Plant It Like a Native : Landscapers Add Local Color With a California Crop
Take a good look at the landscaping in your neighborhood. Thenmentally replace every eucalyptus tree with a coast live oak, every Aleppo or Norfolk pine with a Torrey.
Where there’s Indian hawthorn, substitute manzanita; where oleander, ceanothus. Exchange ubiquitous pittosporum for equally shade-tolerant coffee berry. Instead of a monochromatic blanket of ice plant for stabilizing slopes, imagine a tapestry of Cleveland sage, bush snapdragon and California buckwheat.
This hypothetical picture could as easily be reality.
All of these California natives--plus many others--make excellent foundation plants and should be more widely used, say the landscapers who specialize in their use.
Natives, they say, are perfectly adapted to our wet winters and dry summers and are remarkably pest-proof and disease-free, making them altogether superior choices for a low-maintenance garden. In addition, natives are aesthetically in sync with our rapidly dwindling natural habitat and provide important food sources for the local avian population.
With all these sterling virtues, why is it California natives aren’t more commonly used?
One reason may be their reputation--largely undeserved--for being prima donnas.
Take Quercus agrifolia , for instance. Coast live oak is generally believed to be highly intolerant of artificial irrigation. Although it is true that a well-established, naturally occurring oak cannot adapt to conventional irrigation, a nursery-grown specimen, used to that culture, will take considerable water and be happy in most of our yards, according to Mike Evans of Tree of Life, a wholesale nursery based in San Juan Capistrano that specializes in native plants.
Many other natives are water- as well as drought-tolerant, he says.
Another reason natives may not have caught on is that their most fervent fans scare off potential users by insisting on a purist approach. But California natives can be mixed and matched freely with any other plants with comparable water requirements, says Jeff Powers of Earthscaping Designs of Laguna Beach.
“The texture and shape of the plants chosen and the way they’re put together is what gives a garden a certain flavor, not where the plants happen to come from,” he says.
Feathery-gray Artemisia californica, for instance, suggests Powers, would look perfectly compatible with hot pink geraniums and Mexican sage in a Mediterranean courtyard. Densely foliated Pacific Wax Myrtle (Myrica californica) would make a fine, formally clipped hedge in an English-style garden. And the handsome glossy foliage of coffee berry (Rhamnus californica) would be a welcome addition in a predominantly green Japanese garden.
Following are more suggestions on how to make California natives the foundations of your landscape.
TREES
Eucalyptus has become such an integral ingredient in the California landscape people have forgotten it isn’t indigenous, complains Alan Eliel of Sun Stone Landscaping of Laguna Beach.
“Oaks were here before we were,” he says. “ They should be the symbol for California, not Australian eucalyptus.”
Authenticity isn’t oak’s only asset, though. Quercus agrifolia has interesting, crinkly, dark evergreen leaves, a beautiful form, acorns that blue jays and woodpeckers adore, and minimal maintenance requirements, Eliel says.
“Eucalyptus keep tree trimmers in business. Oaks rarely need pruning.”
No room for a tree? Prune coast live oak into a hedge, suggests Powers at Earthscaping. “It makes a great screen,” he says. “It has wonderful texture, is easy to take care of and attracts the same birds it would as a tree.”
Q. agrifolia can easily be pruned to remain below 12 feet tall, says Powers, and he’s seen it kept as low as six feet.
Another tree Powers would like to see in more of our yards is Torrey pine. Despite the tree’s being considered endangered by California Native Plant Society’s criteria, it is an excellent landscaping choice, he insists.
“It’s endangered because its habitat is shrinking, not because it’s tricky.”
Tall (40 feet to 70 feet) but narrow and very open in growth pattern, Torrey pine is vastly superior to the more commonly used Aleppo in California gardens, in Powers’ opinion.
“Torrey pine has a beautiful wind-sculpted shape, creates much less shade--usually desirable in the garden--and has wonderful gray-green foliage that looks better with our soft California light,” he says.
Its lack of bulk also makes Torrey pine an appropriately scaled tree for our shrinking yards, Powers says. Force the roots down with a deep-rooting mechanism to keep sidewalks from buckling and to put the tree under less stress from water fluctuations, he recommends.
Toyon is another underused native, Eliel says.
“It’s what we should be planting on hillsides instead of eucalyptus,” he says. “You’d never find tall, thin trees growing there in nature. They’re too wind-susceptible. Round trees like toyon work much better. Look at what’s growing on our canyon sides.”
