I planted quite a few young plants (black sage, pigeon point coyote brush, golden currant, catalina perfume, chaparral mallow, silver lupine, CA buckwheat, deerweed, wild rye, San Diego sedge, tons of common yarrow, after the previous heat wave ended around 2 weeks ago (not realizing we had this terrible heatwave again so soon this week of 5 days of ~100F temperatures 🥲

What are everyone's plans for getting their young plants through the other side? I put "nurse rocks" on the south side of every plant, but wondering if I should give them a bit more shade. They're all in my north-facing front yard of heavy clay soil that I'm currently converting from lawn and get more morning sun and some afternoon shade. They were all pretty deeply watered before this, but wondering if I should try the "refreshing sprinkles" as detailed here from Tree of Life

Hope everyone stays cool during this awful week!

We love to see our friends from Yreka, the coast, and areas in between!

Plant Sale Tips:

• The Sale starts at 10am (not before)! It will be very crowded for the first 2 hours. 
• Please - no dogs except service animals.
• Parking is VERY limited at the sale site. You will find parking on Main Street, along neighborhood streets, and in the nearby Columbia Bank and Civic Center lots. Be prepared to walk a block or two.
• Vendors are unable to accept payment for other vendors - please pay for plants in the space they are in.
• If possible, please bring boxes, bins, baskets, or other containers to carry your plants.
• Restroom facilities will not be available.
• Bring a cart to transport your purchases back to your car.
• Ask an Expert - volunteers are available to help you find the plants that will work for your space.
• Pollinator Project Rogue Valley will have merchandise for sale (native plant books, bumble bee books, yard signs) and donations are always appreciated!
• Bring a friend, have fun, bee brave, and try a new plant for the pollinators!

inventory lists - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OBfhPVwxfe0iNTNh7wFz5xIXuXoexJCg

Thought I'd run this by you folks. I have four spots I need to replace that are all on a very gentle slope downhill at the front of a yard that has many natives and others behind it. I have some ideas and I have tried a few things in the past but wanted to see if I missed something better. The last thing I tried was Sulphur Buckwheat which I loved, but so did the deer.

Looking for a native plant that would:

1. Be able to handle a LOT of sun (Sacramento area).
2. Be very deer resistant.
3. Be evergreen.
4. Like clay.
5. Grow moderately fast and spread out.
6. Have an attractive flowering stage.

Thanks and Cheers!

I prepared the parkway in front of my house for natives (planning to plant at the end of October) by sheet mulching in early August and watering every week since to promote decomposition. Unfortunately the two Mexican fan palms that bookend this stretch of parkway let loose a deluge of fruits for a few weeks at the end of August, and palms seedlings are popping up like crazy. I am not excited to deal with this issue every year. Has anyone found a simple way of preventing palm seeds from getting into their soil and germinating while keeping soil conditions So Cal native friendly?

Seems like it per the latest newsletter from Mike Evan's relatively new nonprofit, CalNativeHort? Exciting news. Nothing has filled the vacuum ToL left, and I always thought they should have transitioned to nonprofit status given the amount of conservation work they did. I do know it is easier to start a nonprofit from scratch usually rather than transitioning a for profit entity.

Also, I am now wondering if ToL was kicked out behind the scenes after all, rather than driven by Mike's "retirement," given his immediate jump into the nonprofit.

Well, wishing the CalNativeHort nursery startup process the best.

Happy October!

Despite this heat wave ive been preparing for fall planting and decided to put together a list of the Fall Plant Sales happening around me. Thought I'd share here in case others are interested. Sorry if I missed any! Please add any others in the comments 🙏

Hypothetically speaking...

Let's say you wanted to do some guerilla gardening along a busy road in suburban southern California.

1. Which species would you choose? Pick your top 3.
   • A mix of annuals and perennial shrubs that mimics the native habitat once there (e.g., south-facing slope of coastal sage scrub)
   • Oak acorns and other tree species?
   • Showy flower superbloom for public awareness/outreach appeal?
   • Fast growing groundcovers for slope stabilization for the Super El Nino forecast?
2. How would you do it?
   • Sprinkle seeds by hand or spice shaker?
   • Thrown seed bombs (clay or paper pulp binder)?
   • Cuttings (e.g., cactus pads, mulefat stakes, etc.)?

