Springtime Virtual Tour of our California Native Plant Garden, April thru June--SoCalNPG Ep. 43

This is a virtual tour of our California native plant garden in spring 2021. It shows the progression of flowering plants throughout spring. It also shows how all the spring blooms attract pollinators to our garden.
California native plants include agave, autumn sage, Blackfoot daisies, blue-eyed grass, California coast sunflower, California poppies, Ceanothus Concha, Ceanothus Ray Hartman, Cleveland sage, damianita daisies, globemallow, desert willow, California buckwheat, Marina strawberry tree, Mexican bush sage, palo verde, San Miguel Island buckwheat, Santa Cruz Island buckwheat, St. Catherine's Lace buckwheat, tecoma 'Crimson Flair' and 'Sierra Apricot', verbena 'de la mina', white sage, and woolly blue curls. I have included the botanical names in the text.
Pollinators include butterflies: Cloudless Sulphur, Dainty Sulphur, Grey Hairstreak, Gulf Fritillary, Monarch, Mourning Cloak, Painted Lady, and skippers, plus bumblebees, carpenter bees, flies, goldfinch, honeybees, hummingbirds, Lady bugs, native bees, and praying mantis. Hope you enjoy!
CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction - Southern California Native Plant Gardening
0:03 ROB BRIGGS, FULLERTON, CALIFORNIA
1:50 Lantana 'Little Lucky Hot Pink'
2:05 Asclepias curassavica, variety of milkweed
2:16 Eschscholzia californica, California poppy
2:53 Chrysactinia mexicana, Damianita daisy
3:08 Encelia californica, California coast sunflower
3:29 Cercidium-parkinsonia, 'Desert Museum' Palo Verde
4:35 Ceanothus 'Ray Hartman', Ray Hartman mountain lilac
4:48 Sisyrinchium bellum, Blue-eyed grass
5:42 Lavandula dentata, French lavender
6:09 Salvia leucantha 'Santa Barbara', Santa Barbara Mexican bush sage
7:06 Eriogonum arborescens, Santa Cruz Island buckwheat
7:55 Arbutus 'Marina', Marina strawberry tree
8:19 Spearalcea ambigua 'Apricot', Apricot desert globemallow
8:40 Eriogonum grande rubescens, Red buckwheat or San Miguel Island buckwheat
9:13 Eriogonum giganteum, St. Catherine's Lace buckwheat
9:42 Melampodium leucanthum, Blackfoot daisy
10:02 Eriogonum fasciculatum, California buckwheat
10:22 Salvia apiana, White sage
In the music credits I forgot to include "Sea of Ancestry" by Jesse Gallagher, which plays softly in the second half of the video.

[@SD-co9xe]

I love your video. Great information about the plants and wonderful to see the wildlife visiting your garden.

[@southerncalnativeplantgard3777]

Thank you kindly for visiting my site and leaving a comment. Much appreciated! And good luck with your gardening!

[@user-gm9mi9xx3p]

thank you. I finally found videos in Calif. I am zone 9 San Diego so thank you

[@southerncalnativeplantgard3777]

Thanks and good luck!

[@shellylaverneable]

Love your videos. I moved here after fifty years in Minnesota and all the plants here just amaze me.

[@melissacontreras673]

Thank you
I am a beginner gardener
I am trying to incorporate native plants into my garden
Your video is very helpful
Thanks for sharing

[@southerncalnativeplantgard3777]

I'm glad they're of some help to you. Good luck!

[@katallen4021]

Thanks for sharing!

[@TobyCostaRica]

Love the video! A great resource for my lawn transformation.
If I could suggest adding the common name to the text for screen shot purposes? I see it in the description but the picture gets darkened.

[@southerncalnativeplantgard3777]

Good suggestion. I'll try to incorporate it in the future. Thanks for visiting!

[@peterl.104]

I planted Calylophus belandieri by mistake in my CA native garden. I didn’t make it clear enough to the guy at the nursery that I wanted only natives, so when he suggested a substitute, I bought them without asking. Their yellow flowers are vibrant and pretty though.

[@southerncalnativeplantgard3777]

Your Calylophus belandieri is very similar to the 'Sundrops' I planted & my experience was about like yours. I bought many from Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano which is one of the largest Cal native plant nurseries in the state. But they don’t strictly limit themselves to Cal natives & I didn't learn till much later that ‘Sundrops’ is Southwestern.
But I think that you & I should get at least partial credit because the first three letters of its botanical name are - wait for it - CAL!

[@peterl.104]

@@southerncalnativeplantgard3777 good word joke. I will try to remember to emphasize those first 3 letter.

