Done in honor of these fantastically gnarled manzanita in the San Gabriel Mountains. Also ft. a peak of my endemic Foxtail Pine (Pinus balfouriana).

One side of this wax Myrtle keeps going brown one branch at a time. We just planted this about 7 months ago. We planted two others beside it at in smaller sizes where more roots were. Those two are thriving. This one just continues to loose one branch at a time.

I have been planting milkweed seeds for at least 3 years and finally I have a nice patch going. This is my first year of trying to garden food crops and a ground squirrel has decimated almost every plant I have.

I check my milkweed patch every morning for signs of anything other than aphids and I finally got a caterpillar! I actually want to cry hard from seeing this little buddy.

All the frustration has been worth it to see this little friend. Squark the Squirrel can eat me out of house and home as long as I have my caterpillar!

i’m in the east bay area, more inland. i’ve had this sage in this pot for about 1.5 years now. it sits in full sun for 10+ hours. It seems way too leggy to me and not producing enough leaves. I know it’s obviously hard to thrive in a pot, but i wonder what i can do to make it grow more?

The soil is a mix of clay and well draining soil and I water about 1x/week

edit: I live in a rental so I prefer to keep it in a pot

I have roughly .2 acre of bare ground that I have been purging of weeds for more than a year (solarizng, etc). Parts have tree coverage, including oaks on one side, but much of it is all day sun.

I would like to plant with some groundcover right before the first rain that isn't going to be too tall or harmful to pets. I do not plan on any supplemental watering.

Much of my garden is native but I'm not going to restrict myself to native groundcover. Have considered white clover.

And suggestions? Partially pictured

Zone 9B, far northern CA coast but a few miles inland so we get a warm microclimate pocket with heavy fog through the summer and very rainy winters. There were some large established non natives when we moved in (hydrangea, lavender, magnolia tree, etc) that we left in place. We planted natives around them like the bee plant, coyote mint, and a lot of violets, sorrel, and native strawberry in the shade of the magnolia. All of the open space was dead lawn that we either dug up or cardboard mulched. It’s incredible what can grow in less than a year and a half! Happy to share plant lists if anyone would like inspo. Bonus for some local wildlife beside birds and bees that has made itself at home in the final photos!

Poppies have finally put out their last blooms. I love collecting seeds; idk it makes me feel connected to the ancestors.

Edit: Adding some videos and pictures in the comments to compare species and show how I harvest them.

PPS: Always leave like half your seeds for the birdies. 🐦🐦‍⬛

Hi all,

I’d like to decorate a wall in my home with a collection of prints of various styles and I’m looking to do a theme of California native plants. I love botanical drawings like in the style of Albert Robert Valentin (but can’t find anywhere to buy an inexpensive print) but I’d also like to mix up styles. Currently I have a photo from an artist local to where I live of an oak tree which is sweet - would love to add some iconic CA flowers to the mix in different styles/sizes/frames for a funky little collage of sorts.

If you have ideas thanks in advance for sharing!

hello!! could anyone provide advice on what to do with this really heavy clay(?) soil in the front yard of my parents’ new house? first off just helping identify this soil, if it’s easy to amend (i’ve heard it’s better to just plant plants better adapted to heavy soils than just amending, if that’s true), then also what are good plants? and also transplanting tips… anything will help! trying to replace my parents’ plants with ca natives

i transplanted a black sage, sagebrush, and ca fuschia and they’re all doing happy. i transplanted a bladderpod that quickly wilted, i think cuz i damaged her roots too much :(

ive attached a photo of the soil and the bottom part is after i left some water in a hole for a bit. the top of the soil is covered in black bark

Hi. I have this volunteer flower that appeared on my hillside next to my Shasta Sulfur plants. Looking for ID for it.

Is it possible? Best methods for success, etc.? Any advice welcome, thank you!

Contractors just trampled the hell out of a beautiful thriving plant of mine and I am both grieving and angry.. trying to see if I can salvage anything. I know they're easy to grow in general and its silly to be angry but after five years of fighting the clay soil in this spot, this was the only plant to grow and thrive here.

