Landscaping: Some Favorite Plants

We recently had our yard landscaped by professionals, who installed a wonderful drought-tolerant and wildlife friendly landscape. The garden is still young, and the plantings are quite small, but seem to be thriving with irrigation once a week, and the extra water from spring rains. This is a great time to get to know some of the new plants. Following are several that have caught my eye, all of which require low moisture.

The Ceanothus 'Blue Cascade' is planted in a sunny and well drained section of the lower yard. According to Calscape, this plant grows best in sandy, coarse-grained or fast-draining soil; and prefers sun in coastal sites. This rounded shrub grows 8-10 feet tall, and 10-12 feet wide. Flowers are blue and blossom in winter. The variety was introduced in 1979, and its parents are thought to be C. papillosus (endemic to California's coastal mountain ranges in woodland and chaparral), and C. thyrsiflorus (native to California's coastal areas from Santa Barbara County to Southern Oregon). Look at that blue!

California lilac (Ceanothus 'Blue Cascade')

The front entrance is an open, sunny, and well drained area of the yard, and is planted in Island alum root. Upon planting, they immediately produced flower clusters with tiny white flowers. Right after that, the neighborhood deer ate the flowers (a chance for me to practice a gardening-for-habitat-rather-than-beauty attitude)! According to Calscape, this species is in the saxifrage family, and is endemic to the Channel Islands of California, where it grows on cliffs. It is valued as a groundcover, forming a broad patch of large, rounded, multi-lobed green leaves with flower clusters that can be almost 2 feet tall. It performs best in coastal gardens, where it can take full sun to part shade.

Island alum root (Heuchera maxima)

A drift of Sea pink thrift is planted in the rock garden, which is in full sun and well drained. They have been blooming continuously for the last month, and are just producing seed heads. According to Calscape, this thrift is a perennial herb, 4.8 inches tall, with pink flowers that bloom in spring. It grows in Northern, Southern and Central California, primarily in the North Coast, the Central Coast and South Coast regions. It tends to grow in ocean bluffs, ridges, strand, sand, exposed grassy places.

Sea pink thrift (Ameria maritime californica)

What beautiful and interesting plants!