 The following is a production of New Mexico State University. Judith Phillips, renowned zero-escape designer and author, describes more plants and their maintenance in zero-escape. Judith, what are you working on here? Arizona Rosewood, Curtis. This is one of our finest native evergreens. Evergreen. Now that's something you don't find that does well, but this one looks nice. The leaves aren't scorched. And it maintains its foliage in good condition year-round, winter and summer. And it has flowers too. Yes, white flowers that are a real boon to butterflies, a good nectar plant. And then it has small kind of bronze-colored or rust-colored seed heads on it late in the season. They're not unattractive. They're dead flowers, but they're pretty. And they break off generally in the wind, and so they really don't require a lot of pruning. Judith, where can this plant be grown? Throughout the Southwest, generally, below 6,000 feet, I'd say it would be very adapted. Judith, what's this with the orange fruit here? That's a little leaf sumac. Sumac? Is that poison sumac? Not at all. In fact, the fruit can be used to make a lemonade-like drink. Actually, it's very refreshing, isn't it? Yes, very much. And very citrusy. That's right. What are other characteristics of this plant? Well, the small leaves make it one of the most ziric of the sumacs, although most of the sumacs are fairly drought-tolerant, and at least the southwestern ones. You don't have to rake them in the fall. Right. Red fall foliage also. I see another beautiful plant right behind it here, too. That's the Jujubee, Japanese date. This beautiful, shiny, glossy leaves, nice zigzaggy form. That's one of the things I love about it. In the wintertime, it has a really nice silhouette against the sky. And where will it grow? It's another one that's fairly cold-hardy. It's actually native to the Mediterranean, but in the southwest, I'd say, again, anywhere 6,500 feet or lower. For a ziric plant, it produces really good fruit. It does. Judith, what is this bright green plant out here among the gray desert plants? It's dune broom, one of our native legumes. Wonderful texture, too. Really finely divided leaves and limber stems that bounce around in the wind. Bright yellow flowers? Right now. It's hot and flowering. It's a really little-known plant, but I think it deserves more attention in the garden. It has many uses, also. It's a really good soil stabilizer. Dune broom, that name indicates that it's a stabilizer of very sandy soil on slopes. I see some dead stems here. Is that something we worry about? Well, this time of year, you can actually tell what's dead. So it's a good time to do very minimal pruning. It doesn't take long, makes the plant look a bit better. This is really beautiful. What is it? That's purple prairie clover. It's actually a prairie native. East plains of New Mexico and into Texas. Will it grow throughout the Southwest? Yes, it's very heat tolerant and drought tolerant once it's established. Roots really deeply, down to six feet or more. Wow. And does it do anything else? It's a clover, you say. Well, it's nitrogen fixing, but one of the things I like about it is that, in bloom, it's very showy. Out of bloom, it just blends in. So it doesn't look out of place or like it's faded once it's finished blooming. What is this purple flower? That's purple ground cherry. It's a little low growing, matte forming ground cover. Root sprouts and forms a little colony. Is it something that's readily available? No, it's not right now, but I think it's only a matter of time. This plant is too good to remain a secret for very long. It's kind of the way it is. It will begin growing a few things and the public sees it, demands it, and then the larger growers begin to grow it. So we're hoping to get it there. Exactly. And so what's the yellow flower? The yellow flower is Colorado Gold Gazania. This one is one of the few, maybe the only, reliably perennial Gazania. And another thing that's wonderful about it is that it'll have a few blooms open on it on warm days in the wintertime. So it can bloom year round. The preceding was a production of New Mexico State University. The views and opinions in this program are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the NMSU Board of Regents.