I can't speak from experience, but I've heard great things about yellow orchid vine (Callaeum macropterum) as a pool-friendly plant. It reaches 15' tall and wide. Small but very pretty flowers.

Bougainvillea is beautiful but also evil. A stray twig reaching out to swimmers...heck, clothing offers no protection so swimmers won't be anymore vulnerable than anyone else! :)

Are you planting along a wall that might offer some shade? Plumbago (the blue one) is nice but it might get too cooked out there in the open. (I'd check locally for performance in your area.) It does not have to look like a freeway plant and can actually be quite nice. There's some on my back fence that's a good 20 ft high...

Do you have low water requirements?

Thanks for the input so far, everyone. I don't get a lot of shade and during the summer the sun is directly overhead and it gets very hot here. We've had so many days this past summer where the temperature reached 120 degrees with it still being in the high 90's around 11pm!

I read that bougainvilleas love the heat and they also like lower water. In fact, mild drought stress stimulates them to produce their colorful bracts more liberally. So aside from the mess and thorns this really does seem like an ideal option.

When it comes to creating shade in the dessert, I'm afraid structures (not plants) are your best option. Unless you are looking for dappled, light shade that leaves provide.

However, what to do in the winter, when mornings are cold and sunshine is welcome? I would consider a structure with a removable canvas roof or sail that can be installed for the hottest months and then put away for the winter. And decorate the pool area with container plants.

https://backyardfundesign.com/affordable-backyard-pools/ Has some great pool ideas

I'm seeing mixed messages online what zone Palm Springs is so these might not be suitable but some ideas of tall, narrow evergreens and climbers

Green Tower Boxwood
Sky pencil Holly
Evergreen Clematis (early sensation, apple blossom...)
Jasmine (pink, Star....)
Evergreen climbing Hygrangea

You could possibly layer these in to get a longerbloom time (late Winter/early Spring till Fall).

The valley of Palm Springs is in zone 9B, but the mountains around it are in 8a/b -- hence the mixed messages. The plants you listed would work for 9B, but only in full shade and with tons of water. Also desert soil is very alkaline and acidifying is often a losing battle here.

ABC1971, I strongly recommend picking plants available at your local nursery. They will know what is going to survive there. Also, you may have to hire them to plant your purchases if your soil is compacted rock and specialized tools are required.

Thanks for the input. I'm going to the nursery today. Thankfully I will be able to do the planting myself. I already dug out a bunch of pygmy palms that were dead when we moved in and I also dug into the ground in reinstall a new PVC irrigation system. So the soil is diggable but I may amend it since it's mostly just sand.

Ah, yes... diggable soil... I sort of remember... Here I can't get anything done without a pickaxe and a metal pry bar... I'm envious! Good luck! Let us know what you got!

Ugh, I've gone through such a nightmare through all of this. I finally decided on planting the miniature italian Cypress trees due to their fastigiate nature. They're called Tiny Tower "Monshel." They get about 8ft tall and only one foot wide. Mine were four feet tall at the time I bought them locally just outside of Palm Springs. I planted in March and they were doing well until June/July and they literally freeze or "heat" dried in one day. I was told I wasn't giving them enough water. I was so upset. Come November in the same year I dug them all out and decided to try Skyrocket Junipers and planned to keep them skinny by carefully pruning them to be no more than a foot in width. It hasn't been this hot this year compared to previous years but it got to 115 this past month and due to a really horrible experience with a WiFi enabled irrigation timer (B-Hyve) that decided to stop working I lost some trees. I definitely lost four out of the nineteen I planted and it looks like another four are not going to make it.

I asked a horticulturalist on how to water my trees for my area. I asked the person at the nursery who sold me the trees how much water to give them. And I asked the person who is a landscape person who fixed an irrigation issue we had. All give me very different answers. I'm beyond frustrated.

My neighbor right behind us planted Tecoma vines that grow orange flowers here and there. I hate that their vines come onto my property. I'm always pruning them straight up from our shared fence and they hate me for doing that. If I don't they will literally spill over to my side and grow another five feet and touch my ground level on my side. Given how they grow like weeds I'm almost tempted to rip out my dead and dying Skyrocket Junipers and plant this boring "weed" that everyone plants all over here. Even though I can't stand the way it looks, at least it looks healthy. Although I'd say they're kinda messy to plant around a pool.

I've lived all around the country and I've never had such a struggle keeping something alive. It's so upsetting.

You can’t fight mother nature, you can but you won't win. We are a little cooler than you but have never had success with the columnar junipers although some people do.