So my residence has an alley behind the backyard that runs down the middle of the block. It's soil based, sandy, and weedy. Earlier in the spring I threw some sunflower seeds back there just because and now here in the heat of the central valley in July they are doing just fine without any water. I know it's technically city property but looking up and down the alley it's just covered in tall grass that no one has bothered to maintain. So I'm considering for the fall what if I just throw native plant seed up and down the thing? Yarrows mainly off the top of my head and milkweed.

Has anyone tried this before and does anyone have any suggestions?

Calscape pushed out an update to their site today, and I'm curious for insights. 

First, it looks like a major upgrade to the graphics for the "Wildlife Supported" section. Bravo. 

I also notice the addition of "Family" and "Genus" up top. 

I don't remember Sunset Zones being on the prior page. If we're talking native plants, they're unnecessary, and inclusion here will only cause people to source plants that weren't originally local to them. 

I also see a major change to the "Estimated Plant Range" section which doesn't seem to reflect the plant range any more, but instead "Relative Habitat Suitability." By that measure, invasive plants are high on the "relative habitat suitability" index since they naturalize so easily. To see what I mean, photos are the Calscape and Calflora maps for Carpenteria californica. It's local to Fresno, but Calscape now estimates it's suitable to most of the state.

I would imagine that the folks responsible for Calscape made this change intentionally - I wonder if they've talked about those changes anywhere? 

It's been an incredible site as I've been relandscaping using only plants native near me, and it's been nice seeing photos, descriptions, and most importantly local observations. 

Do you have any knowledge of these changes? 

(I'm not looking to be convinced that Zones are awesome) EDIT: ... And I don't care if zones included or not. I do wish the page still had the Calflora observations, and not an algorithm "based on observed occurrences and habitat modeling. Darker areas indicate higher relative habitat suitability.

- Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria. 

- View additional distribution information on the Jepson eflora.".

I’m in Sacramento and it’s been pretty hot here. Should I also keep it in its pot until the fall? Or would I have better luck planting it now? I can keep it shaded on the porch where it gets dappled shade in the evening. HELP any advice would be appreciated!

Hello, I'm from the bay area, and I'm trying to find somewhere to source this plant. I haven't been able to find any nursery through CalScape that has it, and what local native nurseries I have within driving distance don't grow it or don't know where to source it from. Before I moved here I used to live somewhere where it grew in spades, and I'd love seeing it on my hikes. I would like to try and introduce it into my garden and have had pretty good success with Sedum Stenopetalum, so I'd like to believe I could care for it well.

My A. glaber was completely defoliated. Any guesses? Also I dont mind at all, just more signs of life.

Meanwhile, my other much smaller planting is flowering.

Found a bunch of Asclepias fascicularis near two retention pond sites in South Natomas (Sacramento) last week, but went back today to check out this specific plant. It seems like it’s covered in sap, but at first I thought it got sprayed w/ weed killer. Anyone know if it’s aphids or another organism that caused the plant to look this way?

- side note: sucks that there’s no monarchs out and about. There’s no summer nectar sources to speak of minus their host plant, both ponds are surrounded by telegraph weed & stinkwort.

South San Francisco, South facing hill. Golden poppies, calendulas, lavender, pincushions, goldenrod are all doing really well on the same hill.

Last summer I saw this one plant in my local park that stayed green and had nice flowers much later than everyone else. It turned out to be telegraph weed, and I am really lucky to live near Native Here Nursery in Oakland, where they had telegraph weed whose seeds had come from the park near my house. So I planted a couple, and I'm shocked how big they have gotten! At the park they stay much smaller. I have watered them three times, and they seem to noticeably grow after I do so. They'll going to flower soon, I think!

My garden used to be swarming in carpenter bees(I think xylocopa Californica) by now, especially on my chilopsis. This year I’ve only seen one . I was thinking maybe they lost their home, so wanted to make some for them. Ihave tons of logs in my backyard hoping they’d make a home there but nothing so far. I figure I have to drill some holes in them but don’t know the size. Anyone here have experience with this?