A small native shrub with soft, gray-green leaves and bright yellow, cup-shaped flowers from spring into fall. It grows wild on desert hillsides and washes across Arizona, stays low and mounding, and needs very little water.
Living with it in the Phoenix Valley
Watering
Follow the shrub schedule in our Landscape Care guide; as a true desert native, it should be kept lean. It prefers sandy, fast-draining soil and does not like to stay wet.
Pruning
Regular light trims keep it compact and tidy. Cut back straggly stems after a flush of bloom.
Butterflies
It is a host plant for the Cloudless Sulphur butterfly. Chewed leaves are usually the work of its caterpillars and are rarely a concern.
How our designers use it
Long-season color
It blooms through the warm months, after the spring wildflowers have faded.
Small spaces and edges
Its low size suits narrow beds, rock gardens and the front of a border.
Butterfly gardens
Our designers include it in native plantings meant to draw butterflies.
Good to know
Around the pool
No thorns and light litter, though it reseeds into nearby gravel. Pull extra seedlings as they appear.
