Hardiness zones
Sunset 12 (w/ protection), 13, 21-24
USDA 9 - 11
Landscape Use: Mostly found as a large background screening shrub, foundation plant for large buildings, or as a small multiple-trunk tree. Flowering creates accent over an entire growing season.
Form & Character: Evergreen large shrub, clean and shiny, tropical
Growth Habit: Moderately vigorous to 20', can be maintained at 6 to 12' in height
Foliage/texture: Bright green, glabrous, linear to lanceolate leaves to 6" long, nearly sessile, medium fine texture
Flowers & fruits: Terminal cluster of yellow apricot to orange tubular flowers followed by a multicarpulate greenish fruit
Seasonal color: Yellow or orange flowers during warm season
Temperature: Hardy to 25oF.
Light: Full sun, but the trunk of yellow oleander will easily sunscald if canopy base is elevated and the trunk is exposed to direct sunlight. Avoid western exposures!!
Soil: Tolerant
Watering: Regular water makes plant look best, although will take only some occasional drought.
Pruning: Light pruning is sometimes warranted to improve shape. Sometimes this large shrub is trained into a small multiple trunks tree.
Propagation: Seed and cutting
Disease and pests: None
Additional comments: This is one of the prototypical 'mesic plants' for green landscapes in Phoenix. Yellow oleander was a popular landscape plant in Phoenix before 1990. Today, is is less popular because of a greater societal emphasis on desert landscaping and low water use plants. A white flowering cultivar is rarely available in nurseries. Like Nerium oleander, all plant parts of Thevetia peruviana are poisonous.