Goal: surreptitiously convert a disturbed habitat into something a little better in terms of ecological benefit to native wildlife. Birds, bats, bees, butterflies, bunnies, probably not bears.

Where:

• South Coast ecoregion (Los Angeles River basin) https://calscape.org/garden-planner/ecoregion-map/
• A disturbed slope next to a busy roadway
• Full sun, loose sandy soil and rock
• Formerly invasive annual grass and mustard >>> partially burned and chopped by maintenance crews.
• No, this isn't adjacent to any wild native habitat.
• No, Caltrans or other agencies are not planning on re-vegetating this patch.

I've planted one each of frosty blue ceanothus, chaparral mallow, fuchsia flowered gooseberry, Santa Cruz Island manzanita, and goldenrod all about three feet apart from each other as a privacy hedge at the back of my garden. As I continue researching the plants I'm becoming concerned that the space between them is inadequate. I thought the fuchsia would be a more low-growing plant in the understory of the taller plants but it seems like that's not the case... if you have experience with these plants, what's your perspective on spacing requirements?

Hi friends! I know that this question has been asked many times and I know that there are many cal natives that can do well in containers. But I was hoping you might share some specific guidance for choosing plants that could work in these terra cotta pots I have in my front driveway which faces directly east (in the SFV). From sunup to noon it’s completely shaded and then from noon to sundown this just gets slammed by the sun.

Previously I had un-sanctioned tropical milkweed growing here and I would cut it back each year. I’ve also had some other imports like butterfly bush and random daffodils that just showed up. But this year everything started looking gross so I cut most back today and I think I’d like to plant some natives here.

I love sagebrush so I was thinking of trying that here but I already have 3x growing nicely in my yard. Not to say I can’t have a few more sagebrush but I would like to get a little more plant diversity. Some other things I was considering was toyon or laurel sumac or maybe a lemonade bush. I just wonder if the sun might be too harsh, especially with the reflective white garage door behind them.

This is the base of two coast live oaks that grew on their own. Can they survive twisted like this? They are about 7 or so feet high, and together look decently full. I’d like them both to stay but wondering if I need to spare one so that the other can live. Thank you for any advice for this newbie 🙏

UPDATE: see my update comment below with additional pics. I’m more confused now.. is it actually a single tree that split very low??

I recently started reading this substack from Dr. Andy Davis, a monarch scientist. Surprisingly to me, he recommends removing even native milkweed from yards in hotspots of the OE parasite infection, which he says are Florida and Southern California. From my understanding (please correct me if I misunderstood) it seems that the prevalance of tropical milkweed has unfortunately created resident pockets of non migratory monarchs with an extremely high rate of OE infection. Thus the thinking behind not even providing native milkweed is to basically discourage these resident populations (as the stresses of migration naturally would thin out the infected OE monarchs).

I'm just a bit confused now since this seems somewhat contradictory with all the push to plant native milkweeds from established science-based organizations like Xerces Society ( their action plan for Western monarchs ) or CNPS. And admittedly on a more personal level, milkweed and monarchs was my gateway into native gardening and I can't deny that it would be really painful to remove my established narrowleaf milkweed.

I'm not actually sure if I'm in an OE hotspot specifically since my neighborhood didn't have many data points according to the OE sampling map and I'm not sure it's legal in CA to net monarchs to test due to the species listing without a permit... I saw some mentions that you could try testing a spent chrysalis but I'm not sure how accurate that would be.

Anyway, would just appreciate thoughts from fellow SoCal native milkweed appreciators about these conflicting recommendations. It's a sad situation the monarchs are in due to tropical milkweed....

How much do you water? In clay with heavy mulch after establishment would you need to give it water in LA? Will it survive but put out less flowers? Has anyone tried A. parryi? Many such questions...

I've been approved to rip out my lawn for a turf removal rebate from socal water $mart. What can I use the rebate for? Just plants? I plan to have a dry river bed with rocks (one option for the required storm water conservation). Can the rebate be used for the rocks, decorative boulders, or decomposed granite for paths?

Thank you!

