Tag Archives: native plants

Helping a Canyon Landscape

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For the past two and a half years, a group of gardeners and I have volunteered to rehabilitate the landscape of a five-home cul de sac in Trabuco Canyon. The site is 12 acres in size and is owned by a non-profit, The Teen Project, that shelters women who were subject to human trafficking and homelessness.

The property was formerly owned by Boys Town, a Catholic charity that helped troubled teens. Boys Town put the property up for sale and, in late 2018, The Teen Project acquired the site.

When we first saw the site in January 2019, we identified invasive plants that had overtaken much of the natural landscape, including fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides), ice plant (Carpobrotus edulis), and sea lavender (Limonium). Black mustard (Brassica nigra) was also present on the property.

Fountain grass overtaking a hillside. (E. Wallace)

The Teen Project was busy getting the homes repaired and ready for residents to move in, and the landscape needed help. The new owners considered using artificial turf to solve some of the problems in the landscape, but I stepped in with a couple of partners to offer an alternative: Plant a natural landscape instead of using artificial turf. The natural landscape would be healing for the land and for the future residents.

Sea lavender growing in the middle of a native yucca (Hesperoyucca whipplei). (E. Wallace)

We offered to plant three front yards with California native plants. Native plants belong in the canyon, are beautiful, and require minimal water once established. In January 2019, with the help of volunteers, we began removing invasive plants and planting 300 one-gallon native plants. We removed about four semi-truck loads of invasive plants the first four months, and by April we had landscaped three large front yards and more.

  • Before
  • After

That first year, we completed all of the work by hand. As the project progressed, we hired a landscape contractor to help with drainage and more complex designed areas like the butterfly garden shown below.

  • Before
  • After

If you would like to learn more about the project, you are invited to attend a presentation I am giving at the San Clemente Garden Club this Wednesday, September 1, at 2 p.m. at St. Andrews by the Sea United Church at 2001 Calle Frontera in San Clemente. Join us and enjoy some dramatic photographs of our progress and hear about future plans for the site.

Flowers in Bloom as Summer Wanes

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Spring in southern California is the biggest and showiest blooming season for native plants. Poppies, verbenas, and penstemons are strutting their stuff after a cool, rainy winter.

Verbena de la mina, seaside daisies, poppies, sages, and penstemon in bloom last May. (E. Wallace).

But by late summer, the plants are pulling back, waiting out the long dry season and protecting themselves from the 90 degree days.

How do our pollinators, birds, and butterflies find enough nectar during the long, hot days of summer and early fall when our native plants are hunkering down to make it through?

I took a walk around my garden recently to see which flowers are still in bloom. And what I found surprised me because these blossoms are subtle but still very important to pollinators:

  • California fuchsia (E. Wallace)
  • California fuchsia (E. Wallace)
  • Globe mallow (E. Wallace)
  • Palmer’s abutilon (E. Wallace)
  • Buckwheat (E. Wallace)
  • Seaside daisy (E. Wallace)
  • Coyote mint (E. Wallace)

I also have three small trees that are covered in blossoms right now:

  • Toyon with thousands of blossoms. (E. Wallace)
  • Palo Verde ‘Desert Museum’ (E. Wallace)
  • X Chitalpa (E. Wallace)

My garden is a cultivated environment of native plants that I water deeply once a month. The extra water helps prolong the blooming season of some of the plants that populate my home landscape.

But what is happening with plants in the wild that get no supplemental irrigation?

I hiked in a local park and explored a wild land interface to discover native plants in bloom now:

A roadrunner and California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) in the heat of summer. (E. Wallace)
  • Prickly pear cactus (E. Wallace)
  • California aster–a diminutive plant. (E. Wallace)
  • Goldenrod (E. Wallace)
  • Sacred datura (E. Wallace)

My favorite late summer blooming plant is Menzies’ goldenbush (Isocoma menziesii). This plant shines during the hottest months of summer no matter how little water it receives. Yesterday afternoon, I noticed new goldenbush plants sprouting in the hot, dry compacted soil of a wild land interface. The goldenbush’s profusion of blooms is a gift to pollinators.

  • Skipper on goldenbush. (E. Wallace)
  • (E. Wallace)
  • Menzies’ goldenbush in bloom. (E. Wallace)

Next time you go for a hike in the park, take a look around and see what flowers are blooming. Even the tiniest flowers matter to butterflies, hummingbirds, and bees.

A Chemical-Free Garden for Monarchs

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Is it possible to have a beautiful garden without using pesticides and herbicides? In my experience, it has been easy to have a healthy garden that doesn’t require chemical pest control.

