Member’s Tips, Tricks, and Techniques

Guest Author Dan Songster offers chapter members and local experts a chance to share information related to gardening with natives. The question for the June/July 2023 edition of the OCCNPS Newsletter was:

Our native gardens are often inspired by nature. What is your favorite place/destination to experience and be inspired by nature in Southern California (and why)?

Leon Baginski: “San Juan loop trail. It has different plant zones including chaparral, oak woodlands, riparian and mixes of the above. Gives a great lesson in how Mother Nature designs her yard and always motivates me to try to match.”

Rama Nayeri: “My favorite place is Casper’s Wilderness Park. There’s just something about it that’s so beautiful. I can’t quite put my finger on it other than every time I go there, I’m amazed by the beauty of nature.”

Alan Lindsay: “For about thirty years now, the Northern Channel Islands has captured my attention. Their isolation from the mainland have created variations of flora and fauna not found anywhere else. Also, what man did to these islands, which is now being undone, is a laboratory for restoration. Since the majority of plants found in my garden grow naturally on those islands, I am reminded everyday of those islands and what they stand for.” 

Bob Allen: “I take garden inspiration from the local environs: coast, foothills, and slopes of the Santa Ana Mountains. But my plant choices cannot always match the wild, because of my soil, microclimate, and plant availability.”

Ron Vanderhoff: “Any canyon, so long as it is WILD, away from overuse, with few invasive plants and full of diversity. Unexplored, remote areas are best and there are still a few in Orange County like upper Santiago Canyon and upper Bell Canyon and central Hot Springs Canyon in the Santa Ana Mountains qualify.”

Sarah Jayne: “My little garden was totally inspired by the many hours I spent roaming the backcountry at Crystal Cove State Parks in its early days, (before mountain biking became big, before the Laguna fire altered the landscape, before big rains reworked the creek bed). The backcountry was a quiet place with pockets of relatively pristine nature that had survived cattle ranching days. It was a virtual primer of Coastal Sage Scrub and other coastal native plants; the basics were all there—lemonadeberry, toyon, laurel sumac, elderberry, willow, sycamore and oak, plenty of poison oak, encelia, monkeyflower, brilliant Fuchsia Flowering Gooseberry, clematis—such an expansive classroom! I wanted it all for my little garden.” [Note: Sarah’s Garden is the backyard of a small townhouse, so space has always been an issue-despite big ideas!]

Nancy Harris: “I would go to Shipley Nature Center and The Urban Forest in Huntington Beach because I volunteered many hours of planting and I want to visit the plants and see how they are growing.  Also, I have recently received photos of the Santa Ana Riverbed off of Lakeview in Anaheim.  The river has been beautifully planted with CA Natives.  I hope it is planted all the way to the ocean!”

Laura Camp: “It’s no secret that my special place is Casper’s Wilderness Park. It’s close to my work and home, and I’ve had the chance to explore it extensively for almost 20 years in all seasons. I’m redesigning my backyard right now to include inspiration from this special place.”

J. Mark Sugars: “Finding any place in Orange County that’s really and actually natural is difficult. It’s a long way from where I live, and I haven’t been there in many years, but the area most inspirational area to me would have to be the Holy Jim Trail, especially the part from the switchbacks on the hillside above the creek, up to Bear Spring.”

Dan Songster: “The James Dilley Preserve in Laguna is one of my favorites. I guess I like it because it is an area I visit regularly, and so I am familiar with most of the plants that grow there, though every now and then there is something new that pops up or that I notice for the first time. Certainly, I like the seasonal appearances of some of my favorite flowering shrubs, perennials, and tiny plants (some that I never knew about-and find myself admiring them on my knees). Oh, and the bulbs, especially the two Mariposa lilies that are there- Calochortus splendens and Calochortus weedii var. intermedius.”

Our question for the next newsletter: “Which native tree would be your favorite to plant in an average-sized Orange County home landscape?” Think about your answer and we will send you an email reminder in July.