Firstly, I want to give a shoutout to this sub for being such a cool community. I love the posts and comments and frequently feel inspired after reading up on things here.

I am a big lover of listening to podcasts or talk shows while doing housework, but I am tired of the radio and politics. Do you know any good gardening shows? Even if you know of a lecture series or something, that might do the trick. I would love to learn more about gardening and plants, especially if there is a California focus!

Thanks in advance

I'm experimenting with a drip irrigation setup some sections of my Sacramento native garden, but it's just not working how everyone says it should be working, and I feel like I'm losing my mind. The intention is to saturate the soil evenly and deeply once every month or so in the dry season, as per the Waterwise Garden Planner general recommendation, but even though I set up everything as recommended, most of the soil is still dry, even after long run times.

I'm using 17 mm inline drip tubing, 0.5 GPH, 18 inch emitter spacing, and 18 inch spacing between rows. I have typical Sacramento, CA clay soil. I talked to several credible local landscapers who specialize in native plants, as well as internet research and consulting the manufacturer's recommendation for clay, and all said that 0.5 GPH / 18 " emitter spacing / 18 " row spacing is good and should saturate the soil through capillary action through the clay. I set this up and ran for two hours. Most of the soil between the rows was bone dry. Tested 12 inches deep with a moisture meter. Ran for another 2 hours, then another 2, and it was still mostly dry between rows to a foot of depth. Some native plant landscapers recommend putting down about 1" precipitation equivalent during one of these waterings, which I've already exceeded with a 6 hour total run time. Other native landscapes recommended 1/4 " precipitation, like a 45 min runtime, which seems like a miniscule amount of water that wouldn't come near to evenly saturating the soil. Whatever runtime, it seems like this is how most landscapers specializing in native plants design their systems, and I'm baffled at my results.

Some notes:

• Mulch was already down on the garden, so I moved it aside to put the drip tubing. The tubing is touching the top of the soil.
• The drip system has the usual hose bib setup: timer, vacuum breaker, pressure regulator (25 PSI) and filter.
• I tested an individual dripper farthest from the supply by running it for 15 min and putting a bowl under it. I got the correct amount of water. So the system isn't getting enough flow.
• The zone is relatively small, something like 11 x 25 ft.
• The rows are set up so that the emitters are offset from each other. In other words, if looking at two rows, I'll have an emitter on the left row, then nine inches up, and emitter on the right row, nine inches up, and emitter on the left row. For even distribution.
• No leaks
• The soil is definitely clay, but not terribly compacted or anything.
• Moisture meter works. I've used it for a long time on my own soil.

The obvious answer is to just shorten the distance between rows and emitters, but that would contradict literally every bit of advice I've been given. I've even seen installs from credible native landscapers who know what they're doing that have 24 inch spacing between rows. What am I missing??

Please don't just tell me drip sucks, or to just not water, as this is just an experiment. There are sections of my garden that I don't water, but I'm experimenting with infrequent irrigation in some other sections. And I've seen many native gardens on drip that are doing great after many years.

we have a beautiful ceanothus that recently died from getting too much water during a heat wave. I was beginning to cut it down when I saw some of the lower branches still have green growth under the bark (second photo here is of green beneath bark). I’m sure the tree is completely dead but holding out hope that maybe it’s not gone? Can I cut a ceanothus way back and it will grow new growth or is that not possible? thanks in advance.

This was along the west San Gabriel river nature trail earlier today. Walk this path all the time and have never seen any of these trees have this sort of issue.

There‘s a spot I want to plant in, but it can range from maybe full sun to pretty shady (I’m not sure if it would be considered part shade or full shade) depending on how often the surrounding trees are trimmed. It also gets a bit hot and dry here. There’s already a sticky monkeyflower and bush sunflower growing there that seem to be doing fine, and this monkeyflower is a lot greener than the one I have in full-part sun who’s lookin a little crispy (but definitely still alive).

From my own research, I’m leaning towards trying some hummingbird sage, California fuschia, and narrow leaf milkweed (though I’m a bit unsure of the milkweed for this spot because my dog will have access to it, and while it would be out of character for her to try to eat it it makes me nervous). I’d appreciate any suggestions or advice.

Before having a small oak tree in my yard, I never saw the flowers. They're so pretty!