Your planting plan, Tamara

Torch Glow Bougainvillea

Torch Glow is a compact, upright bougainvillea. It grows into a tidy column around 4 to 5 feet tall instead of throwing long thorny canes everywhere, so it stays neat next to the house and walkways.

It flowers in bright magenta from spring through fall and loves the heat. It takes less water than plants that aren't desert adapted, and a cold snap may nip the tips, which grow right back in spring.

Yellow Dot

Yellow dot is a low groundcover with glossy green leaves and small yellow daisy flowers through most of the year. It spreads out and knits together, covering bare ground and keeping the soil shaded and cool, which is good for everything growing around it.

A hard frost can burn it back in winter. If that happens, leave it alone until spring and it fills back in.

Yellow Dot

Three more yellow dot here to cover the open rock under the palm and tie this bed in with the one by the house. Once they fill in, this bed goes from bare rock to green with yellow flowers most of the year.

Chuparosa

A Sonoran native with green stems and red tubular flowers from winter into spring, right when hummingbirds need them most. It grows into a loose mound about 3 to 4 feet tall and wide.

Moringa

Moringa is a fast growing tree with leaves that are some of the most nutritious greens you can grow. You can pick them fresh for salads, smoothies, or cooking. It loves our heat and will grow quickly once summer hits.

Left alone it can get tall, so I recommend cutting it back each year to keep it at a size where you can reach the leaves. A hard freeze can knock it back, but it regrows from the trunk in spring.

Globe Mallow

A native with soft silvery leaves and bright orange cup shaped flowers in spring. Native bees love it. It grows about 3 feet tall and wide, and a good cut back after it finishes blooming keeps it full.

Blackfoot Daisy

A low, mounding native, about a foot tall, covered in small white daisies with yellow centers for most of the year. The flowers have a light honey scent. It does best with good drainage and doesn't want to be overwatered.

Lavender

Two more lavender to go with the one already in this bed. Silver gray foliage, purple flower spikes in spring, and the smell every time you brush past it. It wants full sun and soil that drains well, which this bed has.

Oldhamii Bamboo

Oldhamii is a clumping bamboo, not a running type, so it grows up in a tight cluster instead of spreading across the yard. It gets tall, eventually 20 feet or more, and makes a lush green screen above the fence line.

It's one of the thirstier plants on this list, so it will want more water than the rest of the yard, especially its first summer.

Kumquat

Kumquat is a small citrus tree with glossy evergreen leaves and little orange fruit that you eat whole, skin and all. The skin is sweet and the inside is tart. The fruit ripens through winter.

It stays a manageable size and handles cold better than most citrus, so it's a great fit for a spot like this by the pool.

Twisted Myrtle

Twisted myrtle is an evergreen with small, curled, glossy leaves that smell great when you brush them. We're going with the biggest size we can get so you start with as much shade as possible.

They fill out into a dense canopy and can be grown as small trees or left fuller as large shrubs. Either way they'll give this area shade year round, since they keep their leaves in winter.