Another beautiful plant in my desert garden is Gaura lindheimeri. It is a very good performer and somewhat underused. This plant has an airy appearance with its veil of white flowers. This plant is native to Texas, Louisiana and Mexico but quite hardy in our region. Its long tap toot makes it drought tolerant. A long time favorite in English gardens, Gaura has been loved for its delicate flowers, which bloom well above the foliage. Now this plant is getting popular in our desert gardens. My plant grows in my front garden. It was one of the first plants I put in 6 years ago and it has performed ever since. I had two attacks on it and it came out of it stronger than ever. The first one was an accident my husband had. Due to his knee replacement he is sometimes very unstable on his feet and one day he lost his balance and ended up right in the middle of my Gaura, flattening it. Lucky that this plant has so much growth he didn't hurt himself but I expected the worsted for the poor plant. I thought, great, this plant is history and got out my pruners and cut off all those broken stems. In a month that plant came back stronger than ever and wider, this incident had doubled its size. The Gaura is now 4 feet wide. The second attempt on its life was a lot more dramatic. It was an attack of flea beetles. They really did a job on it. As I refuse to use any poison and the repellant I bought from Organic Gardening didn't help at all, I took drastic measures and cut the plant down to the ground. The beetles left; there was nothing more to eat.The plant recovered in a short time and looked as lovely as ever. I grow a lot of plants that are food plants for Butterflies and Moths larvae. If you like the White-lined Sphinx Moth like I do, this plant is for you, it is next to Calylophus the favorite food plant for this moth's larvae. The damage they do is not great as they only eat the flowers which are produced in abundance. I sometimes had more than 30 caterpillars on it. The larvae itself is beautiful and colorful. You all should know I do not grow my plants for the beauty of their appearance but mainly for the wildlife they bring in (except flea beetles, sorry). Another good feature of this plant, it stays evergreen in our winters. The plant forms a nice round clump but give it some room. The leaves resemble those of evening primroses and at one time it was considered belonging to the family of Oenothera, the western species are still in that family. The flower stalk can grow to 5 ft. tall but they are very airy. The flowers are 1 inch. wide and have 4 petals, open a few at the time from the bottom up. The flowers open white and fade to pink, from spring to frost. The plants like full sun to part shade and the foliage may turn reddish in fall. They tolerate clay soil if it is well draining. So do not dig out all your rocks, they help with the drainage. The plant tolerates our summer heat and our winds. It can self seed itself quite freely. There also is a Hybrid "Whirling Butterflies", it is shorter and doesn't set seed.

Another cultivar is "Siskiyou Pink". It has reddish leaves and rose pink flowers. The plants are smaller, 2x2ft., and very lovely. I grow one in front of our house and one in a pot in the back yard. It seems to do just fine in the pot.

Another cultivar "Corrie's Gold" is somewhat variegated, the foliage is edged with gold. I tried it twice without much luck. The plants came from a mail order and were very small, maybe that's why. Home-Depot had one planted in their display garden, they lost theirs too. It might not be suited for our area.

The guide to "Plants of Arizona" lists 2 Gauras and you can find them when you hike the canyons. They are called Gaura but belong to the evening primrose family. There is the Scarlet Gaura - Scarlet Bee blossom. It only grows to 20 inches. The flowers are reddish pink and it flowers from April to September. The other one is Lizard Tail or Tall Gaura - Gaura parviflora, this one only remotely resembles our garden Gaura.