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A California native plant is not an answer for your garden. A California native plant community might be.

Plants within a community have learned to share certain soils and nutrients, pollinators and predators and they have developed strategies that rely on the other members.

Gooseberry in the late afternoon. BRUCE CHAMBERS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Native plants are advocated to conserve resources, attract wildlife and create a sense of place and appreciation. When a native community is planted all these benefits are magnified – more conservation, more butterflies and more beauty.

Orange County has some wonderfully rich plant communities and many can be woven right into our urban fabric. Five are listed below.

Coastal Dune

 

Nearly wiped out in Orange County, coastal dunes are undulating sandy expanses swept by salt-laden wind.

Adapted to fast draining soils and low water, dune plants are durable, colorful and ideally suited to resource-conserving landscapes in our coastal communities.

Sand verbena, beach evening promise, sea dahlia, coastal statice and red buckwheat are colorful, durable and easy to grow members of the dune community. These plants will suffer with too much care, water and fertilizers.

Savannah

 

True savannahs in Orange County are a rarity. The grasslands we see are mostly European annuals and a byproduct of overgrazing.

California’s perennial grasslands are naturally found in dense, shallow clay soils. This whimsical and carefree plant community can be used on steep slopes and areas scrapped of topsoil.

Unfortunately, many of the native grasses available in nurseries do not come from the state’s savannahs, but from our forest, streamside and chaparral environments. The nodding needlegrass is a beaut and one of the few commercially available savannah grasses. Luckily, many other members of the savannah are readily available like California aster, desert penstemon and Salvia greggii.

Riparian

 

Like emerald green ribbons, riparian habitats meandered throughout Orange County for millions of years. Riparian means streamside and in Southern California riparian, that means a wet winter, dry summer and soils rich with organic matter.

Willows rule riparian habitats and are accompanied by sycamores, alders and cottonwoods. Some of the showy plants that jive with urban environments are red columbine, California wild rose, and gooseberry. The shrubs and smaller plants of riparian habitats prefer morning or afternoon sun, those east and west sides of homes.

Scrub

 

The flat lands of Orange County are primarily as wash, a dry expanse built by ten of thousands of years of sedimentation. Scrub dominates these expanses, along with our south and west facing foothills.

With little water, lots of sun and wildfires, scrub is the toughest plant community and the most water conserving. In an urban environment scrub needs water no more than twice a month. The famous and fragrant shrubs of scrub are California sagebrush, buckwheat, and white and black sage. The most stunning plants are Encelia (coast sunflower), scrub abutilon, pink fairy duster, Santa Cruz Buckwheat, tree mallow and red monkeyflower.

Chaparral

 

Found on the north and east sides of our hills and mountains, plants in chaparral grow much bigger than scrub because of the moisture and shade. Naturally found in canyons in and around the Cleveland National Forest, chaparral had a large presence in Modjeska, Trabuco and Laguna Canyons, Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda.

Chaparral plants are the most versatile. They can tolerate sun or shade, moist or dry, crowded or sparse. They can be used hedges and screens, provide food and shelter to birds, and they are relatively long lived.

Anchored by the larger shrubs, like toyon, sumac and scrub oak, chaparral has many wonderful showy and smaller plants, like wild onion, Del Mar manzanita, island alum root, coyote mint and the foothill penstemon.

Planting a community, rather than a plant is a little like listening to a solo saxophone player and then a symphony – there’s magic when members work together.

Author of numerous books, Douglas Kent is an ecological horticulturalist and landscape designer. Visit his work at anfractus.com.

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