Continuing last month's column, here are the rest of the favorite 3-5 natives to plant in someone else's yard selected by several local landscape architects and designers who specialize in native plants.
Fittingly, landscape designer Deva Luna asked, Oh, which Buckwheat to choose? The stately St. Catherine's Lace, or the reliable low spreader Warriner Lytle California Buckwheat, or ? Perhaps my favorite of these super droughty habitat hangouts for beneficial insects is Santa Cruz Island Buckwheat.
Landscape architect Sherri Osaka agreed that Santa Cruz Island Buckwheat is another good fit for every garden. It has a beautiful neat form and pinkish white blossoms that slowly turn rust or brown and is great for attracting all kinds of insects and pollinators.
Landscape architect Stephanie Morris called California Buckwheat the best plant I know for attracting pollinators and beneficial insects. In late summer when other plants are resting, it is alive with native bees, moths, butterflies, and others I can't even identify! She also likes Shasta Sulfur Buckwheat: Bright yellow flowers in late spring adorn this small-scale plant that is perfect beside a walkway or in a narrow planting area.
Silver Select California Fuchsia is Landscape designer Agi Kehoe's choice. It has nice silver foliage and orange flowers that feed hummingbirds and carpenter bees for months in summer, then provides seeds and tiny branchlets for small birds in late fall. Don't cut back before January, otherwise the birds won't be able to use it. It can get 3-4 ft. high.
Every garden gets a least a couple of these late blooming, red-orange flowering plants that hummingbirds fight over, Osaka said. I select only named varieties [of California Fuchsia], as I've found the straight species get a little too happy in some gardens. She likes Select Mattole or Everett's Choice, which spread only 3-4 ft. wide and stay 1-2 ft. high.
Luna also prefers low forms such as Everett's Choice, Select Mattole, Calistoga, and Carman's Grey. California Fuchsia blooms like crazy in late summer and fall when other plants have finished. The only care they need is to be cut back once a year after they bloom.
Kehoe chose Coyote Mint for its nice minty fragrance, long bloom, and purple flowers that attract butterflies and beneficial insects. I like to use it as a low border plant and mix it with yellow- and red-flowered perennials.
Osaka is always looking for yellow-flowered plants to go with all our purple and orange-red plants. Dwarf Woolly Daisy is a nice low yellow-flowering perennial that blooms all summer long. It takes little care except deadheading with a string trimmer.
Finally, two grasses made the list. Morris uses Carex pansa to create an easy-care meadow that needs trimming only once or twice a year and requires half the water of a traditional lawn.
Kehoe called Purple Needle Grass a tough, ornamental, drought-tolerant bunchgrass for a wildflower meadow. It has showy, purple-tinged spring flowers and golden fall color and sways in the breeze.
See http://tinyurl.com/mkjcvsg for contact information.
Bumblebees enjoy visiting the lovely purple flowers of Coyote Mint.
If you want honeybees to pollinate your summer vegetable garden, be sure to plant some native buckwheats nearby. Many other pollinators and beneficial insects also love buckwheats.
Compact, mounding California fuchsia cultivars are more well-behaved than the taller, rangier varieties. Hummingbirds love the red-orange flowers that bloom from summer until the first frost.
© 2013 Tanya Kucak