California’s native plant destination
Cultivate California’s wild side in your own backyard with Calscape. We make it easy for you to select, find, and grow local native plants and nurture local pollinators that support California’s unique biodiversity.
Why native plants?
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Support wildlife
Gardening with local native plants supports the web of life. Learn how to help birds, bees, butterflies, moths, and other wildlife.
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Save Water
Native plants make it easy to adapt to water restrictions while saving precious natural resources.
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Adapt to climate change
Make your garden more resilient to climate extremes of all kinds, from wildfire and flooding to extreme heat and drought.
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Garden like nature
Enjoy the beauty, harmony, and benefits of California’s natural habitats by incorporating plant communities into your garden.
Get inspired
Native plants work in all styles and sizes of landscapes, explore our rich palette of California native plants and endless possibilities. Here are some ways to get started:
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Aromatic and colorful pollinator gardens
Play with sages, monkeyflower, buckwheat, yarrow, mints, and many other California native plants to bring bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, and more to your garden. These are just some of the colorful, vibrant, aromatic plants to choose from to add variety to your space!
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Hummingbird sage
Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) is a great shade-loving sage that attracts pollinators with is vibrant blooms. It does well in the dappled shade under oaks with no supplemental water once established.
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White sage
Growing to 5 feet tall, white sage (Salvia apiana) is a great backdrop for low-growing coyote mint (Monardella villosa).
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Winnifred Gilman sage
Winnifred Gilman sage (Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman’) is a drought-adapted and striking medium-sized shrub with aromatic leaves.
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Penstemon
Penstemon, monkeyflower, sages add whimsy and color to this low-water chaparral garden in Santa Barbara.
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Black sage
The pungent fragrance and prolific blooms of black sage (Salvia mellifera) are a great match for many gardens.
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Red bush monkeyflower
In this Kensington garden, red bush monkeyflower (Diplacus aurantiacus var. puniceus) pops against the blooming sage in the background.
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Purple sage
Purple sage (Salvia leucophylla) is a tough sage with beautiful blooms and fragrance that pollinators love.
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Container gardening
Even with small space to gardens you can still bring habitat to your space! Featuring a variety of native plants grow well in outdoor containers great for patios, balconies and small spaces.
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Manzanita in San Francisco
When researched and chosen carefully, manzanita can make wonderful container plants.
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Tidy tips and sage
Dudleya and yarrow (left) create texture and interest; while bright yellow tidy tips (Layia platyglossa) and native sage (right) offer color and fragrance.
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Lewisia
Cliff Maids (Lewisia) make stunning succulents in containers, with endless color variations and long flowering seasons.
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Dudleya in San Francisco
Dudleya are wonderful container plants. These native succulents thrive with little to no summer water.
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Lewisia
Cliff-maids (Lewisia) make wonderful container plants, adding colorful blossoms to a lightly shaded outdoor seating area.
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Manzanita
Manzanita, buckwheat, and a native strawberry make up this lush container.
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Oakland container garden
Experiment with container gardening. Trial and error and tall planters can give you time to find out which plants fit best here.
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Visit our new Pollinator Hub
Help pollinators in your garden by growing plants that meet their needs at every stage of their life cycle. Calscape’s Pollinator Companion tool helps you match the right plant to the pollinators that rely on them. Search from over 4,500 native butterflies, moths, native bee species, hummingbirds, and hoverflies to build a thriving habitat.
Growing food crops? Find pollinators that are attracted to native plants and support popular crops.
