Pronounciation: Air-e-mo-FI-la GLA-bra

Hardiness zones
Sunset 8, 9, 14-24
USDA 8-11 (arid and semi-arid regions are best)

Landscape Use: Informal accent and/or ground cover shrub for large spaces, late and spring winter accent for dry landscapes, hummingbird gardens.

Form & Character: This is a prostrate, spreading to sprawling Eremophila cultivar that has a nice clean, informal shape, lovely, tough, aggressive, dependable.

Growth Habit: Evergreen, woody, broadleaf perennial shrub, moderately fast ground cover to 10- to 15-feet wide with a 1- to 3-feet height. Small, raised glands on the stems, flowers and leaves.

Foliage/Texture: Alternate arrangement, lanceolate, small, light to bright green leaves up to 2-inches long and covered with small raised glands, leaves tapering to a blunt tip, sessile; medium fine texture.

Flowers & Fruits: Short, curved peduncles that hold 1-inch long axillary and tubular yellow flowers upright with 4 stamens which extend beyond the end of the petals, sepals imbricate; fruits ovoid to subglobose, inconspicuous.

Seasonal Color: Profuse, colorful yellow flowers in late winter and early spring.

Temperature: Hardy to 15^oF

Light: Full sun, but will tolerate some light shade.

Soil: Extremely salt and alkaline tolerant, needs good drainage, but also does well in clay soils. Eremophila is a genus with many salt tolerant species that have great landscaping potential in the Phoenix area.

Watering: Tolerates some aridity, but looks more robust with regular infrequent irrigations.

Pruning: Responds well to light shearing after flowering in early May, but otherwise mostly please leave this spreading shrub alone and instead control its growth by regulating amounts of supplemental irrigation.

Propagation: Stem cuttings

Disease and pests: Various fungal root rots will kill Eremophila quick if the soil is kept continuously wet (during summer) and is poorly drained.

Additional comments: Outback Sunrise emu is a unique, very clean and attractive large and spreading woody ground cover. It should be planted only in larger landscaped areas where it can spread naturally and not have to be continually 'headed back'. Use watering rates to control vigor.

A special note for all the inexperienced LAs (Landscape Architects): Please don't 'spec' this vigorously-spreading, expansively large prostrate shrub into landscape beds less than 10 feet wide!