Add Photo to Journal
|
|
| Photo Credit: Matt Bucholdz |
| Native plants will give your garden gorgeous color that’ll survive California’s dry summers! |
I learned about the low-maintenance care that native plants require about five years too late. During my first few amateur gardening years, I was naively determined to have the perfect English cottage garden. I felt it was my civic duty to counteract my suburban neighbors, who seemed to be a bit obsessed with boats, mufflers, disturbing gnomes and fake deer displayed on their front lawns. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) I, on the other hand, was obsessed with roses – especially hoity-toity English roses.
But once my son was born and all my spare time was no longer spare, I realized I had less and less energy to maintain my needy garden. In a new-mother, sleep-deprived stupor, I tagged along with fellow Marin County Master Gardeners on a class field trip to visit Mostly Natives Nursery north of San Francisco. And that’s when my life changed forever. I blissfully drove home with a pickup truck full of native plants. Not only were the plants low-maintenance and user-friendly, their leaves had such rich and unusual coloring and textures! They were the perfect complement to my cottage garden theme. And boy was I happy to learn that one of the greatest assets of native plants is that a good many are drought-tolerant with minimal needs! California natives are naturally adapted to the state’s dry summers and rainy winters. Since many of them require little water, most can survive on winter rainfall alone – once they’re established. (Newly planted natives need to be watered regularly for the first year, and sometimes two.)
|