[@YD-jw6hw]

Very pretty. Especially love your wooly blue curls!
Several of these plants seem to not be California natives. Particularly I don't find any evidence that the following are California native plants:
Tecoma stans 'Crimson Flare'
Lantana camara 'Little Lucky Hot Pink'
Calylophus hartwegii
Chrysactinia mexicana
Salvia x 'Big Swing' (and the salvias it seems to have been hybridized from, though plenty of salvias are native)
Salvia leucantha (despite the 'Santa Barbara' cultivar name)
Arbutus 'Marina'
Salvia greggii
Melampodium leucanthum
You did note that your milkweed is non-native. There are several native milkweeds, including showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) and narrow-leaved milkweed (A. fascicularis).

[@lactate8008s]

yeah. it's a beautiful garden, but calling it a "native" garden is a stretch

[@southerncalnativeplantgard3777]

Thanks to Y D and Luca Cecchini for their comments. I knew that some plants Y D listed were Southwestern & not strictly California. But I didn’t recall, for instance, that salvia greggii was a non-native.
Like all gardens, ours is a work in progress. Here’s the story of how it unfolded.
The home was built in 1964 on a one-half acre lot. When we purchased in 2015, it was nearly 50 years old. The home had a Mediterranean style with terracotta tile roof and stuccoed arches surrounded by King palms and olive trees. The only native California plants were a coast live oak and a sycamore. In the “borrowed landscape” adjoining our lot some neighbors had Ponderosa pine, sycamore and toyon.
A previous owner had planted three mature olive trees, which fit the Mediterranean style of the home. But other aspects of the landscape were more like an English garden with large areas of lawn edged by narrow rectangular planting beds full of non-native plants. In their defense, many of these plants were drought tolerant. I added several Italian cypresses and French lavenders near the front entrance because they fit the style of the home.
When we purchased in 2015, California’s state-wide drought was in its fifth year. Shortly after moved in, our city imposed mandatory water restrictions. The lawns could only be watered twice a week and over the summer large patches turned brown. I decided to do what I had done in our previous home - introduce more drought-tolerant plants including many California natives.
In 2016, we removed all the existing grass and converted most of those areas to planting spaces. We kept two meadow areas, much reduced in size. In the front meadow we planted native carex pansa (Cal meadow sedge), blue-eyed grass, blue grama grass, seaside daisy and yarrow. I’ve just added purple needlegrass, yellow-eyed grass, California fescue, and more grama grass to the meadow. In the back meadow we planted California buffalograss.
In the front yard and northwest slope, the plants that now predominate are Cleveland sage (Aromas, Winifred Gilman, Arroyo Azul, and Pozo Blue), other sages (Bee’s Bliss, Brendegee’s, ‘Dara’s Choice’, giant hummingbird, white sage), agave, buckwheat (common, Conejo, St. Catherine’s Lace, Santa Cruz Island, Wildwood), barrel cactus, ceanothus (Concha, Ray Hartman, Yankee Point), Cal. fuchsia, coyote brush, desert globemallow, dudleya (chalk, others), gum plant, manzanita (Byrd Hill, Emerald Carpet, Howard McMinn, John Dourley), palo verde, pitcher sage, purple nightshade, toyon, verbena ‘De La Mina,’ woolly bluecurls, yucca, and a variety of California wildflowers. As a specimen tree, we planted Arbutus ‘Marina’ (strawberry tree), which is related to Pacific madrone but is non-native. Madrone is not native to southern Cal & is a poor choice for southern Cal gardens. The Arbutus marina is very garden friendly and more suited to southern California gardens. It is now established and thriving.
East Slope: The non-native cape honeysuckle hedge along the south side of the house had spread along the southern portion of the east slope and I haven’t done anything with it yet. But the middle and northern portion had scrub oak and young ponderosa pine to which I’ve added artemisia, buckwheat (common, Dana Point, Wright’s), coyote brush (common, ‘Pigeon Point’), desert willow, foothill penstemon, manzanita (Dr. Hurd, Refugio), lemonade berry, mountain mahogany, toyon, and sugar bush.
Rear Yard: When we moved in it had several mature crape myrtles and other large Australian trees, extensive hedges of India hawthorne, karo, and red tip photinia, plus King palms and various citrus. Besides putting in the Cal buffalograss, I have begun to replace some of the non-native hedges with native plants. I have added agave, brittlebush, buckwheat (common, conejo, San Miguel Island, Santa Cruz Island), ceanothus (‘Sierra Snow’), coast sunflower, desert globemallow, desert willow, dudleya (various), lemonade berry, manzanita (Byrd Hill, Howard McMinn), mountain mahogany, toyon, and yarrow.
The California natives are my thing. My wife has no interest in them (she’s from the rainy part of Oregon) and she prefers irises, roses and succulents. So we have some of that, too.
That’s an overview of the past seven years or so.
In Memoriam: To the ceanothus, manzanita, penstemon and many others that died after I planted them in too hot a location.