What about your idea of bouganvilleas? They do handle sun and heat well, can easily be adapted to your strict size requirements and are beautiful. They are thorny and messy but your size requirements are tough.

Can you start to like the tecoma because a happy plant your not in love with is a better choice than an unhappy plant you love IMO.

I mean, I hope you’re referring to a drip irrigation system, in which case you should likely plant before installation. If it’s a lawn you’re irrigating: why?????? You live in a literal desert! Research native plant options for your area because these are typically the only options that will both (a) thrive without significant intervention/watering, and (b) provide benefits to local wildlife (ie pollinators, birds etc).

@mojavemaria Thanks for the message. I'm including some photos of what my area looks like. Yesterday I pulled out four dead Skyrocket Junipers. You can see the rest around my pool area. I think what's happening is that in addition to the extreme heat I believe the heat and UV, the sunlight itself, the heat and everything else related is bouncing off the water and making it even more stressful on the trees. I say that because there are three threes that are not affected and they are the furthest away from the pool and therefore get more shade. You can see the three healthy ones in the last photo I'm attaching.

You can see the Tecoma vines I prune behind my privacy panel I installed on our side of our cinder block wall fence. When we moved here they were growing all the way on our side and touching the ground level.

The pic above is a tree that literally crumbles in my hand. This happens literally in a matter of days with no real warning.

This is what all of my trees looked like in May before it got really hot. Excuse the mess everywhere else. We're under construction. They were so beautiful. But these are the three trees I mentioned that are furthest from the pool and are still perfectly healthy looking.

I went to a nursery today and found a yellow Tecoma vine. I didn't know they came in this color. It's so much prettier than the orange variety. Even the leaves look more lush and just much nicer overall.

I love bougainvillea. I have about fourteen of them in four different colors. Here is an image of what I like to call our "West Wing." It has the California King bougainvillea which is considered orange. But it really is a combination of orange and pink. As the bracts (what most people call flowers but are actually not) get older they turn a bubble gum pink. It's such an inviting color.

You can see the shade fabric I hung from our pergola we had built. All the agaves and aloes I have here are so healthy looking because of the shade fabric protecting them from the hot summer sun.

Since we have so many bougainvilleas I may go with the yellow Tecoma vine. It really is a pretty color. I'm just not a big fan of the orange ones. I think the yellow flowers would be a great contrast to the blue water in the pool. Wish me luck, please!

What a beautiful yard! 18 inches wide 7 ft tall reflected sun in desert, wow. I can’t think of a plant like that but seeing your area a mix of different totem type cacti against that wall would look great (IMO) and wouldn't need special protection(probably) or shed anything into your pool. Lophocereus schottii is a particular favorite of mine.

Not a pro, but here’s a thought regarding drip irrigation and watering. We live in an area with hot dry summers and we planted 24 trees and many shrubs this spring. Our nursery recommended hand watering (with a hose wand) for the first two growing seasons to get them well established before leaving them on a drip irrigation system. That way you can water deeper and customize the amount of water you give each plant. I actually count the seconds and track how many gallons of water are coming from the hose per plant. And I found from close observation of soil moisture, wilting leaves etc that some shrubs and trees wanted water more often than I expected (every day) or more water than I expected, whereas some wanted water less often because the soil stayed wet or their new growth was excessive. Watering with a hose is an investment of time each day but it makes you observe your plants very closely and your failure rate will be much less. Also in your small beds around your pool, if you have filled them with the bagged soil I saw in one of your photos, that soil may dry out extremely quickly. You might want to investigate how to obtain some soil with a clay content or other moisture retaining properties. Otherwise you may need to water twice a day or more. I purchased a moisture meter with a long probe and it helps me determine when the soil is too dry.

@abc1971– you’re right. I sincerely apologize for my (wrong) assumptions and condescending tone. Thanks for taking the time to clarify and conserve resources!

I have Calliandra Hae (?) sorry sorry, can‘t remember second part, , growing against my walls in La Quinta , they do well in the heat, evergreen with pink powderpuff looking flowers. Not messy like bouganvillia, no thorns either. They’re espaliered on wire ,

Thanks, everyone, for chiming in. In addition to my theory about the sunlight bouncing off the pool water I learned something else that I've never heard of before. It's just a simple term called "reflected heat." And then there's "reflected sun." If you look at the photo of my trees you'll see that they're sandwiched between lots of concrete. Concrete, as well as asphalt can get up to 20 to 40 degrees hotter (or more) than the ambient temperature. That means that the concrete could be a whopping 150 or more when it's 122 degrees here in the Palm Springs area. Luckily it didn't get that hot here this year. So far it's only gotten to about 115. But it still killed half of my trees. We're now coasting in double digits (97 degrees) and hopefully it will remain that way for the remainder of the season.

