Yellow Bells (Esperanza)
Tecoma stans
A showy, long-blooming shrub with clusters of bright yellow trumpet flowers from spring until frost that hummingbirds and butterflies love, a vivid accent or potted specimen. It thrives in heat, drought and rocky, limy soil, and deer usually pass it by. Hard frost kills it to the ground, but it often regrows.
- Mature size
- 6 × 5 ft
- 1.8 × 1.5 m, tall × wide
- Hardiness
- Zones 8a–11b
- USDA
- Sun
- Full sun to part shade
- Water
- Dry
- Blooms
- May–Oct
Yellow Bells (Esperanza) at its mature size
A mature Yellow Bells (Esperanza) grows to about 6 ft tall and 5 ft wide.
Drawn to scale beside a 5 ft 9 in person. With VeraScape, you see it at this size in your own yard.
Typical mature size, unpruned. Sources: npsot.org, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Through the year
What Yellow Bells (Esperanza) looks like month by month in a typical zone 6–7 garden.
Dormant · Nov–Apr
Cut back or frozen to low bare stems.
In flower · May–Oct
Bright green ferny leaves with clusters of yellow trumpet flowers.
Photos
Growing Yellow Bells (Esperanza)
- Grows well in
- The desert Southwest, the Plains and Mountain West, the Southeast, and California.
- Growth rate
- Medium
- Good for
- Hedge, small space, foundation planting, specimen, drought tolerant, deer resistant, and pollinators
- Leaves
- Drops its leaves in winter
- Native to
- Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and Mexico to South America
Spacing for a hedge
VeraScape spaces plants so their grown canopies just touch. For Yellow Bells (Esperanza), that’s about 5 ft apart, center to center.
Place a row in your own yard and VeraScape spaces them at their mature width, so you can see whether they’ll crowd the walk.
See Yellow Bells (Esperanza) in your yard before you dig
Visualize it at its true size, alongside the rest of your design.