Palo Brea Trees

Palo brea easily hybridizes and many nursery trees are actually hybrids with other parkinsonia species.

Palo brea trees. A palo verde tree needs a site that gets full all day sun and provides the tree with enough room to grow to its full size. The tree is extremely drought tolerant but it doesn t tolerate soggy or wet soil so choose a planting site with well drained slightly sandy soil. If allowed to do so on a short trunk it may look like a glorified bush. It has a rather longer trunk and longer more irregular branches than p.

Some people may call it the sonoran palo verde rather than the palo brea. Plant palo brea tree in the fall spring or summer in full sun locations. The palo brea tree is native to northern mexico and the sonoran desert where it grows to about 25 feet tall with a 25 foot spread. Photo by aaron j.

Parkinsonia praecox if you think the palo brea trees are in the same family as the palo verde you are right. The palo brea is the sonoran relative that immigrated to our phoenix desert area. Its smooth light green bark adds to its appeal and beauty making it a favorite choice to adorn many landscape designs. A palo brea tree is a very showy tree.

Desert museum palo verde trees are a hybrid tree with three different palo verde trees as its parents. It s prized for its bright yellow blooms that appear in mid spring creating a nice contrast with its green leaf colors and interesting form. Early continue reading palo brea. It grows best in deep well drained soil.

Bark is fragile so avoid damaging with ties and stakes or when pruning. It is a great tree to use in the garden but it does get big so it s important to all enough room for it to grow. Palo brea is not a street or parking lot tree and should not be planted in areas where its crown needs to be raised or deformed to accommodate traffic patterns or urban space limitations. Trunks and branches are very distinctive due to their bright chartreuse green bark and twisting branch character.

Florida blue palo verde and is the leafiest of the palo verdes. Palo verde tree blossoms hang over the river walk as a cyclist rides by along the rillito river near first ave friday april 5 2002. While very similar there are a. Palo brea does not grow well in a lawn because it does not like frequent shallow.

The bark is a distinctive light green that is often speckled with a whitish crystalline exudate. Palo brea mature size 30 x 30 a palo brea looks like the palo verdes but the branches grow out in all directions from a central point. Desert museum palo verde trees aren t palo breas those are another kind of palo verde with thorns. The palo brea grows into a small to medium size deciduous tree reaching 20 25 ft.

Medium green leaves are bipinnately divided into 1 2 pairs of leaflets and attach to stems covered with many thorns.