Tropical Style

Fantastic Design Plant: Palo Blanco Softens Dramatic Desert Angles

The wispy beauty of this palo blanco shrub exerts its capacity to handle the tough growing requirements of the desert, including regions with heat. The attractive foliage of this desert native, along with its distinctive white trunk and peeling bark, leaves the palo blanco a prized addition to the ancestral landscape. The title palo blanco is Spanish for “white rod,” referring to the beautiful white trunk of this desert tree.

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Botanical name: Acacia willardiana (previously Acacia willardiana)
Common title: Palo blanco
Resource: Native to Arizona and Mexico
Where it can grow: Hardy to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (USDA zones 9 to 11; find your zone)
Water condition: Low
Light requirement: Full sun
Mature size: 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide
Benefits and tolerances: Drought tolerant once established, but looks best with deep watering once or twice a month
Seasonal interest: Flowers in spring; deciduous in winter
When to plant: Spring summer or autumn

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Distinguishing traits. Delicately beautiful palo blanco, with its gentle feel, provides contrast in the desert scene contrary to the sharp angles of several agave and cacti. The willow-like foliage is made up of phyllodes, which are elongated petioles. Tiny leaflets appear in spring at the ends of the phyllodes. The leaflets fall during times of drought, but since the phyllodes also enable photosynthesis, the tree could endure without the leaflets.

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Deciduous from the winter, palo blanco trees branch out from a central trunk. The papery bark peels away to reveal the beautiful white trunk, which is the reason this little tree is so highly desired.

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In spring white catkin flowers seem that are soon followed by lengthy, papery seedpods.

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How to use it. Palo blanco is the best tree for small, narrow spaces, like a side yard. It thrives in small spaces with reflected sun, like a courtyard or terrace.

It provides very light color, therefore most plants which need full sunlight, like angelita daisy, penstemon or verbena, can do well planted underneath.

You are able to plant palo blanco trees in groups of three or five to optimize their visual effects in the landscape.

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Planting notes. Palo blanco trees are not fussy. In reality, they prosper in problems that are tough. They need full sunlight and well-drained soil. Dig a pit three times as wide as the root ball to assist the roots grow out. The depth of the hole should be just like the root ball — no deeper.

Palo blanco trees need little pruning, but if you are going to prune, do it in spring after flowering.

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