Antelope Valley/Mojave desert natives

[Anonymous]

Greetings,

I live in the Antelope Valley and just moved into a home that has no landscaping ie., dead, dried up grass in front and back lawns. Rather than planting grass in the front of my house, I would like to plant some native plants and shrubs. I would appreciate your assistance if you have some suggestions on which plants are native to my area.

For reference, what I'd like to do is plant a shrub or similar barrier plant at the edge of my lawn as a barrier between my yard and my neighbor's yard. For the main body of the yard I'd like to have three or so 'planters' delineated by a rock border, with native flowering plants. I am already planning on a section with the poppy. Anything I plant needs to be hardy and okay in full sunlight with moderate to low watering.

Thank you for your ideas,

Sandra H. Emch</p>

[Anonymous]

Sandra,

I don't have specific recommendations, but thoughtyou may want to use the CalFlora database to retrieve a list of plants that are native to your area.The address is http://www.calflora.org/

You can search for 'shrubs' that are from your county presumably Los Angeles, but there are 8 Antelope Valley's in California! You can also specify elevation, native/not-native, rarity andthe habitat type around you if you wishto narrow your list down further ex. Shrubs of LA county that are native, occur between 3,000 and 3,500 feet and typically grow in 'Chaparral' or 'Valley Grasslands'

Although CalFlora does not currently containinformation about growing native or where to buy them, this will arm you with a list of potential candidates from your area. If there is a photograph of the plant in the CalPhotos database http://elib.cs.berkeley.edu/photos/flora/, CalFlora will also display it along with a short description of where the plant is expected to occur.



Hope this helps!Tony MoroscoCalFlora Database</p>