Quoting myself.  “Yes, you can have a lush looking yard and use little water in the desert Southwest. Sounds impossible – but it is not. All that is needed is a careful selection of plants that are already adapted to live here” and paperflower is one such plant.

Cover image above: yellow flowers of paperflower Psilostrophe cooperi courtesy R. Spellenberg

Botany Nerd Shares

Paperflower are marescent (mar – ess – ent) and marescence (mar – ess – ense) is the reason for the common name. “Marescense” is the technical botanical term used to refer to flowers in when the dried petals stay attached indefinitely, rather than dropping off. Desert zinnia  is another species with marescent flowers.

Paperflower is a Perennial Plant

As mentioned earlier, perennial plants are a great way to add a lush look to your low-water landscape – without adding to your garden work load.

When I shared Five Reasons to Plant Perennials, I should have made it SIX reasons, and listed the following.

Perennials are “Green”

Perennials live many years, but are not woody like trees and shrubs, so pruning is not a constant chore. This also makes them a very “green” choice for your landscape because you are keeping yard waste out of the landfill.  No pruning means that the unmolested plants happily photosynthesize, sequester carbon, and make lots and lots of pretty flowers for the pollinators.

Plan Before You Shop

I love it when people get excited by my articles and want to rush right out and plant some of these beautiful plants I share. I will remind you the a tiny bit of planning will help your garden success because you need to place them in a place where the plants will be happy.

The Five Elements of Desert Gardening

Most folks have heard of the Ancient Greek elements, Earth Air, Fire, and Water, The philosophy also included Ether. I think I first heard these elements in third grade when we read a series of Aesop’s Fables and did a whole Social Studies session on Greece.

I had a fantastic teacher. She really got into the topics we studied. She would bring bits of our studies into our daily little lives. There was little dry and dull book learning. For example, when Greece was the topic – after recess, when we lined up for sips of water at the water fountain, we would sip, sip, sip, then say “Opa!” as we stepped aside for the next child. And now I am wondering – is it only Tucson where they watered the children after recess with the trained chant of “One, two, three, that’s enough for me.”

The Elements for gardening in the Southwest. Clearly the Element Water is needed – even in a low water garden, because we tend to place plants closer than they are in Nature. Of course the Fire or sunlight is to be considered. Also critical is the overall Air temperature, important because you the winter lows stress many plants. Soil or Earth for the roots of the plants often needs some (or much) work to make pampered nursery plants happy. In many little ways the last element, Ether, is critical. It is a unseen element that boils down to your personal care, your degree of willingness and ability fuss over your plants.

Paperflowers are ideal for the low care gardener.

Paperflower

There are roughly 10 species of paperflower, with two species commonly in cultivation. A tiny bit of an issue is that both are often simply called “paperflower.” Plus they do look remarkably similar. This is an issue because one comes from the Sonoran Desert the other the higher and cooler elevations of the Chihuahuan Desert. For long-term success you will want to get the correct one for your corner of the world.

Cultivated Paperflowers

Psilostrophe cooperi is Sonoran Desert and is called paperflower, white stem paperflower, Coopers paperflower, paper daisy, and Sonoran paperflower.

Psilostrophe tagetinae is Chihuahuan Desert and is called paperflower, woolly paperflower, also Texas paperflower.

After an online search of nurseries and desert plant growers, the most commonly used names for the two different ones are white stem paperflower and woolly paperflower. Let’s go alphabetically.

White Stem Paperflower

Psilostrophe cooperi is native to the middle elevations of the Sonoran and Mohave Deserts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and western Mexico.

It grows at elevations from 2000 to 5000 feet. Plants generally have needlelike light green leaves. Plants produces masses of small yellow flowers in the spring after brittlebush are done blooming. If watered, the blooming continues well into summer. In other cases it may stop blooming in summer but start again in fall into December. After bloom flowers dry to a papery tan and persist on the plant. In other words, they are marescent.

