On October 21st, the Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden’s nursery, the Grow Native Nursery, and my favorite place to buy plants, had their annual Fall Planting Festival. As a member, I got to go in at 8 a.m. with other members and pick out plants early.

I had done my research. I lost a good number of plants this summer. I lost four “Winnifred Gilman” Cleveland Sages, several White Sages, a couple Penstemons, all four or five sticky monkey flower plants, a “Canyon Sparkles” manzanita, and a Desert Willow. I might have left some out, but that’s what I’m remembering now.

My research was to find the plants that are not only native to California, but native to the same kind of area in which I live. The site for Las Pilitas is a treasure trove of information. There, I learned that my area is a Chaparral plant community. I had previously thought it was Coastal Sage Scrub because Las Pilitas said my zip code was in that area. But, I live in the “Inland Empire” a region characterized by heat and wind and little rainfall. We are in the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains but my elevation is about 1500 feet.

So, although this might be a Coastal Sage Scrub area, the heat and wind means the plants need to be able to put up with all of that. And, as I look at the areas of land that aren’t developed, it most resembles a Chaparral area. The Coastal Sage Scrub (CSS) is a cooler area. And, the plants get a significant amount of fog that drips on them and is a source of moisture, while the Chaparal plants have to deal with more heat and little to no fog. The Chaparral community gets around 15 inches of rain per year, maybe slightly more than that.



Accordingly, I used Las Pilitas to find plants that do well in that environment. There’s some cross over between Coastal Sage Scrub and Chaparral among plants.

Some of my sages were good, Black sage and “Allen Chickering” sage for example. Ceanothus and many manzanitas are ok, too. Diplaucus monkey flowers are okay, but not Mimulus species. But there were some plants new to me that were suited to the Chaparral community such as Toyon, Coffeeberry, Lemondade berry, and flannel bush. I’m really looking forward to seeing those grow up. They are great for birds and we really enjoy having our winged friends in the yard. (We get visited by finches and sparrows (of course, probably the most common birds around here), but also mockingbirds, black phoebes, and hummingbirds. There’s also a big flock of pigeons. Recently, scrub jays have been coming around and I saw a Western Meadowlark.)

I tried hard to choose plants that deal well with heat and dry conditions. I made my list, considered where I would put such plants, and I picked out 47. It was a lot of plants. In fact, at checkout, I had no less than three people say, “Is this all one order?” Because it was unbelievable that one person would buy so many plants.

There seem to be two schools of thought, for planting California natives. One group says you should only plant when weather is cool as in Fall or Winter. Late fall is best. I agree with this. But Las Pilitas says you can plant all year long if you want to as long as you are willing to make accommodations for your plants, like watering them.

That being the case, I planted 19 last weekend. To me, it’s better to have a plant in the ground than in a plastic pot. But, disturbing the roots, as planting can do, is stressful to the plants. That’s why planting in the heat can be harder on them.

That weekend and the last week have been hot, though. Very hot. We went over 100 degrees a couple days in a row. And then the wind was awful, too. In fact, the weather was ugly all together. Heat, wind, and extremely low humidity. Also, the high pressure in the atmosphere kept the heat trapped. So, for several days in a row, the temperature didn’t drop below 85 degrees, even at night. Heat, low humidity, high wind, and no cooling at night? Brutal for new plants!