Agave ‘Victoria Regina’
Photo/Illustration: Steve Aitken
Cercidiphyllum japonicum
Photo/Illustration: Michelle Gervais
Salvia mexicana ‘Limelight’
Photo/Illustration: Steve Aitken
Gentiana septemfida ‘Select’
Photo/Illustration: Danielle Sherry
Pinus strobus ‘Pendula’
Photo/Illustration: Jennifer Benner
Salvia officinalis
Photo/Illustration: Michelle Gervais
Hosta ‘Guacamole’
Photo/Illustration: Michelle Gervais
Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’
Photo/Illustration: Michelle Gervais
Ocimum basilicum ‘Green Ruffles’
Photo/Illustration: Michelle Gervais
Leucadendron salignum
Photo/Illustration: Kerry Moore
Calamagrostis X acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
Photo/Illustration: Jennifer Benner
Euphorbia cotinifolia
Photo/Illustration: Steve Aitken
Cercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’
Photo/Illustration: John Bray
Alstromeria aurantica
Photo/Illustration: Steve Aitken
Agave ‘Victoria Regina’
Photo/Illustration: Steve AitkenCercidiphyllum japonicum
Photo/Illustration: Michelle GervaisSalvia mexicana ‘Limelight’
Photo/Illustration: Steve AitkenGentiana septemfida ‘Select’
Photo/Illustration: Danielle SherryPinus strobus ‘Pendula’
Photo/Illustration: Jennifer BennerSalvia officinalis
Photo/Illustration: Michelle GervaisHosta ‘Guacamole’
Photo/Illustration: Michelle GervaisHelianthus ‘Lemon Queen’
Photo/Illustration: Michelle GervaisOcimum basilicum ‘Green Ruffles’
Photo/Illustration: Michelle GervaisLeucadendron salignum
Photo/Illustration: Kerry MooreCalamagrostis X acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
Photo/Illustration: Jennifer BennerEuphorbia cotinifolia
Photo/Illustration: Steve AitkenCercis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’
Photo/Illustration: John BrayAlstromeria aurantica
Photo/Illustration: Steve Aitken
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| Gentiana septemfida ‘Select’ |
Comments: The most long-blooming, trim, and spectacular salvia in my book.
Comments: Foxtail lilies are the punctuation mark of the garden: life (and the garden) would be humdrum without them. This is the easiest and flashiest of them all.
Comments: Juno irises are the aristocrats of bulbs. This is everyman’s Juno (and an easy doer everywhere).
Comments: The European pasque flower is easily grown and stunning in flower or seed. A must for every garden.
Comments: This graceful, small tulip has naturalized for me. Its flowers can be rose pink or deep purple red. It is a stunning beauty.
Comments: The most graceful, giant-flowered columbine. It has a heavenly lavender fragrance. If I didn’t list this I would have my Colorado citizenship revoked.
Comments: The brilliant blue flowers form masses in my garden all summer. I couldn’t live without it! It is everyman’s gentian and should be in every garden.
Comments: Summer for me MEANS oreganos: they shimmer and dangle and wave everywhere in my gardens: I cannot have enough. More! More!
Comments: This is currently my favorite ice plant (and that says a lot): steel blue mats turn deep purple blue in winter. It is smothered with refulgent magenta flowers from late March to June and sporadically thereafter…superb!
Comments: The foliage is awesome and the flowers to die for: all Kniphofias rule!
Comments: Any form of little bluestem is superb, especially in fall and winter when they turn dusky rose and glow in backlight. My own personal national grass.
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Comments: Idaho’s state flower. When in full bloom, early June, the river banks are covered with these gorgeous shrubs.
Comments: A pollinator magnet, great for the household and the garden.
Comments: Pass the salt, please.
Comments: There is not finer fruit.
Comments: Of course I know this is cheating. Six cultivars on one plant.
Comments: White pine, Idaho’s state tree, in a most elegant form.
Comments: Dear to my heart.
Comments: Truly, the goddess of the perennial garden, with a fragrance like grape bubble gum.
Comments: They give and give and give.
Comments: I’ve discovered these late in life, I adore them. January through June.
Comments: Gives three seasons of interest. Awesome. Even drought tolerant if placed properly.
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| Salvia officinalis |
Comments: Everyone needs a little lavender for fragrance and to attract bees and butterflies.
Comments: Huge flowers in mid-summer, easy to grow.
Comments: Essential for the gardener who cooks; a beautiful plant.
