Plants for real gardens in Southern California

July 5, 2:39 PMBackyard Living ExaminerJane Gates

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Design real Gardens for Southern California (Photo by Jane Gates)

Designing real gardens for Southern California means taking into account the hot sun of summer, low rainfall, and varied low temperatures of the different coastal and inland areas.  There are plants that will do justice to your landscape while fitting smoothly into the needs of  your microclimate, and there are plants that will be more of a struggle.

All of this is to say that no matter how much you may love tropical gardens, lush lawns, woodsy retreats and other global landscapes, if you have a home here, maybe it’s time to love the chaparral. That doesn’t mean your garden will have to look like scrubland. It doesn’t have to be untamed. It doesn’t have to be brown. And, no, it doesn't have to be a cactus garden either if that's not what you want!  With careful design and by mixing in chaparral type plants from similar areas in other parts of the world, you can create a beautiful, colorful, environmentally harmonic garden that you can enjoy looking at and living in!

Our natural soil varies in different parts of Los Angeles County.  But for the most part it tends to be clay in most of the basin and valley areas, sandy near riverbeds and beach areas, and stony, granite-filled and calcareous (which means that it is high in calcium and other minerals) in most hilly and inland areas.  Nowhere are you likely to find much compost-filled loam, and acid-loving plants (like azaleas, rhododendrons, gardenias, etc.) are going to be a challenge to grow without a lot of extra coddling. And then there is the issue with the availability of water. With the rapid population growth in this area, climatic changes and issues with importing water, water availability will continue to be a problem even if this drought breaks in the near future.

Some lovely plants that tend to ignore both the summer heat and winter frosts and bloom happily in local soil – with no expensive soil amendments – are also drought tolerant. These plants can add low maintenance color to the landscape and are perfect to design into a smart, colorful, real garden for Southern California.

The tough salvias offer color and low-maintenance alike. Some excellent sage plants are the Salvia clevelandii – a favorite cultivar is the darker purple and slightly less rambunctious ‘Winifred Gilman’,  Salvia chamaedryoides with its soft grey foliage and bright blue flowers, and the many pinks, reds and whites of the long-flowering Salvia greggii. Teucreums are known as germanders and can grow large or small, depending on variety. The larger-growing Teucreum fruticans azureum boasts sky-blue flowers and likes to show off in winter when little else is blooming. The Teucreum chamadrys and cussonii both are lower growers with red-purple flowers in spring and summer. Penstemons come in a wide range of colors. There are native varieties like Penstemon eatonii and P. centranthifolia in bright red, or P. azureus in blue or P. palmeri and pseudospectabilis in pink. All the Penstemons bloom with stalks festooned in decorative, colorful bells.  There are many larger-flowered cultivars in assorted colors and even bi-colors. For bright reds try the zauchnarias – recently renamed epilobiums. Don’t forget the versatile rosemaries that now come in blues and pinks as well as lavender. And try one of the many yellow daisies like the Coreopsis, Acton Daisy or Chocolate Daisy.

And then there are all those interesting ornamental grasses. Muhlenbergias come in all sizes, shapes and textures and there are even some local natives. One variety, Muhlenbergia capilaris blooms with feathery pink inflorescences in the autumn that look like pink fairy dust. Another, Muhlenbergia dumosa, grows like thin shoots of bamboo. You won’t find a tougher ornamental grass than Muhlenbergia rigens, commonly known as deergrass. Try a small Festuca or an Elymus for blue foliage. Or try the easy-to-grow burgundy colored red fountain grass.  Plant grasses around rocks and boulders, mix them with flowers or create a whole ornamental grass garden.  There are many more grasses and flowers that can build a reliable yet colorful backbone to your garden.

Design a whole garden of reliable chaparral-type plants and enjoy low maintenance along with garden security no mater what Mother Nature decides to send our way. By planning out your garden, you can use any of these plant choices -- and many more -- to create a Mediterannean, Asian, English, Southwestern or any other styled garden.  Do some research into the plants you use in your landscape and you can design a real garden for Southern California that is both beautiful and practical.  You can also feel proud of yourself by planting “green”, using our limited water supplies responsibly and by creating natural habitat for our threatened wildlife. Despite being eco-friendly and easy to care for, your garden can look as good or even better than anyone elses.  And if nasty weather arrives, you’ll have all your neighbors jealous as your landscape thrives without effort!

Designing a Southwest themed landscape