Toyon’s abundant white spring flowers attract bees, and its red winter berries are one of California birds’ most important winter food sources, Eliel adds.
SHRUBS
Everyone’s favorite native shrub seems to be manzanita. Eliel sings its praises:
“It has wonderful burgundy bark, a nice sculptural shape, is covered with flowers in the spring, and its fall berries attract tons of birds,” he says. “I love it.”
Given even reasonably well-draining soil, manzanita is not harmed by summer watering, says Evans at Tree of Life. Treat it as you would an Indian hawthorn, he suggests. In fact, he says, the two shrubs would be handsome together.
If a short shrub is desired, he suggests the cultivar ‘John Dourley’; a medium, ‘Howard McMinn’; tall, ‘Lester Rowntree.’ The latter also can be pruned into a small tree to expose more of its gorgeous bark.
Equally beautiful but admittedly trickier is ceanothus, California’s version of the lilac. These blue-flowering shrubs can succumb to oak root fungus if not allowed to dry out a bit in the summer.
The ‘Louis Edmunds’ and ‘Yankee Point’ cultivars are less sensitive, however, and will tolerate irrigation several times a month in all but the heaviest clay soil, Evans says. Drip irrigation is preferable to overhead, he says, but the latter is acceptable if watering is done early in the day. It’s the combination of heat plus irrigation, rather than water per se, than does the plants in, he says.
Toyon makes as fine a shrub, screen or hedge as it does a tree, Powers says. “It’s an extremely versatile plant,” he says. “You could do anything with it you could with pyracantha.” Because flowering comes from new wood, pruning merely increases toyon’s already prolific berry production, he says.
For shady situations try coffee berry instead of overused pittosporum, Evans suggests. While Rhamnus californica is mostly grown for its dark, glossy leaves and graceful arching habit, he says, its large, dark berries are an added attraction in the fall. Birds think so too. Evergreen currant, also known as ‘Catalina Perfume,’ is another good choice, he says.
Other suggested substitutions: Switch Pacific Wax Myrtle for pest-prone Eugenia any place you need a flat screen, Powers suggests. Or try Rhus integrifolia (lemonade berry) as a hedge instead of the more commonly used but considerably thirstier Texas privet (Ligustrum japonicum).
GROUND COVERS
If the compact, gray-leafed plants covered with rusty brown seed heads growing along many stretches of the freeway ever caught your admiring eye this fall, consider using California buckwheat in your garden, Powers recommends.
Eriogonum fasciculatum’s deep roots make it particularly useful as a slope stabilizer, he says. He likes buckwheat best mixed with other natives in a rich, natural tapestry effect.
Bush snapdragon (Galvezia speciosa), a bright green sprawling sub-shrub with bright red flowers is another excellent ground or bank cover choice, Powers says. “It attracts hummingbirds in droves.” Add some California fuchsia (Zauschneria california) to the mix, Evans says, and you’ll get whole squadrons.
Instead of the gray-blue mounds of fescue used as a ground cover in every other yard these days, why not try a native bunch grass such as Stipa pulchra, Evans urges. “Stipa is getting scarce in the natural landscape, but it’s what makes California look like California.” Besides, he says, “it’s beautiful.”
These suggestions are a fraction of those provided by Evans, Powers and Eliel. But they demonstrate that our indigenous plants warrant closer inspection. They’re more versatile than most of us have imagined and deserve a greater role in our landscaping.
Sources for Native Plants
There is one problem with using California native plants in the landscape--finding them. Following are a selection of sources:
* Tree of Life Nursery, 33201 Ortega Highway, San Juan Capistrano, (714) 728-0685. Although primarily wholesale, the nursery is open to the general public on Fridays between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Also on occasional Saturdays. Call first.
* The Fullerton Arboretum, at Associated Road and Yorba Linda Boulevard, Fullerton, (714) 773-3579. The Arboretum offers a good variety of native plants at its weekend plant sales. Hours: Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.
* Theodore Payne Foundation, 10459 Tuxford St., Sun Valley, (818) 768-1802. This nonprofit nursery has been promoting the preservation and use of native plants for the past 30 years and may have the best selection in the state. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Send $2 for plant catalogue.
* Wildwood Nursery, 3975 Emerald Ave., La Verne, (714) 593-4093. A specialist in natives and unusual drought-tolerant cultivars. Open Monday-Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. Send $1 for catalogue.
* Matilija Nursery, 6007 Trancas Canyon, Malibu, (310) 457-3381. A retail nursery with a dependable assortment of the most popular native plants. Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday. Send a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope for a plant list.