Comments: Dramatic early summer color; easy to grow.
Comments: Gardeners plant their hopes and visions in October and they come up with a burst of color in spring.
Comments: Every garden should have at least one very fragrant rose; ideally near the lavender.
Comments: One of the best ornamental grasses.
Comments: Another essential herb for the gardener who cooks.
Comments: A “must have” for a summer glass of iced tea.
Comments: An edible annual, easy to grow from seed; cheerful flowers.
Comments: Attracts hummingbirds!
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| Cercidiphyllum japonicum |
Comments: Old-fashioned shrub, but beautiful, long-lasting flowers. And the biochemistry behind what makes the flowers blue is fascinating!
Comments: Nice tree for urban landscapes. I love the leaf shape and the magnificent color changes throughout the seasons.
Comments: Vigorous, sturdy, large shrub with the most heavenly scented white flowers. Bees adore this plant.
Comments: Another hardy shrub for urban landscapes. Dwarf s are best suited for small sites, and the profuse, long lasting blue flowers are a delight for bees.
Comments: A tolerant, attractive, sun-loving and low-growing groundcover that can disguise a multitude of landscaping sins.
Comments: A dense, attractive and low-growing groundcover that thrives in deep shade.
Comments: A redbud with deep, wine red blossoms. Lovely glossy leaves, great tree for small urban landscapes.
Comments: What would a Pacific NW landscape be without a Japanese maple? So many choices!
Comments: Any large landscape needs this magnificent oak tree. I grew up on a farm where we had several of these oaks, and they were absolutely gorgeous.
Comments: You can’t go wrong with a tidy shrub that produces such amazing flowers. Bees love them too.
Comments: Any non-bearded, and I am partial to whites, blues and purples. A Frank Lloyd Wright kind of plant, beautiful symmetry.
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| Hosta ‘Guacamole’ |
Comments: Planting a fruit tree, such as an apple, when children are young is a way of having something grow with them.
Comments: Sweet peas are easy and wonderfully fragrant and fun to pick.
Comments: An easy all-around great perennial plant.
Comments: Nasturtiums are fun, easy and edible!
Comments: Daylilies are tough, highly attractive and easy and also edible.
Comments: Dwarf semi evergreen plant with wonderful blueberries and fall color.
Comments: Fun name, easy to grow, colorful leaves and fragrant flowers.
Comments: Chocolate Cosmos.
Comments: Easy long-lived bulbs.
Comments: Peas are easy to grow.
Comments: Sunflowers are traditional and will always be admired by young children.
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Comments: Northwest native with four-season interest.
Comments: Smaller mock orange with heavenly fragrance.
Comments: Small broadleaved evergreen for year-round filler.
Comments: Dwarf conifer with chunky foliage.
Comments: Flowers from late July into October.
Comments: The best smoke bush and doesn’t mind being cut back hard.
Comments: Sweet lavender blue daisy flowers just keep coming all summer long.
Comments: Spikes of fall and winter flowers feed overwintering Anna’s hummingbirds.
Comments: Broadleaved evergreen with tiny winter flowers that smell like chocolate.
Comments: Continual sprays of pink roses on stems that will climb up an arbor or into a shrub.
Comments: White flowers brighten dark winter days.
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Comments: With age, the Arizona native mesquite tree develops craggy dark bark. It has ferny foliage, and is so drought tolerant as to be nearly indestructible.
Comments: A Chihuahuan desert succulent that sends up dozens of pink/red shafts in late spring.
Comments: A tough silvery shrub with purple flowers that smell like grape bubblegum.
Comments: Engelmann hedgehog has incredible russet and yellow spines, magenta flowers, and strawberry-flavored fruit.
Comments: Tall, elegant coral-colored flower spikes and glaucous foliage set superb penstemon apart.
Comments: The bishop’s cap cactus is covered in gorgeous silvery felt.
Comments: The compass barrel cactus can tolerate temperatures up to 154 degrees F. ‘Nuff said.
Comments: The ocotillo has zigzagging thorny canes topped by orange-red flowers favored by hummingbirds.
Comments: A truly spectacular agave with a tight crown and white markings.
Comments: Beaked yucca sports shimmering silver atop a stout trunk.
Comments: Brittlebush’s chartreuse daisy-like flowers hover over its silver foliage.
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| Ocimum basilicum “Green Ruffles’ |
Comments: Hummingbird magnet, long blooming, great color, cold hardy.
