There’s no better way to give your garden a sense of place than by using native plants. Still, it can be challenging to decide what is truly native, and figuring out how to use those plants in a garden setting, rather than a restoration. Restorations essentially recreate the plant communities that existed on your site before it was scraped clean to build your home. Restored native habitat is great for the outer regions of larger properties; but right up against the house, most people are happier with a garden
Matilija poppy is a native plant that grows in San Diego County’s chaparral habitat
I recently designed a hillside planting of local natives mixed with drought tolerant non-natives for clients in Escondido, California. Since their community is carved out of chaparral-covered hillsides, I started the project by assembling lists of plants native to the surrounding chaparral.
I also turned to Calflora native plant database and the San Diego Natural History Museum’s Plant Atlas which is a database of plants mapped-out over the entire county. Between those resources and a few others, I pulled together a list of plants likely to have existed on my client’s site before their home was built.
With that information, I created a master list and compared that to what native plant nurseries grow and sell. I considered each plant’s aesthetic, its function as a pollinator or habitat plant, how easy or difficult it is to grow, it’s height, width, etc.
While the natives serve as the backbone, the non-natives add to the function and aesthetic. Together, the plants will eventually grow into a beautiful, waterwise garden that helps stabilize the hillside and offers at some of the functions of a plant restoration.
So in this case, “native” translates to native to the site and the habitat that once existed there.
Blue flowering Ceanothus and yellow bush poppy native plants from San Diego’s Otay Mountain
San Diego County is home to more kinds of habitats than any other area of the state and more than any other region of the contiguous United States. To go along with that, we have more endangered native plant species. While endangered in the wild, some of those plants are already in cultivation and are offered for sale by native plant nurseries. By adding them to your garden, you help prevent their extinction.
Learn more about San Diego’s endangered plants by watching our episode, Plants: The Endangered Species. Then, take the next step by supporting the Center for Plant Conservation, the network of organizations across the country that work to end plant extinction.
— Nan Sterman
