Native Plants in California
The native plants that belong in California gardens — for pollinators, by zone.
28 native species suit California's regions and hardiness zones. A selection:
Showy Milkweed
Asclepias speciosa
The West's monarch milkweed — bolder, fuzzier, and more drought-hardy than its eastern cousins.
Cardinal Flower
Lobelia cardinalis
The most intense red in the native flora, built for the hummingbirds that pollinate it.
Little Bluestem
Schizachyrium scoparium
The backbone grass of the prairie — blue-green in summer, glowing copper and silver all winter.
Sideoats Grama
Bouteloua curtipendula
A tidy mid-height grama hung with one-sided seed oats — the state grass of Texas.
Blue Grama
Bouteloua gracilis
A fine, low prairie grass with quirky horizontal 'eyebrow' seed heads — a great no-water lawn.
Prairie Smoke
Geum triflorum
Nodding pink spring bells that turn into smoky, feathered seed plumes — the show after the flower.
California Poppy
Eschscholzia californica
The silken orange state flower of California, painting dry hillsides every spring.
Rocky Mountain Penstemon
Penstemon strictus
Spires of glossy blue tubes built for bumblebees, and one of the easiest western penstemons to grow.
Firecracker Penstemon
Penstemon eatonii
Scarlet tubular flowers timed to the spring hummingbird migration through the desert Southwest.
Desert Marigold
Baileya multiradiata
A silver-leaved desert daisy that blooms almost year-round on rainfall alone.
Chocolate Flower
Berlandiera lyrata
Yellow daisies that genuinely smell of chocolate each morning — and bloom all summer in heat.
Blanketflower
Gaillardia aristata
Fiery red-and-gold wheels that bloom nonstop all summer on hot, dry, sandy ground.
Autumn Sage
Salvia greggii
A tough little evergreen sage that feeds hummingbirds from spring to frost in Texas and the Southwest.
Gregg's Mistflower
Conoclinium greggii
Fuzzy blue flowers that act like a magnet for queen and monarch butterflies in the Southwest.
Flame Acanthus
Anisacanthus quadrifidus var. wrightii
A heat-loving shrub covered in tubular orange flowers through the hottest, driest weeks of summer.
Desert Willow
Chilopsis linearis
A graceful desert tree hung with orchid-like trumpets all summer, fueled by nothing but heat.
Apache Plume
Fallugia paradoxa
White rose-like flowers and feathery pink seed plumes together on one airy desert shrub.
Western Columbine
Aquilegia formosa
The West's nodding red-and-gold columbine, the first big hummingbird draw of the mountain spring.
Douglas Aster
Symphyotrichum subspicatum
The Pacific Northwest's late-season aster, feeding bees into the first cool, wet days of fall.
Common Yarrow
Achillea millefolium
A near-continental native with flat flower heads that feed tiny beneficial insects, tough as a weed.
Buttonbush
Cephalanthus occidentalis
Spherical white 'pincushion' flowers over standing water, swarmed by butterflies and bees.
Red-Twig Dogwood
Cornus sericea
Grown for its fire-engine-red winter stems, with white spring flowers and berries birds devour.
Toyon
Heteromeles arbutifolia
California's evergreen 'Christmas berry,' with white summer flowers and red winter fruit for birds.
California Lilac
Ceanothus thyrsiflorus
Sheets of true-blue spring flowers on an evergreen shrub that hums with bees on the West Coast.
The complete Native Plants & Pollinators of California
The native plants that belong in your yard — what to plant for pollinators, by zone, with bloom timing.