My garden, dormant now for the summer, and doesn’t have much color at all. I'll continue to have a cactus flower now and then, but other than that, not much happens in July and August. The exception is the good old reliable Tecoma X 'Orange Jubilee', a cultivar of the Tecoma. It has flowers year-round as long as we don't have a hard freeze as we did this past winter. At temperatures in the mid-teens, it freezes back. That’s what happened to my plants this past winter, but they quickly recovered and are now almost six feet tall and are again producing hundreds of trumpet shaped flowers.Although I don't own any, Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans) is anther popular Phoenix area plant. It is used frequently as a landscape plant in shopping centers and streetscapes, as is Orange Jubilee. This is a sure sign it needs very little care. Yellow Bells, also called Esperanza in other parts of the country, does not grow as tall as Orange Jubilee and its bright yellow flowers are a bit different, but it is as lush and pretty as Orange Jubilee.
Thank goodness for the Orange Jubilee in my garden. Without it, I would have a dull summer landscape. The verdant foliage and gold-yellow, orange striped flowers keep right on going, no matter how high the temperature gets. As an added bonus, Orange Jubilee attracts dozens of hummingbirds all day long.