Earth: extremely well drained soils. Alkaline soils are fine, I am estimating pH 7.2 to 8.2.
Air: 10F which equals USDA Hardiness Zone 8.
Fire: full sun, tolerates reflected light. Afternoon shade in summer is fine. If shade gets more than half a day they are stressed and slowly fail.
Water: 8 inches of rain a year in the wild. The plants do not tolerate wet roots so avoid excessive watering.
Size (H x W): 2ft x 2ft
Flower Color: pale golden yellow, drying to tan

The needle-like leaves are highly variable. In my yard, the one that lives near the irrigation box with a few inevitable leaks had much wider leaves and more of a green color to the leaves. It’s brother from the same batch of seed collected from the same mother plant is growing in the dryest part of the yard and has needle-like leaves and that look less green, and the flowers are a paler yellow.

Woolly Paperflower

Psilostrophe tagetina is native to the high desert regions of New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Chihuahua, Coahuila in Mexico. High Desert is generally elevations from 4000 to 7000 feet, where it occurs desert scrub, grasslands, limestone soils, saline flats, and sandy soils. Overall it has slightly larger leaves than Psilostrope cooperi.  Plants form a small silvery-grey mound in the wild, just like the whit stem paperflower.

Earth: generally well drained soils. Alkaline soils are fine, I am estimating pH 7.2 to 8.2.
Air: -30F which equals USDA Hardiness Zone 4
Fire: full sun. afternoon shade in summer is fine. If shade gets more than half a day they are stressed and slowly fail.
Water: 8 inches of rain a year in the wild.
Size (H x W): 2ft x 2ft
Flower Color: pale golden yellow

Some Wild Species for Seed

Psilostrophe sparsiflora; green stem paperflower. Found in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona at 3000 to 7000 feet. Grows in grasslands, pinyon-juniper scrub, sagebrush scrub, yellow pine forests.

Earth: well drained soils
Air: -10F to 100F
Fire: full sun to part shade
Water: minimum 10 inches of water in the wild
Size (H x W): 2ft x 2ft
Flower Color: pale golden yellow

Psilostrophe villosa; hairy paperflower, woolly paperflower. Found in Kansas, Oklaholma, Texas, and New Mexico at 1000 to 3000 feet. Grows in grasslands grading into desert scrub.

Earth: found in are limestone, gypseous soils, and caliche.
Air: -30F to 100F
Fire: full sun to part shade
Water: minimum 15 inches of water in the wild
Size (H x W): 2ft x 2ft
Flower Color: clusters of pale small golden yellow

Animal Resistant!

If you are not yet sold on the low-water nature and overall beauty of paperflowers – how about planting them for their animal resistant nature?

Javelina stroll casually through my yard on a daily basis and have yet to bother the paperflower (15 years now). Indeed, bunnies, jackrabbits, deer, and all the other critters that like to munch on plants have thus far not bothered the plants.  And while the furry critters avoid munching on the plants, the butterflies especially flock to them, as do the hummingbirds.  Not sure why, but honey bees do not much visit the flowers.  For a few weeks a small black native bee can be seen visiting flowers in my yard.  

More Perennial Plants and Planning and Care

The Month By Month Guide offers tips for your landscape (including perennials listed here) in every month of the year.  I have a less than 100 copies left and am offering them to you – my loyal readers. When you buy from me you get a signed copy!

From the review:

“A great reference book is key to successful gardening in the region where you live. Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Month-by-Month Gardening takes the guesswork out of gardening for anyone residing in the Southwest. With this book, you’ll know what to do each month to enjoy a thriving garden all year, from January to December. Chronologically organized, this guide is full of critical gardening when-to and how-to advice, along with illustrated step-by-step instructions.

The book’s author is Jacqueline Soule, a Tucson-based gardening expert. She knows this arid region inside and out, and she’s written several articles and books packed with her gardening advice. Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Month-by-Month Gardening showcases Soule’s expertise in one easy-to-read guide.”

Profits from the sale of this book go to the Horticulture Therapy non-profit Tierra del Sol Institute.  

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