A Carpet of Fallen Flowers

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Palo_Verde_Flowers_

Question:  Do you like the way fallen flowers look in the landscape?  

A Carpet of Fallen Flowers

Some people describe the layer of spent blossoms of trees or shrubs as a ‘colorful carpet’ that adds beauty to the landscape.

A Carpet of Fallen Flowers

Or do you feel the pull of your leaf blower calling out to you whenever you see a layer of spent blossoms littering the ground?

For me, I love the beauty of small, fallen flowers.  It is a natural occurrence and benefits the soil and plants as they breakdown.

In spring, palo verde trees are covering the ground throughout the southwest with a yellow carpet.  In winter, red blossoms from Valentine shrubs (Eremophila maculata ‘Valentine’) create a carpet of red and in the summer months, Texas sage, (Leucophyllumspecies) leave a layer of purple in their wake.

Of course, if you have a swimming pool, you may want to clean up the flowers and put them on your compost pile.

So, what about you?  Do you allow the flowers to remain or do you clean them up?

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
8 replies
  1. Aaron Dalton
    Aaron Dalton says:

    I love to see a "flower carpet" beneath flowering trees.

    At the moment, probably only my crape myrtles have enough flowers to produce this effect.

    In the future, I hope that crabapples, redbuds, aronia and others will bedeck the ground with their petals!

  2. Deb
    Deb says:

    Love the way it looks – hate bringing it in on the bottoms of my shoes!! Just have to remember to take them (shoes) off before I go inside…

  3. RobinL
    RobinL says:

    I love, love, love the way flower petals look on the ground. But if it was a walkway or patio, I'd have to clean it up after a bit, because I'd surely slip on them and fall!

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