Reducing our reliance on chemicals protects butterflies, and invites wildlife to step in and manage the unwanted insect population.

Birds feed their offspring mostly insects and caterpillars because insects are easy to digest when the baby birds are young and vulnerable. One nest of baby birds need more than 5,000 caterpillars to develop and be ready to fledge.

Adult birds, including hummingbirds, also rely on insects for protein and calories.

The images below show a kingbird after it captured a potato bug. The kingbird flew with the insect to a nearby elderberry bush and proceeded to smack the insect against a branch before eating it.

Kingbird captures a potato bug, smashing it to get ready to eat. (E. Wallace)

If you had killed the potato bug, the kingbird would have gone hungry. Sterilizing the outdoors with chemicals may be part of the reason terrestrial birds in the United States have declined by 3 billion birds since the 1970.

Instead of using pesticides, you can let birds and beneficial insects like the praying mantis shown below, do the work for you.

Mantis eats a winged insect. (E. Wallace)

Although birds and beneficial insects help with pest control, some pests are better managed by the gardener.

I remove tiny orange aphids that are attracted to native narrow-leaf milkweed by squishing them with my fingers. First I make sure there aren’t any pearly monarch eggs nearby. The aphids are soft, and removing them takes about 10 seconds.

I recently heard an entomologist say adult monarch butterflies won’t lay their eggs on milkweed that has aphids, so I keep an eye on my milkweed plants and make sure to smash the aphids when they appear.

Monarch caterpillars eating aphid-free narrow-leaf milkweed. (E. Wallace)

Before reaching for a pesticide, remember the possible harm chemicals can do to birds, butterflies, and bees. When you preserve the web of life in your garden, you will have fewer pests naturally, and a thriving butterfly population too.

Monarchs Arrive for Summer

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Have you noticed monarch butterflies flying around your California yard this summer?

Western monarch butterflies are an iconic butterflies that delight us with bright orange plumage, black stripes, and white polka dots. They are so large, they cast a shadow when they fly overhead.

After hearing about the historically low overwintering monarch butterfly count last winter, I have been surprised to see a healthy number of western monarchs making daily visits to my home landscape over the past few months. 

Monarch rests on a native milkweed. (E. Wallace)

I am seeing more monarchs than I expected because last winter, fewer than 2,000 monarchs were counted overwintering in California. 

According to Xerces.org, “Early count numbers from Xerces’ Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count suggest that the western migratory population is headed for an all-time low. With approximately 95 percent of the data in, only 1,800 monarchs have been reported…This is a significant decline from the low numbers of the last two years where the total hovered just under 30,000 monarchs. These numbers are a tiny fraction of the millions of monarchs that likely visited overwintering sites in the 1980s and the hundreds of thousands of monarchs that graced California’s coast as recently as the mid-2010s. In fact, this represents an overall decline of more than 99.9% in the migratory population.”

Photo of overwintering Western monarch butterflies by Candace Fallon/Xerces Society

What can we do to help reverse their dramatic decline in numbers?

Monarch caterpillars only feed on milkweed. The first step you can take to help the western monarch butterfly is to plant milkweed that is native to your area. Good native milkweed choices for Southern California include narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) and woolly-pod milkweed (Asclepias eriocarpa). 

You can install native milkweed plants now, and support monarch butterflies looking for a host plant to lay their eggs. 

Western monarch caterpillars feasting on woolly-pod milkweed in Southern California. (E. Wallace)

Planting milkweed that is native to where you live is more beneficial than non-native (tropical milkweed) because non-native milkweed often hosts parasites that harm butterflies and disrupts their reproduction and migration.  

One nursery in Southern California is trying to help increase western monarch populations by offering a free trade-in. At Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar, you can bring your non-native tropical milkweed into the nursery and receive a free native narrow-leaf milkweed replacement plant.

Another great nursery to buy native milkweed is Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano. Tree of Life Nursery has several species of native milkweed plants for sale this year including woolly-pod milkweed shown above.

Monarch caterpillar munching native narrow-leaf milkweed yesterday. (E. Wallace)

Planting plenty of native milkweed in your garden is a great first step in helping the western monarch butterfly populations recover. I will discuss more ways you can help monarchs in my next post. In the meantime, visit your local nursery and buy several milkweed plants for your garden, and while you are outside, look for monarchs cruising your garden.

Summer Buckwheat Blooms Bright

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It is July, the height of summer in Southern California, and buckwheats are blooming with thousands of showy white flowers.

