The Hot Plant Picks section was bustling at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show on a rainy Friday afternoon in March. People peered at about 140 potted plants, offered by a couple dozen nurseries, taking photos of favorites and noting down relevant information from the detailed plant tags.
Many of these showcased plants are new to the trade, and many offer interesting forms, colors, and other features. Since most of them are offered by wholesale nurseries, you can order them through local retail nurseries. For this reason, I've included the name of the source nursery as well as the botanical name of each plant.
The complete list of hot plant picks will be available at westernhort.org within a few months. Some of the featured plants are not new to the trade, but are becoming more widely available. Here are a few native plants that stood out.
If you like bright golden yellow variegation on green leaves, look for Ceanothus 'El Dorado' from Emerisa Gardens. The shrub is 8 ft. high and wide and can grow in sun to part shade.
A smaller ceanothus comes from Suncrest Nurseries. C. 'Midnight Magic' offers bright blue-purple flowers and is a manageable size for smaller gardens: 2-3 ft. high and 5 ft. wide.
Also from Suncrest is a green form of Dudleya brittonii. Usually found with a whitish cast to the leaves, this succulent has large rosettes and makes a good accent between rocks or in containers, or in the garden with excellent drainage, some shelter from the hottest afternoon sun, and little to no summer water.
For dry shade, Suncrest has Festuca californica 'Gabilan Blues' – a dense bunchgrass with blue-gray leaves that grows 30 in. high. Grasses are especially good for holding slopes, and California fescues grow beautifully under native oaks.
A good barrier plant from Suncrest is Sierra gooseberry, Ribes roezlii var. cruentum 'Dixie Glade'. Like other gooseberries, its spiny branches make it a good refuge for birds, and its red and white flowers attract hummingbirds. It reaches 3-4 ft. and grows in sun to part shade.
Another terrific habitat plant comes from California Flora Nursery. Lomatium californicum, with ferny blue-green foliage, likes bright shade or dappled shade, with little or no water. The anise swallowtail butterfly loves this plant as a larval food. The leaves get about a foot high, and the flowering head rises about 8 in. above the leaves.
Yellow flowers were particularly noteworthy this year. Elkhorn Native Plant Nursery has a golden yellow iris, Iris Pacific Coast Hybrid 'New Yellow', that grows in clumps and gets 15 in. high.
Always an exciting and dependable source of native wildflowers and perennials, Annie's Annuals has a mail-order business and a retail nursery in Richmond, and selected plants are available at local nurseries. A light yellow native buckwheat, Eriogonum nudum 'Ella Nelson's Yellow' does best in open, rocky areas in full sun, with little or no summer water. Its 3 ft. bare-leaved stems are covered in flowers and bloom from spring to summer, then turn brown in the fall. They can be used as cut flowers at any stage. Like other buckwheats, Ella attracts bees and other beneficial insects. In winter, the basal rosette is 3 in. high and 8-10 in. wide.
© 2011 Tanya Kucak