Orange Jubilee Esperanza

Taken in El Presidio Gardens last summer

Today it gives me great pleasure to introduce a Tucson favorite....the Orange Jubilee(or a variety of Tecoma Stans) This plant is commonly seen all over town during the hot and sweaty summer.  In fact, it seems to thrive best during our intolerable temps.  This plant is highly recommended and easy to grow.  Plant in full sun and make sure it gets regular watering......and you won't be disappointed.  The only "con" to this plant, if you can call it that, is that is will die back to the ground in winter.  Simply prune back to the ground in March. During the first signs of spring, this plant will rebound back bigger and better as if nothing had happened over the winter.  It's attractive to hummingbirds and the hornworm catepillar.  There are other varieties of Tecoma Stans, but I find the Orange Jubilee variety a much fuller and attractive looking plant over its' sometimes weedy looking siblings.  This plant has grown to a height of 10 feet in the fern garden and produces a lot of lovely orange flowers.  When it doesn't have orange blooms, it creates a lovely and lush green hue in the background.  It survived our freeze here and all I can say is.....get one if you have the space.  These plants make a great specimen plant in your garden or if planted in repetition.  I use this plant as a way to break the plant repetition in the gardens and have them sporadically placed around the El Presidio Gardens. If I had to label this plant, it would be a shrub as are most of the plants featured this week. Once again Cathy Bishop writes about this very low maintenance plant for the Tucson area.

Tecoma "orange jubilee"

Pic taken from the Tucson Citizen

"What is big and lush and flowers most of the year – and loved by hummingbirds? This is an easy riddle: It’s another of our candidates for plants that look great all the time, Tecoma “orange jubilee.”
Tecoma is a small family of plants that includes our native Arizona yellow bells (Tecoma stans angustifolia) and its lush hybrid, gold star Tecoma. They are each beautiful and carefree plants, but the one that has really been impressive since its debut is the orange jubilee.
Perhaps it is the incredible exuberance this plant’s growth exhibits, easily doubling or tripling in size over the course of one summer, that makes it such a winner. The flower show this plant puts on is awesome, with the first coppery-orange trumpets out as soon as the days warm up in early spring. This display continues, reaching a peak along with the summer heat and persisting until repeated frosts finally shut down the show.  For gardeners who appreciate the critters who come as much as the flowers themselves, orange jubilee is the ultimate reward! We can sight a dozen or more hummingbirds working a plant at any time during the day, and the glowing orange trumpets never seem to run out of nectar. Orange jubilee Tecoma is truly a diverse plant. By nature it is a huge, upright shrub, easily reaching 8 feet tall and almost as wide. It makes strong primary stems, which make it an ideal candidate for espalier or trellis as well. A spectacular method for growing orange jubilee is to train it into a tree form. This is a plant that will grow well in most soil types and requires just moderate watering. Regular fertilization will keep it in peak blooming condition, and it is equally content planted in the ground or in a container. The only minor downside to this lovely plant is that, in the coldest areas of town, it might get damaged or partially frozen if winter temperatures dip into the low 20s. But even then, after some pruning, this is a plant that responds vigorously to regain its majestic proportions. Try it. You’ll like it and so will your feathered friends!"  End of article.  Source: http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2006/07/07/17983-orange-jubilee-asks-little-but-puts-on-quite-a-show/

There you have it. Another amazing plant for our Sonoran landscape.  I have one of my absolute favorite plants coming up.......and I think you may agree.  Until tomorrow.......