Natural, Native Plants for Southern California
When you’re landscaping in Southern California, it’s smart to pick plants that are native to the region. You don’t want to spend a lot of time, effort and money to outfit your yard with plants that are just doomed to die.
Choosing natural, native Southern California plants for landscaping in Los Angeles, CA is easy when you work with an experienced landscaper like RainforestLA, Inc. We’ll help you choose foliage that’s easy to grow in the hot, dry climate. Here are some of our favorites:
California poppies: California’s beautiful, brilliant orange state flower is easy to grow in the Los Angeles climate and adds a pretty pop of color to your yard. Plant it in fall or winter and expect blooms all year long.
Toyon: Toyon is a dark evergreen shrub that has thick leaves and red berries during the winter. It can grow to add screening to your property or stabilize slopes, and it’s relatively low maintenance.
Hoary California fuchsia: This pretty perennial has dark green, shrub-like foliage and cherry-red trumpet-shaped flowers. It spreads quite a bit, so make sure you give it plenty of room.
Fried egg daisy: Colloquially known as the “fried egg daisy” or “fried egg plant,” this flower is actually called the Matilija poppy. It’s needy when you first plant it, but once established tends to roam quite a bit. Like the fuchsia, make sure it has plenty of room to grow.
Lemonade berry: This native plant has big evergreen leaves and fuzzy pink bell-shaped clusters of flowers. It’s another plant that is good for screening and stabilizing slopes, like toyon.
Agave: Agave in all its forms (as well as succulents and cactus in general) do well in Los Angeles’ dry, hot climate. There are many decorative versions, and they do best in containers.
Manzanita: Manzanita can be grown as a shrub or a tree, and will stay green all year long. There are multiple forms of the plant, and most come with a striking dark brown or black bark color.
Wild rye: Wild rye looks like big clumps of long, bluish-green grass. This attractive shrub needs little irrigation after it’s established, so you won’t spend a lot of time watering it.
Desert mallow: Desert mallow is a small evergreen shrub with big orange-red flowers, similar in shape to poppies. The flowers bloom in spring, but may also appear if there’s a summer rain. This plant needs plenty of drainage to thrive.
Sticky monkeyflower: Sticky monkeyflower is a perennial that has pretty yellow bell-shaped flowers in the spring. The stems and leaves are sticky (hence the name), but the flowers attract hummingbirds.
Hummingbird sage: Hummingbird sage grows to about two feet tall and has clusters of dark purple and pink flowers that attract hummingbirds.
These landscaping plants native to Southern California are popular in Los Angeles, CA for their low-maintenance needs. If you’re interested in planting these or other native plants in your garden, reach out to the team at RainforestLA, Inc. today to get started.