Skip to main content

Apache Plume

Apache Plume (Fallugia paradoxa) is a native plant of the southwestern United States including New Mexico. It grows throughout all four of the southwestern deserts: Chihuahuan, Great Basin Mojave, and Sonoran.  Apache Plume is a small, drought and heat tolerant shrub, normally growing to about 3’-4’ tall and wide. It is at home in the xeric landscape or any hot, dry, exposed place in your yard (see photo).

Leaves are small, dull green, lobed and curled (see photo).

Apache Plume is a member of the rose family (Rosaceae). The flowers of Apache Plume are white and rose-like in appearance (photo).

 Its flowers attract both bees and butterflies to the landscape. After the white petals fall away the elongated plume-like styles (plumes) become very apparent and most often have a pinkish color (photo)


but sometimes they are white (photo).

These styles are part of the female portion of the flower and are attached to a developing fruit (carrying a single seed) called an achene. Eventually, the wind will pull the plumes away from the plant and carry the achene (seed) away.

            The Apache Plume is best grown in full sun on a well-drained soil. It is cold hardy to -30 degrees. It requires little care. After establishment water deeply once every 7-10 days during summer. If it becomes overgrown or oddly shaped simply prune it back. Pruning is best done in late winter before spring growth resumes. Prune the plant back to about 8”-12” when overgrown or woody and this will reinvigorate it, normally resulting in vigorous spring growth.



Written By:

Stephen Sain
Staff Plant Physiologist

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Weed Identification: Goatheads or Stickers

Goatheads ( Tribulus terrestris ) are native to Southern Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Goatheads are also called stickers, sticker weed, bullhead, devil’s weed, and puncturevine. Goatheads are easily recognized by their prostrate growth form, leaves with leaflets, yellow flowers, and stickers (Goatheads). If you miss’em visually then they will stab you painfully in the fingers as you work your garden, or stick to your clothing and shoes. Goatheads are the primary reason local bicyclists must get “thorn proof” tires for riding on area trails and streets. Goatheads have prostrate stems that radiate outward from one central point. Leaves are compound with smaller leaflets. Lemon yellow flowers form along the stems and fertilized flowers form fruits.   Fruits consist of several attached structures called nutlets (Goatheads). Each nutlet is a single seed that becomes hard or woody when mature. Each seed has two sharp spines that easily pene...
1 comment
Read more

All About the Shantung Maple!

             The Shantung Maple ( Acer truncatum ) is also known as the Purple Blow Maple due to the color of its newly emerging leaves which are red-purple (see photo below). These young expanding red-purple leaves change to green as they mature. Leaves are small, about the size of Japanese Red Maple leaves, perhaps 3’-4’ wide at maturity.    The Shantung Maple grows 1′-2′ annually reaching 25″ tall and wide.    This is our tree for all planting situations. This Maple does well in heavy clay, sandy soils, full sun, or part shade. It can be planted in a lawn or next to a hot asphalt street (see photo below). It seemingly is a happy tree enjoying life wherever it is placed.    One place we would not recommend planting this tree is in a rockscape which is just too hot and inhospitable to support this beautiful tree.               A smaller tree, the Shantung Ma...
Post a Comment
Read more

How does nitrogen work in the soil, and where does it come from when we don't have a bag of fertilizer to supplement it?

I've spoken many times on this subject at conferences and it was the main theme of my talk when I represented North America at the World's 1st Humus Experts Meeting in Vienna Austria back in 2013.   Most of the Nitrogen used by the vast tropical rain forests, or the fastest growing biomass place on Earth, the Coastal Redwood Forests of California, comes from the production of protein by the Free-Living Nitrogen Fixing bacteria in soil and the massive biomass structure of the mycorrhizal fungi.    The proteins as it breaks down in the soil into amino acids are the building blocks of life and the explanation of the Soil Food Web.  However, in order for those amino acids to enter a plant and be part of the nitrogen budget of the plant they must have the assistance of the mycorrhizal fungi.  It's much more efficient for a plant to uptake amino acids whose molecules include nitrogen needed to build tissues than to uptake just nitrogen minus the amino acid. ...
Post a Comment
Read more