Fragrant Native Plants Resist Seasonal Heat
There are lots of good reasons to plant natives of this golden state. Many have spectacular flowers or foliage, they hardly make a dent in your water bill and they attract all sorts of wildlife. Some also smell great.
In our new library-guest room (formerly our sons’ bedroom), we can smell the herbal aroma of native sage, drifting in the open windows on warm, dry autumn breezes, reminding us of mountain trails and open spaces even though we live in the middle of the city. When we were painting this room a couple of weeks ago, we could even smell the sage above the stink of drying latex paint. That’s how powerful some of our native fragrances are.
We purposely planted this sage right outside the window because our youngest son loves hiking in the chaparral, and this is one of the defining scents in a plant community famous for its fragrances. Now that he’s off to college, we can enjoy it while browsing our new library.
Named Salvia ‘Aromas’, it’s a handsome shrub with felt-like gray leaves and thin spikes of pale lavender flowers that are just tall enough to peek over the window sill.
In flatland city or suburban gardens like mine, many natives, particularly those that inhabit the chaparral, are notoriously short-lived. But even if I had to plant this sage every year as if it were a common calendula or snapdragon, it would be a small price to pay for that evocative fragrance. As it is, it’s going on 3 years old and seems quite happy in its sunny, dry location.
There are many, many kinds of native sages that smell good, even one that grows in shade--the hummingbird sage, Salvia spathacea. And while they may not be the most potent, other garden-worthy natives are extremely fragrant, especially at this time of year, when some can be smelled from yards away.
Yerba buena (Satureja douglasii) is my favorite. It’s a low, spreading ground cover that likes moisture or can be left pretty dry, with a healthy, minty fragrance from small leaves that also make a soothing tea. San Francisco was originally called Yerba Buena after this “good herb.”
Try it next to a path that requires sweeping regularly to make this chore enjoyable. Every brush of the broom will make the path explode with fragrance. This native will even grow in a pot, cascading over the sides, so balcony gardeners needn’t feel left out.
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There’s the California bay with its spicy leaves, a fast-growing 30-foot tree that can also be sheared into a dense, tall hedge, though pruning it can be difficult because its scent is a bit overpowering. Catalina perfume (Ribes viburnifolium) has a sweet fragrance and makes a tall ground cover under oaks or anywhere else in the shade.
Carol Bornstein, director of horticulture at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, also suggests the big desert lavender (Hyptis emoryi), with gray foliage and masses of tiny purple flowers. It has the perfume of lavender, is extremely drought-tolerant and likes lots of sun.
Bert Wilson, at Las Pilitas Nursery in Santa Margarita, would add all the native monardellas, with their “toothpaste mintiness.” They are also an important nectar source for native butterflies. He suggests Monardella antonina and M. macrantha, with its big red flowers, as two of the easier varieties to grow.
He also likes Satureja mimuloides, which he says smells like spearmint and looks like a fat red monkey flower.
Taking a break from the painting and perhaps inspired by the scent of sage, we drove up Topanga Canyon to get a bite to eat at a creek-side restaurant named Willows, where we can gaze out the windows at the native sycamores in the stream bed with their white trunks and yellowing leaves.
Along the way, the only spots of color at this time of year were the flame red flowers of California fuchsias, lighting up stony road cuts. This is when they bloom in the wild, and they’re in full, fresh flower in our garden as well.
They have become perhaps my favorite flower, and the hummingbirds are equally fond of them. We’re both suckers for that particular shade of orange-red.
We’re growing several kinds, but I particularly like one named ‘Armstrong,’ which is tolerant enough to grow with the other irrigated perennials in our backyard.
One named ‘Catalina’ is my favorite in the dry frontyard, which is not irrigated. Don’t let the common name fool you. Unlike true fuchsias, most aren’t fond of water, preferring drought and blazing sun. They also have gray, not green, foliage.
The reason for mentioning natives now is that fall and winter are the best times to shop and plant.
Other than at specialists, such as the Theodore Payne Foundation in the San Fernando Valley or Tree-of-Life in San Juan Capistrano, natives are uncommon or nonexistent at nurseries. So in the fall, many native-friendly groups hold special natives-only sales.
The Native Plant Society will hold a sale Saturday and next Sunday at the Sepulveda Garden Center in Encino, the Santa Barbara Botanic garden has one planned for Oct. 20, there’s another in Long Beach on Oct. 26 at the El Dorado Nature Center, and a sale at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont is planned for Nov. 2 and 3.
The best time to plant natives is November through February, though Las Pilitas Nursery’s Wilson is convinced that January and February are the two best months, especially in hillside or other near-wild areas that are hard to water.
But we’ve always planted in late October or November. That’s when we put in the sage and the California fuchsia. We water them regularly through the winter, then let them go dry for summer.
Try planting them in spring and you’ll find it difficult nursing them through their first summer. Most natives are accustomed to doing without water at that time of the year. Give them too little water that first summer and they might die; give them too much, and ditto.
Planted now, they have plenty of time to become deep-rooted and thoroughly established before the hot, dry summer arrives, and they’ll be ready to go it alone.
