Manfreda maculosa and new plant Macho Moca (cross tween manfreda and?) Esp w sun will go maroon. Macho Moca color may be just what you're looking for. Manfreda is Texas native. Stapelia in sun also goes maroon. Some other succulents will do this too. Stapelia blooms look like a starfish, weird and wonderful and from South Africa. Arizona native grasses purple three awn (Aristida purpurea) and some muhlenbergias, too. Mountain states nursery website nice for some of these. Info and pictures there. www.mswn.com go to plant database and click on M for Muhlenbergia. Esp thinking of Autumn mist and Regal mist varieties. I'm not convinced that purple fountaingrass is not a potential problem so would avoid it, though now it does not pose the problem the white variety does. It can take a while before we know which plants are invasive and it's hard work to remove fountain grass. There are plants that do not produce viable seed but do produce pollen. I don't know if purple fountaingrass is like this. Besides there are some lovely native grasses.

Thank you for all your suggestions. Good to hear I do not have to worry about fertilizing this year. I'll remember to water, abeit tentatively, because last fall I killed our lovely 2 year old Bloodgood maple with too much love, er, watering. What makes fushia different from these shurbs, other than it's flowering? Since planting I gave it fertilizer monthly during the growing season because otherwise, the leaves would turn yellow. The fushia is in the ground and looks like a small shrub. It seems to love my homemade compost better, though -- it's looking quite green these days. Amy

sng: I like the way you research. Do a copy and paste for -- Callistemon phoeniceus -- and you will find considerable info on the web via Google. I have a feeling you've misspelled it somehow. It's a shrub to about ten to fifteen feet, easily trained into a "standard" or multi-trunked "tree". "Escallonia x exoniensis ÂBalfouriÂ, E. laevis, E. rubra ESCALLONIA We excluded Escallonia for making the following assumptions:" Your assumptions are inaccurate. The common Escallonias are almost always trimmed into tight hedgelike masses; hence making it hard to see the potential as a small tree. Along the coast, especially, the listed ones (not so common) make great multi-trunk small trees. -Melaleuca armillaris BRACELET MYRTLE -Melaleuca ericifolia HEATH MELALEUCA "I have probably seen these plants somewhere but do not remember if they are dense enough for our purpose. I will try finding them in our neighborhood and do more research." Although these species have fine-textured foliage, they do grow into densely-foliaged small trees. I'm attaching a photo of one (they look alike). -Metrosideros collinus ÂSpringfire NEW ZEALAND CHRISTMAS TREE "I always liked this tree but never knew the name. The street I take every day to work is dressed with this tree on both sides and they are quite tall, probably 20-30 feet (may be M. excelsus?)." The "trees" you see are M. excelsus and they get bigger than 30 feet. M. collinus is smaller. And conseuqently slower growing. -Pittosporum crassifolium KARO "I see this planted practically everywhere I go. (Maybe because I live near ocean and work near SF bay?) SF Botanical Garden uses it to screen chain link fences and it does the job so well. I really love the slivery blue green foliage of this plant that goes beautifully with the deep maroon color of its flower. Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute marked all PittosporumÂs health hazard as allergy, except for P. tenuifolium that was marked as unknown. I had no way of telling likelihood of causing allergy but did not want to take any risk so dropped all Pittosporum from my list except for P. tenuifolium. But now I have a further reference on this so I will definitely reconsider P. crassifolium. Thank you again." There are over 160 species of Pittosporum. I doubt that all of them are allergenic. The two most common ones (P. undulatum and P. tobira) are highly fragrant and, because of that, highly allergenic to many people. P. crassifolium is not significantly fragrant (as with P. ten.). Joe Here is a link that might be useful: Melaleuca ericifolia

Dodonea can get about 10' wide at least. Podocarpus gracilior can get 40' wide (eventually). If they are planted 1' apart... In other words, pot up that Dodonea.