Basin wiki · Plants
Desert willow
Chilopsis linearis
A catalpa-family tree of the washes, and one of the few natives that towns here actually plant on purpose.
Where you'll see it
Wild desert willows grow in and along washes. Planted ones line yards, parking lots, and street edges in Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms because they take heat and, once the roots are down, far less water than a real willow or a mulberry. If you inherited a house with a small tree of pink summer flowers and narrow leaves, this is often what it is.
How to tell it
The leaves are long and narrow, which is why the common name says willow. The family is Bignoniaceae, with catalpa: flowers are tubular, ruffled, and pink to lavender with darker guides, and they come in warm months. Seed pods are long and thin. It drops those leaves in cold or deep drought and looks dead until it isn’t. Smoke tree, the other wash tree, is gray and nearly leafless and blooms indigo.
In a yard
Give it full sun and room for a small tree, not a shrub you shear into a ball. Deep, infrequent water beats a daily sprinkle. Flowers draw hummingbirds and native bees through summer, which is a long quiet stretch for pollinators here. Fallen pods are messy on gravel and fine in a wash planting. It is a reasonable choice when someone wants a “tree” without importing a lawn species that will sulk or become a water bill.
Washes still flood
A row of desert willows, wild or planted, often marks a drainage. That is useful information when you are siting a shed, a fence, or a parked car. The tree can handle having its feet wet for a night. Drywall cannot. On the park and on BLM land, leave wild ones in the channel.