Native Plants

Q. Who is Mr. Smarty Plants?

A: There are those who suspect Wildflower Center volunteers are the culpable and capable culprits. Yet, others think staff members play some, albeit small, role. You can torture us with your plant questions, but we will never reveal the Green Guru's secret identity.

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Friday - May 15, 2009

From: Glendale, AZ
Region: Southwest
Topic: Shade Tolerant
Title: Need plants for shade in Arizona.
Answered by: Jimmy Mills

QUESTION:

Please suggest plants that I can plant in a shaded area. I live in Glendale, Arizona. The shade will be 100% of the time.

ANSWER:

Mr. Smarty Plants wasn't aware that that there was any shade in Arizona. Just kidding.

Seriously, since you didn't mention what kind of plants you have in mind, let's go to our website and let you make some choices. If you go to our Recommended Species page and select Arizona on the map, you will get a list of 224 commercially available native plant species suitable for planned landscapes in Arizona. Scroll down and click the "Narrow Your Search" box where you can become more selective.

You see that you have several parameters from which to choose. For the first run, choose AZ for the state, Herb under "Habit", Annual under "Duration", Shade under "Light requirement", the appropriate moisture for your site under "Soil moisture" (I chose moist), and the appropriate bloom characteristics (you can leave that blank for now). Click the "Narrow your search" button and you will get a list of two plants that meet these criteria. Clicking on each plant name will bring up its NPIN page that describes the plant's characteristics.

You can modify your listing by changing the choices in each box for the types of plants that you have in mind.