Free Native Plants

If you want a native garden yet have no cash to spare, do not despair.  You can procure free native plants.

This happy Hummingbird Sage is crowding CA fuchsia and red buckwheat.
It must be thinned.

Please do not collect in protected areas!   (You could collect in zones scheduled to be bulldozed, sigh.) Ask me or another native gardener for some of the following easy-to-propagate plants. We probably have some right now that we'd never miss, and even need to cut back.

*CA Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) - cute, and very aggressive spreader.

Hedge Nettle (Stachys bullata) - does not sting, and smells nice! Grows in deep shade.

Hooker's evening primrose.  A cheerfully chaotic shade bloomer.

*Hooker's Evening Primrose (Oenothera elate ssp. hookeri) -wacky long bloomer, great for the back of the yard.

Hummingbird Sage (Salvia spathacea) - Highly recommended shade bloomer.  Hummingbirds endorse heartily.

(nearly native) *Mexican Daisy/Fleabane, aka Santa Barbara Daisy (Erigeron karvinskianus)

San Miguel Savory and Yerba Buena (Clinopodium, formerly Satureja) -creeping native mints, not invasive, great herb tea.

These are all versatile (will survive on low or garden water) and bloom in shade or part shade.  Most can tolerate a cutting slapped into the ground in a shady spot and watered once a week. I can give away ten or twelve cuttings for some of these and not miss them.

The starred items may spread "vigorously" in your garden, by seed (strawberry by runner.)  Consider yourself warned.

The following plants are easily propagated if you are a little patient.

Small flowers on Island Bush Snapdragon are hummingbird pleasers.
This is a fun plant, easy to grow.
Photo from Las Pilitas, used by permission.

Island Bush Snapdragon (Gambelia speciosa, formerly Galvezia Speciosa) - another versatile hummingbird favorite. I have a couple potted cuttings coming along.
Artemisia 'David's Choice' (aka the starfish plant.)

Get your cuttings now. They won't grow in summer when the natives are dormant.

Gifted succulent cuttings made this arrangement.

If you want some fun non-native plants, many succulents also propagate with ease.  Tuck a cutting or a rosette in some dirt and water sparingly.  Ask your neighbor for a bit of succulent and enjoy the result. Take a photo and show me!

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