What I bet would have helped me a lot was to buy some shade fabric and found a way to hang it so that I created a "drape" in front of my Skyrocket Junipers in order to block them from the direct sun and the reflected heat from all the concrete. Even though that would only lower the temperature around the trees by 10-15 degrees I think it would have helped tremendously with the reflected heat. It really makes a difference. For example, I can't walk barefoot outside when it's 115 degrees outside. But the areas where I have installed shade fabric my bare feet can tolerate the heat just fine.

I'm just sharing my experience in the hopes it might help others who may find themselves in a similar predicament. I wish I had known about reflected heat before wasting nearly $1,000 on trees I planted twice in the same location. Reflected heat has also been a problem with my artichoke agaves, cacti and pencil cacti I planted in my front yard which is southwest facing and gets so much scorching sun throughout the day. Thankfully I'll be able to rectify the situation by replacing only a couple agaves but next year I plan on strategically placing white shade fabric over them to protect them. It'll look rather ridiculous but it's only three to four months during the summer. I can live with that.

I highly recommend white shade fabric. Not only does it look better than the black or green options but it allows for a more complete color spectrum of light to still reach the plants.

I was surprised when you talked about protecting agaves as they are good even in reflected heat here so I looked closer at your plants. You have the wimpy ones! We saw 115 here this summer and even in reflected heat The grey americana type and artichoke agave were unphased as were the green octopus agave up against our house but those ones don't get the late afternoon sun and they did bleach out a little.

Red yucca (hesperaloe), Banana Yucca, and desert Milkweed take reflected heat like a champ. At a previous house Chuparosa surprised me by handling its afternoon reflected heat position easily as did cordia parvifolia and C. boissieri. We are a little cooler than you in Las Vegas but If you don't want to shade you can just get tougher plants:)

LOL! The "wimpy ones." The photos I provided above are of plants I brought with me from Seattle that I kept as indoor plants. Many of them will not tolerate the extreme sun and temperatures here. But under the shade fabric they have all done very well here for the first summer in my garden. Looks like your pic is of the octopus agave. Those grow here, I believe.

The pics I provided above are from my backyard area. I was talking about the damage to my plants in my front yard which gets south and southwest sun all day. It really bakes out there. Here is the damage done to my plants:

I have two of these Mexican fire barrel cacti in my front yard. One that gets sun all day turned nearly completely yellow. It's not going to make it:

The yellow you see above is the area of the plant that gets southwest facing sun for most of the day.

Here is a photo of it from behind where the sun doesn't hit it:

The photo below is of the same type of cactus but because it gets shade from 4pm until evening it looks perfect:

A few of my solid green artichoke agaves will need replacing. But it's the lower leaves that are closest to the gravel that are burned:

The photos below are of a variegated artichoke agave called kissho kan. I thought I lost so many of them as they were bleached out almost entirely on the area that faces southwest. But surprisingly and thankfully the yellowing is gone. But there are still some dead leaves on the bottom. Two of them will need to be replaced:

And I have two pencil cactus plants. The branches closest to the ground were very bleached out. But today I noticed they are looking better. I don't mind as I will trim off the lower branches as they eventually form trunks and grow to 12 foot tall trees. They look amazing when they get big.

My pencil cacti actually look a lot better than they did just a week ago. But you can still see the branches near the ground are yellow. They were almost yellowish-white a couple weeks ago. They have improved.

My theory is that since I went with a very dark gravel that it's absorbing and therefore retaining a lot more heat and the succulents and cacti can't take it. I say this because I have neighbors down the block who have identical plants that are doing perfectly. The only difference is that they have a much lighter gravel. I'll be better prepared for next year with some shade fabric to protect them.

This is what my front garden looked like when I planted it all in December of last year. All the plants looked perfect until July/August of this year when it got really hot.

Nothing seems to be hurting my bougainvilleas. They're indestructible and the color is so eye catching.

At dusk when the landscape lights come on.

The pic below is what the yard looked like when we moved here:

Your bougainvilleas look great!. Some cacti lighten like your barrels but green up when it cools down. I have several artichoke agaves that do fine in almost all day sun but they don't look like yours, they only have one terminal spine per leaf while yours have a lot so I wonder if they are a different kind.

I wish you could see our desert milkweed right now, when a lot of plants are trying to recover its full of its unusual flowers and laughing off our recent hot spell. I bet if you drive around your neighborhood now at the end of summer you will see the plants that thrive there without any special protection. A brittle bush and creosote volunteered in our yard and are doing fine without even having a drip on them!