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Community Corner

Why Grow Native Plants?

Gardening with native plants makes a transplanted Easterner feel right at home in Southern California.

Fifteen years ago, before I had a weather app on my cellphone—actually, before I had a cellphone—I spent a lot of time checking the weather report on television. To my surprise the five-day graphic showed five yellow circles with smiles and sunglasses. Several hours would pass as I tried to unpack boxes in the sweltering garage before I would retreat to the relative cool of the house to check the forecast yet again.

You see it was July, and I had just moved from the East Coast to the West. The forecast made no sense to me. How could it be so unchanging? Where had the weather gone?

The move across the country had left me disoriented and homesick. Yet, I was determined to make southern California my home, and so I turned to my garden. If I could understand how plants lived here, I would understand my new home.

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I even took it a step further. I would learn about plants that lived here without the artificial support of irrigation and fertilizer. I would concentrate on California native plants. Fifteen years have passed and I am still learning about my new home and still marveling at the ingenious adaptations that plants have made to survive in a place that—though not a desert—has no rain for more than half the year.

This unusual weather pattern, referred to as a Mediterranean climate, occurs in only five areas world-wide: the Mediterranean Basin, Central Chile, Western Cape Province of South Africa, Southwest and Southern Australia and California. A mere 2 percent of Earth's land mass has the cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers of a Mediterranean climate.

Interestingly, this small area accounts for a high diversity of plants—many of which are found nowhere else. Plants growing in these special areas exhibit similar characteristics, such as leaves either light-colored or small in size, summer dormancy, a thick waxy coating on leaves, and adaptations to frequent fires.

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The small and thick leaves on the coast live oak reduce water loss from these magnificent trees. The tiny leaves on the coast buckwheat help this ubiquitous shrub make it through many hot months with nary a drop of water to drink. White sage, with its unusual aroma, has leaves that reflect sunlight to keep them cooler.

Some shrubs, like laurel sumac, re-sprout from their roots after fire has transformed their branches to a charred skeleton. Other perennials await fire in the form of dormant seeds buried in the soil. The burning helps the seeds germinate at a time when the plants can take advantage of the full sunlight and nutrients that result from the fire. Right now, two years after the catastrophic Station Fire, one such fire-follower, the poodle-dog bush, is blooming so profusely as to paint the slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains purple.

My own garden has a small selection of native plants. Though a few, like California fuchsia, bloom even during this hot, dry season, most are more subdued awaiting the return of the life-giving rains of winter.

I try to take tips from nature. I slow down and relax during the summer and await the cool winter rains to work in the garden. Though I look forward to the crazy, natural vibrancy of spring, I appreciate the calm, quiet of summer. This keeps me in touch with the rhythm of the land I am so fortunate to call home.

You can walk past my sidewalk garden on Milan Avenue (north of Monterey Road) or visit my garden blog, Wild Suburbia.

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