By Tish Berge, CNPS Garden Ambassador
Native plants have had a special place in my heart and my garden for years. If you are reading this, I’m guessing the same is true for you. Just like you, I’ve used our plant sales and driven extra miles to those specialty nurseries that carry native plants. The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is working to make native plants more accessible to you and me, as well as to the mainstream gardener who may not know much about native plants.
CNPS has recently launched a statewide campaign to boost the sale of California native specialty crop plants by 20% in volume over the next 3 years. The campaign — Bloom! California: Native Plants for a Bright Tomorrow — is funded by a Specialty Crop Block Grant and is the first project of its kind in the state. For more information, see BLOOM! CALIFORNIA for the announcement that came out during California Native Plant Week and https://bloomcalifornia.org/ for the website with more information on how to participate. Bloom! California is in phase 1 and is recruiting partners who own, operate, manage, or work for a California-based nursery or retailer. If you know someone who fits that category, please share this information with them!
This article highlights one of the 11 plants that are part of Bloom! California. CNPS worked with a stakeholder group of nurseries, growers, scientists, and landscape experts to select native plants from the specialty crop list that meet the following criteria:
Consumer-friendly (good grower supply and successful in-home landscapes)
Strong opportunity to increase sales broadly
Variety of species that do well across various California locations
Low risk to wild plant populations (disease or genetics)
High habitat value
Here are the 11 plant species and cultivars: Ornamental Grasses, Mints, Iris, Currants, Clarkia, Manzanita, Yarrow, Sage, Phacelia, Toyon, and Oaks. Each of these plants contributes differently to the garden from both an aesthetic perspective and a wildlife and habitat perspective.
Let’s start with Toyon, or Heteromeles arbutifolia, a great foundational evergreen. My first memory of Toyon was talking with Greg Rubin, who said that putting a Toyon in your yard is like having an “aviary on a stick,” and boy was he right! Flocks of Cedar Waxwings descend on these shrubs and clean out the berries – they are such a beautiful and sleek bird. We’ve enjoyed seeing a wide variety of birds use this plant for food and cover.
Gardeningknowhow.com says Toyon is “Los Angeles’s official native plant – adaptable, easy-to-grow and works well as a specimen shrub, in a privacy hedge or as a container plant. With its deep roots and drought tolerance, toyon is also used for erosion control and slope stabilization.” For more information, see What Is Toyon: Learn About Toyon Plant Care and Information Toyon at: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/toy on/toyon-plant-care.htm
According to Calscape (calscape.org), an online database developed by CNPS to help Californians restore nature and save water one garden at a time, Toyon supports a great variety of wildlife. Bees are attracted to its flowers, birds and coyotes enjoy its berries, and the plant hosts at least 4 confirmed butterflies and moths. For more information, see https://calscape.org/Heteromeles-arbutifolia-(Toyon) .
It likes full sun to part shade. In my garden, I have it on south facing and west-facing hillsides, and it does equally well in each location. As far as moisture, it has a low moisture need. And the best part: it is tolerant of a wide variety of soils (fast, medium, or slow draining)—so if you don’t already have one, there’s a strong likelihood that it will do just fine in your yard wherever you put it. It flowers in summer and produces its berries in fall/winter, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the Christmasberry or California Holly. This evergreen shrub will grow to about 15 feet tall and 15 feet wide.
In this photo (above) are two Toyons. The larger one on the left was planted in 2010, and the smaller to the right was planted later to add more privacy. For scale, the bird bath is about 3 feet tall. The understory of the Toyon is Eriogonum fasciculatum var. foliolosum.
Some lessons learned from my journey with Toyons. Yes, they really grow up to 15 feet wide. I planted one Toyon about 10 feet from the house and have had to trim the branches that tried to arch over and touch my roof (it’s on a hill). Those berries are beautiful, but the birds don’t get them all. So be prepared for dried berries to litter the space around your Toyon. Evergreen doesn’t mean that it doesn’t drop leaves. This shrub will create its own mulch over time with dried leaves (and some of those berries). The dried berries look like large peppercorns, and the dried leaves have a color that is best described as reddish-orange brown. Remember, the best mulch for your native plant is leaf litter that it and its companion plants produce, so if you can resist the temptation to rake, you will be rewarded with a healthier plant and garden. As an added bonus, leaf litter also provides habitat. For a great article from Becca Rodomsky-Bish on the many benefits of leaf letter, see https://content.yardmap.org/learn/leaf-litter/ .
Speaking of colors, while weeding with the CNPS-SD Bird Park Workgroup, I learned from a fellow volunteer that there is a species of toyon that has yellow berries. It’s called Heteromeles arbutifolia 'Davis Gold'; it is a cultivar of the native Toyon, appears to have the same characteristics as the red-berried version, and grows as a large shrub or multi-trunk small tree, with perhaps a shorter width than height. For more information, see: https://theodorepayne.org/nativeplantdatabase/index.php?title=Heteromeles_arbutifolia_%27Davis_Gold%27 .
Based on a quick internet search, it looks like you can get it at several Southern California native plant nurseries. I suspect that the color of the berries may attract different birds, but this cultivar is likely another “aviary on a stick.”
For more inspiration from CNPS Garden Ambassadors, visit https://www.cnps.org/tag/garden-ambassadors .
Tish Berge has been a CNPS member since the early 2000’s when she got her very first native plant, a Catalina Cherry. She likes natives because they are drought tolerant and attract wildlife. She recommends workshops, tours, and patience to new gardeners.