(E. Wallace)

I took a walk this morning at my favorite local park, O’Neill Regional Park in Trabuco Canyon. Many of the spring-blooming plants are hunkering down in the 90-degree heat, but California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum) is just beginning to shine. Look closely and you will see clouds of tiny butterflies and pollinators flying from blossom to blossom, gathering pollen.

Gray hairstreak butterfly. (E. Wallace)

Beetles too are enjoying the buckwheat blossoms.

(E. Wallace)

In the photo below, notice the tiny fly (upper left corner) coming in toward the buckwheat flower while the Flower Longhorn Beetle forages.

(E. Wallace)

If you are looking for a summer-blooming shrub for your garden, buckwheat should be one of your top choices. Buckwheats bloom for months during the hottest parts of the year and support clouds of pollinators, butterflies, and birds. Buckwheats are easy to grow, and once established, require no supplemental water.

(K. Ethington)

Try planting a buckwheat interspersed with salvias, fuchsias, and mallows. You will get year-round blossoms in your garden and year-round butterflies too. Add a native milkweed, such as narrow-leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis), and support declining monarch butterfly populations.

(E. Wallace)

Native plants are gaining popularity as gardeners learn to appreciate their beauty and importance to wildlife. Join the movement! Try planting a buckwheat and see how many pollinators are attracted to your landscape. Then add more. Butterflies will flutter, birds will sing, and you will be filled with happiness.

(S. Bressler)

My Interview with the LA Times

Posted on by under buckwheat, Nature

Jeanette Marantos, garden reporter for the LA Times, called me in mid-February as I was returning home from a landscape restoration project I work on in Trabuco Canyon.

(L to R) Brad Jenkins, president of OCCNPS, volunteer Vern Jones, Jeff Wallace and myself, after planting four Coast Live Oak trees and two toyons at a landscaping project in Trabuco Canyon. (E. Wallace)

Marantos asked me to provide a short list of the best native plants Southern Californians can plant in their home landscapes, and also why it is important to plant natives in the home garden.

We spoke on the phone for an hour and I suggested California native plants that are beautiful and easy-to-grow. We researched the plants together on the Calscape database. We also discussed Doug Tallamy’s research that shows when non-native ornamental plants are installed in the landscape, insect populations plummet because insects are co-evolved to feed from native plant species, not from introduced plant species.

Marantos’ article appeared in the LA Times on February 28 and is titled “Want to help bees and butterflies? Add these plants to your garden.”

Want to help bees and butterflies? Illustration by Julie Yellow for The Times.

Marantos wrote: “Once upon a time in Southern California, landscaping was primarily about decoration — the greenest lawn, easy-care sculptural shrubs and a few showstopper flowers, almost none native to the region or welcoming to butterflies or bees. In truth, we did everything we could to keep bugs out of our yards, and it worked — far too well.”

She spoke with Ron Vanderhoff, vice president of the Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (OCCNPS) and general manager of Roger’s Gardens nursery, who said, “Bees, butterflies and other native insects are dwindling because they’re running out of the habitat and food provided by native plants. If we want to save them — and the birds and other animals that need those insects to survive — we need to change how we think about landscaping.”

“There’s been a mind change where gardening is not just decorating, it’s doing something to help the world,” Vanderhoff said. “It’s gardening with a purpose to it.”

Hummingbird visits native manzanita. (Kris Ethington)

Kris Ethington, board member of OCCNPS, and winner of Orange County’s 2018 California Friendly Garden contest for re-landscaping her entire yard with only native plants, discussed her favorite plants for the garden including oaks, lemonadeberry, toyon, and verbena de la mina.

Here is a list of California native plants that Ron, Kris and I consider must-haves in every garden as reported in the LA Times:

Buckwheat growing under fruit trees

Buckwheat blossoms in late summer home garden. (E. Wallace)

If you are going to add just one native plant to your yard, make it a California buckwheat. At OCCNPS, we believe this is such an important plant for the landscape that we gave away 1,500 starter buckwheat plants to Orange County homeowners in our A Buckwheat in Every Garden program.

Hummingbird finding nectar from a Cleveland sage. (Kris Ethington)

Salvias and sages are pollinators’ favorite flowers. White sage is a sacred plant to Native Americans; it has silvery foliage and thrives in hot, dry locations. For shady locations, hummingbird sage spreads abundantly, blossoming with magenta-colored flowers in spring and summer. Vanderhoff also recommends the fragrant Cleveland sage which thrives in most parts of Southern California.

Monarch caterpillar munching on a narrow-leaf milkweed. (Cynthia Grilli)

Narrow-leaf milkweed has white flowers and is the best milkweed for monarch butterflies in Southern California. Many nurseries sell the orange tropical milkweed, but tropical milkweed is not native to Southern California, and researchers have discovered that tropical milkweed hosts a protozoa that makes adult monarchs sickly and weak, according to Vanderhoff. For that reason, Vanderhoff’s nursery, Roger’s Gardens, only sells narrow-leaf milkweed.

Maritime ceanothus. (Kris Ethington)

Ceanothus, commonly known as the California lilac, is a gardener’s favorite. With its honey sweet scent and profuse violet blossoms, this is a must have for every garden. The ceanothus variety ‘Yankee Point’ spills down hillsides in shady inland gardens. ‘Ray Hartman‘ ceanothus is a small-tree-sized California lilac covered with deep violet blossoms in springtime.

Native bumble with pollen on its legs and a lupine. (Kris Ethington)

California poppies and lupine wildflowers are easy-to-grow annuals with spectacular spring and summer flowers. Gardeners can sow the seeds of these flowers just before winter rains and provide abundant support for pollinators. You can purchase these seeds from Tree of Life Nursery and Theodore Payne Foundation.

Black-tailed bumblebee visits manzanita. (Kris Ethington)

Manzanitas are the superstars of California natives. If anything will turn people toward natives, it’s manzanitas. Manzanitas’ bell-shaped blossoms, structural characteristics, and rich red bark make this a garden standout. Two varieties of manzanitas are excellent choices for the first-time native gardener: Arctostaphylos ‘Sunset’ and ‘Howard McMinn.’

Join me at and other members of OCCNPS at The Dana Point Headlands Earth Day Celebration on April 25, and pick up a free California ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat plant. We care about your garden and the pollinators your garden can support with the right native plants. Join us and bring your questions. We are here to help.

Bring More Hummingbirds, Orioles, and Warblers to Your Home

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How can you get more birds visiting your garden?

Hummingbird gathering nectar from Cleveland Sage. Photo by Kris Ethington.

Go to Audubon’s guide for plants that attract birds.

Orange-Crowned Warbler foraging on Showy Penstemon. Photo by Kris Ethington.

When you click on this link, you will be directed to the Audubon Society database that recommends plants that help birds thrive where you live. Enter your 5-digit zip code and explore the best plants for birds in your area, as well as local resources and links to more information.

Hooded Oriole feeding chick. Photo by Kris Ethington.

Click the Audubon link and learn which native plants will bring more birds to your garden this spring.

Hummingbird fledgling perched on a Cleveland Sage with parent in the background. Photo by Kris Ethington.

If you live in Southern California, you can find bird-friendly native plants for sale at Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano.

Tree of Life Nursery in San Juan Capistrano. (Elizabeth Wallace)

And on Saturday, March 12 from 3 to 5 p.m., you can pick up a free California buckwheat plant at the Arbor Day celebration at Lang Park in Laguna Beach while supplies last.

Where Do Western Monarchs Spend the Spring?

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Despite the fact that Western Monarch butterflies are universally loved, their numbers have plummeted in recent years.

Two monarch butterflies cruise together under a Coast Live Oak tree. (Elizabeth Wallace)

What can you do to help? Join the Western Monarch Mystery Challenge–a campaign created to increase awareness of locations where Western Monarchs spend the spring in California after leaving their coastal California overwintering sites.

Male and female Western Monarchs together. Photo by Jeff Wallace.

If you see a monarch from February 18 through April 22, take a photo (it can be far away and blurry). Then report the siting to iNaturalist, the Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper, or email it to MonarchMystery@wsu.edu.

Far away and blurry photo of Western Monarch on baccharis pilularis cultivar and coffee berry. (Elizabeth Wallace)

Your photo will help scientists better understand Western Monarchs’ locations and activities in February, March, and April. When you share your springtime Monarch observations, you help conservation efforts for the butterfly.

In between reporting your spring Western Monarch sitings, plant more native plants in your garden, especially California buckwheat, salvias, manzanitas, narrow-leaf milkweed, and maybe a scrub oak tree!

Saying Good Bye to a Billion Birds

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Did you know that in 2016, North America had more than a billion fewer breeding birds than 40 years ago?

Blue birds eating insects. Photo by the Louis Gintner Botanical Garden.

What is contributing to the decline in bird populations? Scientist Doug Tallamy has discovered that when non-native ornamental plants are installed in the landscape, insect populations plummet because insects are co-evolved to feed from native plant species, not from introduced plant species.

Insects make up 96 percent of terrestrial birds’ food source.

Carolina chickadee prepares to feed young. Photo by Douglas Tallamy.

 

Thousands of lady beetles hibernating in a canyon area in a southern California woodland in the winter of 2020. Photo by Ron Vanderhoff.

We have 3,300 species of ornamental plants (from other areas of the world) introduced in the United States. These plants are cultivated and promoted by nurseries and home improvement centers because they are unusual, pretty, and easy to grow.

Ornamental Pampas Grass (from Argentina and Brazil) invades a creek in Southern California. (Elizabeth Wallace)

Introduced ornamental plants do not support abundant insect life, and without insects–humans, birds, and animals cannot survive. Other factors contributing to the reduction in bird populations include pesticide use, bird strikes on windows and plexiglass fencing, and feral cats. To learn more, you can read Tallamy’s research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS).

Ornamental fountain grass (from Africa) planted in a residential landscape in Southern California.

What can you do to help? Start by learning about native plants from your region. If you live in California, you can go to CalScape.org and type in your zip code. You will find a list of plants that are native to your area, and the insects and pollinators the native plant supports.

California Native Plant Society

Returning birdsong to the outdoors is one of the reasons why the Orange County California Native Plant Society is giving away one free ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat to Orange County homeowners. Buckwheat supports 15 species of butterflies and moths, not to mention all of the native bees and other insects that thrive with this plant in the landscape. Plant a California buckwheat today and help birds find enough to eat.

Lady Beetle Visits Buckwheat. Photo by Kris Ethington.

Growing Buckwheat in the Garden

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When cooler winter temperatures arrive in Southern California, residents wear sweaters and scarves to stay cozy. Buckwheat changes in the winter too, as the creamy white flowers turn a reddish brown when the flowers go to seed.

‘Dana Point’ buckwheat graces a garden in winter. (Kris Ethington)

The ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat has a compact nature suitable for the home garden and is fairly easy to grow for first-time native gardeners.

Buckwheat mixes with other natives in the garden. (Kris Ethington)

More than a thousand buckwheats were distributed last fall, and if all went well, the plants that were given away may have doubled in size by now. Thanks to abundant rains over Thanksgiving and Christmas, the new buckwheat plants should be off to a good start.

New ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat planted in late November has doubled in size. (Elizabeth Wallace)

How is your new buckwheat growing? Have you experienced troubles or success? Let me know with a comment on this blog, and share a photo if you have one. I would love to hear from you.

And if you haven’t had a chance to pick up a free buckwheat, you can pick one up at Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar on January 14, 15, and 16 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (while supplies last).

Roger’s Gardens in Corona del Mar. Photo from Roger’s Gardens.

More Buckwheat, More Butterflies

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When you plant California buckwheat in your home landscape, you bring immediate relief to butterflies and other pollinators searching for nectar and shelter.

California native bee, solitary and docile, visits a California Buckwheat. Do you see the bee? Photo by Kris Ethington.

California buckwheats flower for months, enrich the soil with their tiny leaves, are easy to grow, and are evergreen. Buckwheat is a foundation plant for any garden.

Buckwheat graces a suburban garden. (Elizabeth Wallace)

The California Native Plant Society Orange County (OCCNPS) chapter is partnering with the Shipley Nature Center to give away 200 California ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat plants at the Holiday Crafts Faire on Saturday, December 7 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Admission is free.

Shipley Nature Center in Huntington Beach.

Visit Shipley Nature Center this Saturday to pick up a free California buckwheat, select from 70 California native plants to purchase, and see 18 acres of restored wetlands, woodlands, and pristine coastal sage scrub habitat. Shipley’s address is 17851 Goldenwest Street in Huntington Beach. See you this Saturday!

Bernardino Blue butterfly on California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasiculatum). Photo by Chuck Wright.

Buckwheat Builds Soil

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California buckwheat is an evergreen plant with small leaves that occasionally drop to the ground, forming a natural mulch. The fallen leaves enrich the soil around the plant and allow the plant to grow and spread in its own loamy mulch.

California buckwheat leaves and stem. Photo by Ron Vanderhoff.

If you are an Orange County homeowner who hasn’t picked up your free ‘Dana Point’ buckwheat yet, stop by Roger’s Gardens at 2301 San Joaquin Hills Rd., Corona del Mar on Tuesday, October 22 through Thursday, October 24, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is the only three-day giveaway we have planned, so take advantage of it if you can.

Rogers Gardens is participating in the A Buckwheat in Every Garden campaign.