it covers the ground.

How to plant it

• Timing: sow in fall (October through November) or late winter. Right now is a great time.
• Prep: clear the area, loosen the top inch of soil with a rake, and spread a thin layer of compost.
• Seed: mix the seed with a little sand or compost so it spreads evenly, broadcast it at the rate on the bag, then rake lightly so the seed is just barely covered.
• Water: keep the soil surface moist, a light watering once or twice a day, until it sprouts (usually 7 to 10 days). Then switch to deeper, less frequent watering.
• Keep a gap of a foot or so around each tree trunk so the root flares stay exposed.

Caring for it

• Clover thrives in our cool season and may thin out in the hottest part of summer, even in shade. Overseed lightly each fall to keep it full.
• Mow or trim it occasionally if you want it tidy, or let it flower for the bees. If you walk barefoot here, trimming the flowers keeps bees off the path.
• No fertilizer needed. It makes its own nitrogen.
• Dichondra is planted from seed or plugs the same way, likes consistent moisture, and stays green year round in shade. It takes a bit more water than clover but holds up better through summer.

Lady Banks rose would be perfect right here. It's thornless, so it's easy to work around, and every spring it covers itself in small fragrant flowers. It takes our heat without blinking.

Lady Banks Rose

Thornless climbing rose that covers itself in small, fragrant yellow (or white) flowers in spring. Evergreen, vigorous (15 to 20 feet), and very tough in our heat.

• Support: it's a climber, not a clinger, so it needs a trellis, wire, or arbor to grow on. Tie the long canes loosely as they grow.
• Size: it gets big, 15 to 20 feet over time, so give it room to spread along the wall.
• Pruning: prune only right after it finishes blooming in spring. It flowers on last year's growth, so pruning in fall or winter cuts off next spring's flowers.
• Water and feeding: deep, infrequent watering once established, and compost around the base once or twice a year.

This raised bed doesn't have a lot of room, only about 3 feet deep, so the tree here needs to stay small. The roots will grow under and beyond the bed over time, so the bed width is really about the trunk and canopy. These are smaller trees that would work, and their canopies can lean out over the path or the wall without crowding anything.

Texas Mountain Laurel

Evergreen small tree with glossy leaves and purple flower clusters in early spring that smell like grape soda. Slow growing and compact. The seeds are toxic, so keep that in mind with pets.

Native

Kidneywood

Small native tree with fine, ferny leaves and fragrant white flower spikes after summer rains. Stays under 15 feet and fits tight spaces.

Native

Desert Willow (Bubba or Burgundy)

Small native tree with orchid-like dark purple-burgundy flowers all summer and light, airy shade. Hummingbirds love it, and the roots are well behaved.

Golden Lead Ball Tree

Small tree with bright yellow puffball flowers off and on through the warm months and fine, ferny leaves. Stays compact.

Pomegranate

Multi-trunk small tree with orange-red flowers and fruit in fall. Easy to keep small, and one of the easiest fruit trees to grow here.

Mulga Acacia

Evergreen small tree with silvery needle-like leaves and yellow flowers in spring. Stays 15 to 20 feet with a tidy shape.