I found this picture on an article from azcentral.com. It is a great example of how to protect your Arizona cactus. Believe it or not, they do freeze as do many of our desert adaptive plants. I know many of you cannot stand to look at the brown stuff on our plants and want it gone and your yards looking neat and clean again. The hardest hit plants are the bougainvillea, hibiscus, lantana and ficus. Please use caution and wait before pruning or trimming. Pruning too early might cause the plant to start regrowing early and we may get another freeze which could ultimately kill the plant. Be patient and do not do anything until late February or early March when the threat of frost is over and we can see what is alive and what is not. If there is another frost cover your plants. You can use styrofoam cups on your cactus and agave or cover them with burlap or frost cloth. Your trees and expecially your citrus need protection. You won’t realize the damage to these until later but you can still take precautions to protect them. Remember, when it calls for freezing or near freezing in Phoenix, the outer areas like San Tan Valley, Queen Creek, and Mesa get much colder. We saw the temperatures in San Tan Valley in the teens a few weeks ago.
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The Valentine bush is an evergreen shrub with lush, green foliage. It will grow to 4′ high by 5′ wide and produces red tubular flowers from winter to early spring. The leaves are tinged red in winter. This is an excellent choice for gardens needing some winter color. It has showy red-rose blooms that cover the foliage, is hardy to 15 degrees, and is extremely drought tolerant and does well in full sun.
This sub-tropical shrub is used extensively in low-elevation zones for its extravagant, showy flowers and its incredible heat tolerance. Red Bird of Paradise is a rounded, open shrub with light green, feathery, compound leaves. The inch-wide flowers have slightly ruffled petals that are a deep orange color with varying amounts of yellow. Some forms of Caesalpinia pulcherrima have pure yellow flowers. Although this shrub loses most of its leaves in the winter, it recovers quickly.
The Hopseed is found throughout Arizona. It is a slow-growing evergreen shrub that can grow 12 – 15 ft. tall with an equal width. It blooms greenish yellow flowers in spring and fall. The Green Hopseed Bush is an ideal xeriscape plant in Phoenix. It can be grown as an informal hedge or a patio tree.