Learning about Nature Restoration Gardening in California
Living in Northern California is special. We have a gorgeous climate, beautiful natural landscapes that include rivers, mountains, forests and oceans. We have beautiful wildflowers, and amazing wildlife, not the least of which, for my personal enjoyment, are all of the birds — those who reside here all year, and those who pass through during migration.
We also have drought. And fires. We have a changing climate, unsustainable agricultural practices that threaten the bees and butterflies, and a lot of high-maintenance landscaping. We are losing our native flora and fauna at alarming rates. According to a study published in January, 2022, cited in this New York Times article, “California has the most imperiled biodiversity of any state in the contiguous United States.”
The future of this beautiful place is at risk. Of course I want to do my part to help. This is the story of part one of my personal journey to discovering and learning about nature restoration gardening.
Background
My history in the garden
I’ve been a backyard birder and backyard perennial gardener for some time now, not focusing so much on the status of my plants as native to my area as on their status as attractive to hummingbirds, friends, and family. This means I have lavender, roses, ivy, and a lot of trees that a landscaper once called “weeds.” (Which the birds love, notably the Cedar Waxwing who migrate through in May and June. If you’ve never noticed a flock of Cedar Waxwing hanging off a bunch of wild berries, you’ve missed out on one of my favorite experiences.)
I also grow herbs for cooking: sage, rosemary, oregano, and mint in the ground, and chives, basil, thyme, parsley and cilantro in pots.
Recently, I expanded my houseplant collection to include more than just peace lilies, pothos, rubber trees, and Chinese evergreens that seem to proliferate on their own. I’m learning about succulents, which I guess are trendy, but so many people have told me are easy to grow. My jury’s still out, but my Christmas cactus is happy!
But you’d never guess all of this is going on inside and out back by looking at my front yard. Right now, there’s not much there but grass and a sapling oak tree I got from SMUD several years ago. The yard has a southern exposure, full sun all day, and requires automatic sprinklers to keep it alive.
I’d love to do something that looks good and not only addresses our issues with water but also is valuable for the ecosystem and can help mitigate the biodiversity loss I’ve been learning so much about.
My neighborhood
I live in the area between the northern-most Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada foothills, near a Valley Oak riparian forest and woodland. In the summer, it’s not unusual to have a handful of triple-digit days in a row and smoke and ash in the air. In the winter, we get nights in the low 20s. We’ve been in a “mega-drought” for much of the past two decades.
Xeriscape landscapes started to appear in my neighborhood, which was originally developed in the 1970s, probably about four or five years ago when the county put water restrictions in place. Neighbors began to dig up their grass and replace it with hardscapes, composite materials, and small little scrubby plants that didn’t look like they’d ever amount to much of anything. Now, however, those scrubby plants have risen to the challenge those homeowners gave them, and these yards are filled in with drought-resistant, heat-hardy plants that add natural beauty to the neighborhood.
So now it’s my turn.
What is nature restoration gardening?
Nature restoration gardening is an important way to help our environment by restoring areas that were previously damaged by human activity. It also helps us reconnect with nature and enjoy its beauty. Restoring areas to their natural state, by definition, means bringing native plants back to landscapes where they’ve been removed.
Why use native plants to design a landscape?
Native plants are those that naturally occur in a certain area. They are usually found growing there naturally without any human intervention.
You don’t have to be a conservationist to love the benefits that come with landscaping with native plants.
Planting native plants is beneficial for a number of reasons.
1. They are suited for the local rainfall amounts.
2. They attract birds, butterflies, and other biodiversity.
3. They can handle the temperature fluctuations.
4. Native plants seem to thrive in areas people neglect (meaning, they reduce the need for maintenance).
5. They sustain the local wildlife and preserve the natural ecosystem.
6. They are more tolerant of local pests (and reduce the need for pesticides).
Identifying California native plants
Turns out, gardening with California native plants has its own subculture here. The California Native Plant Society (CNPS), “dedicated to celebrating California’s native plant heritage and preserving it for future generations,” is a 501(c)3 non-profit established in 1965. According to this organization of scientists, activists, and others, California is home to more native plant species than any other state in the US, and a third of these species are found nowhere else on Earth.
Because there is this hidden urban/suburban native landscaping subculture, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with the amount of information that’s out there.
Turns out, just because it is native to California doesn’t mean it will grow in my front yard! According to calscape.org, a searchable database of native California plants built by the CNPS, “The single most important factor in nature restoration gardening is choosing native plants that would naturally occur where you are planting them.” And, “While you should start with the plants that naturally grow in the climate of your location, keep in mind that they also need to be placed in spots in your garden with the appropriate drainage, soil moisture and sun conditions.”
I set out thinking that finding some indigenous plants for my front garden shouldn’t be hard to do. I was, however, foreseeing a couple of basic problems. First: for much of the year, don’t native wildflowers really look like weeds? How will we make this work when planning a front yard landscape in a suburban neighborhood? And, second, how do I figure out the specifics of my local conditions?
Finding native plants for my front yard
I’d start by looking around my neighborhood.
I downloaded an app called iNaturalist. This is a point and shoot app I used to photograph and identify some of the loveliest flowers and shrubs in my neighbors’ new xeriscape gardens. The app identified a lot of these water-smart plants as not being native to my area, not even as native to California. Some of my neighbors are growing Lindheimer’s beeblossom, for example, which seems to be native to Louisiana, and the Japanese meadowsweet, native to Japan and Korea.
Fortunately, one of the California Native Plant Society’s 36 chapters is local, and they provide a portfolio of local native gardens, photos and information.
What would grow in my front yard? Thanks to the generosity of local gardeners who took photos and wrote descriptions of their plants to add to the virtual garden tour, I could access pictures of plants that were proven to grow in my area. I wrote down the names of the plants that I liked the look of.
My next stop was back to Calscape.org, where I entered my street address and was delivered a comprehensive list of 408 plants native to my location. I cross-referenced the list I created from the local chapter’s garden tour with the database results and ended up with a list of 14 native plants from which to build my natural, eco-friendly, biodiverse, and beautiful garden!
This extremely user-friendly database allows a user to save the plants to a personal list and then export it to a detailed spreadsheet. The spreadsheet includes everything you need to know before selecting the plant for your garden, including soil and moisture conditions, blooming season, whether it goes dormant in the summer or stays green all year, and more.
It was so exciting to discover these amazing resources for California native gardening. I can’t wait to get started on the next step, which for me almost always is the same: More research.
Do you have a beautiful yard planted with California native plants? Please share your story with me. Also, send me to your favorite resources!
