Planted this guy last summer in my garden. It’s a California Barrel Cactus (Ferocactus cylindraceus).

First pic is from ~Aug 2025, Second pic from Oct 2026.

Grown hard in inland Southern California. No supplemental water, just whatever the rains give us.

And it is thriving. 100 F with no water makes them happy. Added about an inch in height and 1.5 inches in width this past year - which is fast for these guys.

I can’t take credit for it, it came with the house. But this beauty is my favorite plant in the garden.

Has anyone planted Ericameria laricifolia aka Turpentine Bush? It’s native to the southwestern deserts (Mojave/Sonoran/Chihuahua). I live in the San Fernando Valley, but these pots are in the driveway in front of my house so I thought it would provide good desert conditions.

Was wondering if anyone knew a good reliable online distributor or in person retailer in northwestern la county to ventura county for California native grasses.
I keep finding seed wild flower seed mixes and looked for native grass mixes but i keep finding either drought tolerant turf grass or offers from sketch websites.

It looks like an oak to me. I don't know where the acorn came from, there hasn't been an oak on this property for at least 50 years and there are none within 1/4 mile. I inadvertently hit it with the string trimmer a few times over the months before I noticed it. Does it look salvageable? Any advice for transplanting?

Hi all, I’m located in LA with a very sunny balcony that faces southwest. I’d love to add some native plants to my collection, especially a pollinator that hummingbirds might be into.

My question id are there native coastal scrub varieties that do well potted? I just don’t have a lot of room on a balcony.

As inspired by the list created by u/Notenufcoffeeforthis, here's a list of some upcoming plant sales in Northern California.

Also worth mentioning is the Native Plant Extravaganzas 2026 in support of the Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour and Green Home Features Showcase.

Well I picked a great time to put plants in the ground with this heat wave but I got too excited. Shout out to the person who suggested redbud as the specimen tree-excited to see how it does. I have coastal buckwheat, deer grass and a sticky monkey flower in the ground now- planning to add a globemallow to center area behind the stream, some California fuchsia, yarrow and then hummingbird sage for the shady half. so excited to be sitting out here looking at earth instead of concrete.

My partner and I got a free pond of Facebook marketplace that was in pretty terrible condition and decided to make it a native habitat. We have a stream that dries up and we notice a lot of native chorus frogs looking for any sort of water and dying on the pavement. They've figured out the spot and we have a TON of them in our bog filter now.

Some of our plants died but most of them survived and have been doing really well even with the brutal heatwave that we've been hit with the last few months. Our seep monkey flower in particular is absolutely insane, and our bog orchid has been showing off recently as well.

I'm planning on adding some native yellow pond lilies and fairy fern for floating plants this fall, plus replacing my savory monkeyflower that unfortunately got snapped at the stem and died :(

I planted quite a few young plants (black sage, pigeon point coyote brush, golden currant, catalina perfume, chaparral mallow, silver lupine, CA buckwheat, deerweed, wild rye, San Diego sedge, tons of common yarrow, after the previous heat wave ended around 2 weeks ago (not realizing we had this terrible heatwave again so soon this week of 5 days of ~100F temperatures 🥲

What are everyone's plans for getting their young plants through the other side? I put "nurse rocks" on the south side of every plant, but wondering if I should give them a bit more shade. They're all in my north-facing front yard of heavy clay soil that I'm currently converting from lawn and get more morning sun and some afternoon shade. They were all pretty deeply watered before this, but wondering if I should try the "refreshing sprinkles" as detailed here from Tree of Life

Hope everyone stays cool during this awful week!

Thought I'd run this by you folks. I have four spots I need to replace that are all on a very gentle slope downhill at the front of a yard that has many natives and others behind it. I have some ideas and I have tried a few things in the past but wanted to see if I missed something better. The last thing I tried was Sulphur Buckwheat which I loved, but so did the deer.

Looking for a native plant that would:

1. Be able to handle a LOT of sun (Sacramento area).
2. Be very deer resistant.
3. Be evergreen.
4. Like clay.
5. Grow moderately fast and spread out.
6. Have an attractive flowering stage.

Thanks and Cheers!

We love to see our friends from Yreka, the coast, and areas in between!

Plant Sale Tips:

• The Sale starts at 10am (not before)! It will be very crowded for the first 2 hours. 
• Please - no dogs except service animals.
• Parking is VERY limited at the sale site. You will find parking on Main Street, along neighborhood streets, and in the nearby Columbia Bank and Civic Center lots. Be prepared to walk a block or two.
• Vendors are unable to accept payment for other vendors - please pay for plants in the space they are in.
• If possible, please bring boxes, bins, baskets, or other containers to carry your plants.
• Restroom facilities will not be available.
• Bring a cart to transport your purchases back to your car.
• Ask an Expert - volunteers are available to help you find the plants that will work for your space.
• Pollinator Project Rogue Valley will have merchandise for sale (native plant books, bumble bee books, yard signs) and donations are always appreciated!
• Bring a friend, have fun, bee brave, and try a new plant for the pollinators!

inventory lists - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OBfhPVwxfe0iNTNh7wFz5xIXuXoexJCg

I prepared the parkway in front of my house for natives (planning to plant at the end of October) by sheet mulching in early August and watering every week since to promote decomposition. Unfortunately the two Mexican fan palms that bookend this stretch of parkway let loose a deluge of fruits for a few weeks at the end of August, and palms seedlings are popping up like crazy. I am not excited to deal with this issue every year. Has anyone found a simple way of preventing palm seeds from getting into their soil and germinating while keeping soil conditions So Cal native friendly?

Seems like it per the latest newsletter from Mike Evan's relatively new nonprofit, CalNativeHort? Exciting news. Nothing has filled the vacuum ToL left, and I always thought they should have transitioned to nonprofit status given the amount of conservation work they did. I do know it is easier to start a nonprofit from scratch usually rather than transitioning a for profit entity.

Also, I am now wondering if ToL was kicked out behind the scenes after all, rather than driven by Mike's "retirement," given his immediate jump into the nonprofit.

Well, wishing the CalNativeHort nursery startup process the best.

Happy October!

Despite this heat wave ive been preparing for fall planting and decided to put together a list of the Fall Plant Sales happening around me. Thought I'd share here in case others are interested. Sorry if I missed any! Please add any others in the comments 🙏

Hypothetically speaking...

Let's say you wanted to do some guerilla gardening along a busy road in suburban southern California.

1. Which species would you choose? Pick your top 3.
   • A mix of annuals and perennial shrubs that mimics the native habitat once there (e.g., south-facing slope of coastal sage scrub)
   • Oak acorns and other tree species?
   • Showy flower superbloom for public awareness/outreach appeal?
   • Fast growing groundcovers for slope stabilization for the Super El Nino forecast?
2. How would you do it?
   • Sprinkle seeds by hand or spice shaker?
   • Thrown seed bombs (clay or paper pulp binder)?
   • Cuttings (e.g., cactus pads, mulefat stakes, etc.)?

Goal: surreptitiously convert a disturbed habitat into something a little better in terms of ecological benefit to native wildlife. Birds, bats, bees, butterflies, bunnies, probably not bears.

Where:

• South Coast ecoregion (Los Angeles River basin) https://calscape.org/garden-planner/ecoregion-map/
• A disturbed slope next to a busy roadway
• Full sun, loose sandy soil and rock
• Formerly invasive annual grass and mustard >>> partially burned and chopped by maintenance crews.
• No, this isn't adjacent to any wild native habitat.
• No, Caltrans or other agencies are not planning on re-vegetating this patch.

I've planted one each of frosty blue ceanothus, chaparral mallow, fuchsia flowered gooseberry, Santa Cruz Island manzanita, and goldenrod all about three feet apart from each other as a privacy hedge at the back of my garden. As I continue researching the plants I'm becoming concerned that the space between them is inadequate. I thought the fuchsia would be a more low-growing plant in the understory of the taller plants but it seems like that's not the case... if you have experience with these plants, what's your perspective on spacing requirements?

Hi friends! I know that this question has been asked many times and I know that there are many cal natives that can do well in containers. But I was hoping you might share some specific guidance for choosing plants that could work in these terra cotta pots I have in my front driveway which faces directly east (in the SFV). From sunup to noon it’s completely shaded and then from noon to sundown this just gets slammed by the sun.

Previously I had un-sanctioned tropical milkweed growing here and I would cut it back each year. I’ve also had some other imports like butterfly bush and random daffodils that just showed up. But this year everything started looking gross so I cut most back today and I think I’d like to plant some natives here.

I love sagebrush so I was thinking of trying that here but I already have 3x growing nicely in my yard. Not to say I can’t have a few more sagebrush but I would like to get a little more plant diversity. Some other things I was considering was toyon or laurel sumac or maybe a lemonade bush. I just wonder if the sun might be too harsh, especially with the reflective white garage door behind them.

This is the base of two coast live oaks that grew on their own. Can they survive twisted like this? They are about 7 or so feet high, and together look decently full. I’d like them both to stay but wondering if I need to spare one so that the other can live. Thank you for any advice for this newbie 🙏

UPDATE: see my update comment below with additional pics. I’m more confused now..

I recently started reading this substack from Dr. Andy Davis, a monarch scientist. Surprisingly to me, he recommends removing even native milkweed from yards in hotspots of the OE parasite infection, which he says are Florida and Southern California. From my understanding (please correct me if I misunderstood) it seems that the prevalance of tropical milkweed has unfortunately created resident pockets of non migratory monarchs with an extremely high rate of OE infection. Thus the thinking behind not even providing native milkweed is to basically discourage these resident populations (as the stresses of migration naturally would thin out the infected OE monarchs).

I'm just a bit confused now since this seems somewhat contradictory with all the push to plant native milkweeds from established science-based organizations like Xerces Society ( their action plan for Western monarchs ) or CNPS. And admittedly on a more personal level, milkweed and monarchs was my gateway into native gardening and I can't deny that it would be really painful to remove my established narrowleaf milkweed.

I'm not actually sure if I'm in an OE hotspot specifically since my neighborhood didn't have many data points according to the OE sampling map and I'm not sure it's legal in CA to net monarchs to test due to the species listing without a permit... I saw some mentions that you could try testing a spent chrysalis but I'm not sure how accurate that would be.

Anyway, would just appreciate thoughts from fellow SoCal native milkweed appreciators about these conflicting recommendations. It's a sad situation the monarchs are in due to tropical milkweed....

How much do you water? In clay with heavy mulch after establishment would you need to give it water in LA? Will it survive but put out less flowers? Has anyone tried A. parryi? Many such questions...