Why Not Natives?

Natives or Not?

Native plants are highly regarded as a healthy option for a landscape for several reasons. Primarily the water demands are often much less than other plant choices. This is, of course, attributed to the local area rainfall and growing locations of the different plants themselves.

Natives are not always widely available, as they are challenging and expensive for nurseries to grow compared to conventional cultivars. Natives thrive with (and even require) some of the rugged conditions to reproduce, germinate and thrive. A longer colder winter, a hot and dry summer baking and certainly not having confined roots are just some of the needs these plants need. Root systems can be compromised if they stay wet in the containers, and sometimes the plants require 2 to 3 years to become a “sellable” specimen.

All that aside, nurseries offer what we like to call “cousins” to natives. For example, Native Yarrow is Achillea millefolium and we offer some hybrid cultivars of that, Achillea m. ‘Moonshine’ or the ‘New Vintage’ series. There are varieties of manzanita that have been cultivated for landscape use, such as ‘Howard McMinn’ or ‘Sonoma’ that are varieties that come from areas with a little more rainfall, so they are able to take our hot and dry summers and still be happy with some landscape watering.

So when you can’t find the exact species of a native, remember there are many options using the close cousins. You will be pleasantly surprised at how versatile they can be!

Here’s some of the natives AND their cousins that we offer: