By Steven L. Hartman

If you have contemplated growing your own native garden, the summer is the time to start your planning. Our southern California natives have a growing season that starts with the first rains in fall. Therefore, the ideal planting time is after the first rain, when the soil is moist. If you are lucky, and rain falls every two weeks or so throughout the late fall and winter, you won't have to water at all. However, in many years we do not have consistent rain throughout the late fall and winter (December and January can be particularly dry), so you will want to water your newly planted natives once or twice a week to keep them happy. Below are some suggestions for a successful native garden.

First, find an area of your yard where you can control the irrigation.
If it is a hot, sunny spot, you will want to plant natives that are drought tolerant, and typically, such plants prefer little summer water. A little summer water (once a month) won't hurt most species, and might convince plants such as sages not to drop their leaves.

Second, start with an area that is not too big.
The 1-gallon shrubs that CNPS offers at the plant sale need to be spaced at least 3-4 feet apart (that is at least 6-8 feet between plants), and will not begin to fill their spaces for about a year. Rather than having lots of empty space with apparently very small plants covering your entire yard, a good strategy is to plant one small section at a time. To mask the sparse spacing of newly planted one-gallon natives, spread native seeds of poppies and lupine. These annuals will provide quite a lovely fill of orange and purple while the shrubs take their time to grow and spread. Also, well placed rocks look nice in a native garden.

Third, there is no way to know whether a particular species will grow well at any particular site.
So I recommend that you buy one each of a selection of natives, plant them out, and see which ones thrive. The ones that do well, next year buy more of the same or others in the same family or genus. The ones that die, add them to the list of plants not to buy for your yard. Remember, the goal here is to find natives that will grow in your garden with little or no care.

Fourth, do not fertilize, and, if you can get away with it, don't add supplemental water after the first year.
My philosophy for my front yard is that I want plants that will grow without ANY fertilizer or extra water. After all, I am trying to replace my water-guzzling lawn with a native xeriscape. Obviously some plants will do better with additional water, but if your goal is to not have to water, there are natives that will grow without any supplemental water. If you are living in or near the Santa Monica Mountains, many of the plants that you see growing along the trails will grow in your home garden as well. 

Fifth, don't expect to get by without any maintenance.
Many shrubs need to be pruned back annually or dead-headed (removing die dead flowers). Also, even though I warned you, you will plant the natives too close together, so you might end up moving plants (which can be done with some success in the winter or early spring). Other plants, despite their beauty, have a tendency to take over your yard (Matilija poppies, mallows, and buckwheat) and need to be pruned back.

So give it a try. Growing natives can be very rewarding, and no amount of hiking in the wilds gives you the same intimate knowledge of a native species that you can get by watching one growing in your garden, day after day, season to season, from bud, to flower, to seed.