Introduction: A New Horticulture Welcome to a new world of horticulture in California. This book will give you an in-depth look into the exciting world of successful landscaping with California native plants. It challenges conventional wisdom about California natives by dispelling myths with practical information and instruction for success. It focuses on the horticulture that works for native plants by tossing traditional gardening methods out the window. Here you will find useful advice, including many plant suggestions, on how to easily emulate natural ecology in the landscape, rather than trying to force native plants to survive in an alien environment. The design principles go beyond plant color and texture to illustrate how to create a fundamental structural framework for the landscape. Using appropriate techniques and principles as described, you will be able to create native gardens that are beautiful year-round with low mortality and easy maintenance. Our experience and focus is in southern California, but the principles hold true throughout the state.

If the practices we describe work well in our plant-stressing rainfall and climate conditions, they will only work better in the more forgiving climates of our northern counterparts. If the plant examples we cite are not appropriate for your area, you will find plants with similar characteristics that work. Think and buy local as much as you can--we would love to have native plant nurseries expand and thrive, giving us ever more wonderful selections. Why Use Native Plants? People are often shocked to find that none of the plants in their landscape are native to California (not even the weeds). Furthermore, non-native plants also dominate much of the landscape they are accustomed to seeing beyond the cities. In the past it was difficult to find even a single California native plant in most nurseries--so many different plants from all over the world seem to thrive so easily in our mild climate (with artificial life support) that people ask, "What's the big deal? Why should I use natives?" Here are some things to consider.