Comments: Hummingbirds, evergreen foliage, drought tolerant, long lived, very showy.
Comments: Very long blooming, sweet herbal scent, very showy flowers, hummingbird magnet.
Comments: Twice blooming each summer, sweetly fragrant, long bi-colored flower spikes.
Comments: Tough, large growing vine, profuse bloomer with huge flowers, hummingbirds.
Comments: Four season interest, persistent apples feed songbirds in winter, showy fragrant flowers.
Comments: drought tolerant and pest resistant, olive green needles, slow growing.
Comments: grow 4 different types of pears on 1 tree, late blooming for more reliable fruit set.
Comments: Outstanding seedless grape for all soil types, incredibly sweet fruit.
Comments: Primocane raspberry, large, sweet berries, easy to grow.
Comments: Essential culinary herb.
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| Leucadendron salignum |
Comments: Fantastic tree, very frost hardy, tall and narrow, no leaf drop, cut flower and foliage, wreaths can be made out of the foliage, flower and seed pods, no fertilizer issues or soil fungal problems. Great street tree or windbreak!
Comments: Fabulous low-growing groundcover, cold hardy to 16 degrees F at least, full sun or shade, great foliage, bright yellow flower, drought tolerant, erosion control, hanging over a wall, easy plant!
Comments: Countless long-flowering shrubs from groundcover to large shrubs and trees, bird attracting, cut flowers, screens, drought- and frost-hardy, long-flowering (often in winter, spring, and summer), even more flowers when pruned!
Comments: Beautiful small 12-ft. tall tree with white powdery trunk, very frost- and drought-hardy, bright yellow flowers in spring, blue foliage!
Comments: Handsome, tough, frost- and drought-tolerant, full sun or deep shade, water or no water, responds to pruning, mass or specimen plantings!
Comments: Love the beautiful grass-like plants, some very blue or blue-green to green strappy leaves and blue and yellow flowers followed by masses of blue berries after flowering in summer. Great for erosion control and binding soil! Container plants too!
Comments: Beautiful shrubs with colorful leaves all year, great cut flowers, hedge, and screen, frost- and drought-hardy.
Comments: Stunning in flower, bright orange “pincushion” flower heads, usually wider than tall shrubs, drought tolerant, excellent for screening, cut flowers and specimen shrubs.
Comments: Great 4-ft. shrub for full sun or dry shade, flowers from fall through spring, attracts hummingbirds. Drought- and frost-hardy and low hedge and screen!
Comments: Woolley Bush is so soft and velvety that it is hard to walk past without caressing it! Grows in full sun or shade, drought- and moderately frost-tolerant, great cut flowers and hedge or screen.
Comments: Fabulous groundcover for all soils and situations. Long flowering, full sun or shade, drought- and frost-hardy, container plant, hanging basket or groundcover.
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Comments: Gorgeous dramatic dark red inflorescence, hummingbirds love it.
Comments: The most fabulous ornamental grass ever. Shades of pink, gold, copper, and green, thrives on neglect.
Comments: You knew I’d have to include at least one murderous plant, didn’t you? Castor bean is gorgeous, dramatic, and deadly if you eat it, so just don’t eat it and you’ll be fine. Unfortunately, it needs a little more heat than my climate provides, so this is my one bit of zone denial. I have to force them indoors with heated seed mats and everything.
Comments: You can’t live in California and not grow lavender. Period. It’s against the law. This is the one that works so well in soaps, baked goods, and lavender martinis.
Comments: Love the bright green inflorescence. Hummingbirds love it, too. Needs sun, but almost no care beyond that. I plant Phlomis around it, which turns out to protect it from our light frosts and really keep it going.
Comments: Brilliant, fabulous, bright orange color, gets nice and tall, also thrives on neglect (are you seeing a pattern here?).
Comments: Again, if you live in California and you don’t have rosemary in your garden, there’s something very, very wrong. Beautiful all year long, amazing fragrance, and rosemary focaccia!
Comments: Tall, spiky stems with brilliant purple flowers that hold on for months and months. Once again, no water, no care. Insanely easy to make more, just chop up some healthy, leafy stems and stick them in the ground during rainy weather. Because you can see right past them, they are one tall plant that can go anywhere. And they make the most boring garden look fabulous.
Comments: Yes, another salvia! This one blooms all winter long for the hummingbirds, and it’s HUGE, great for filling up some big space you don’t know what to do with.
Comments: I have to include at least one California native, and this giant crazy white flower with big yellow centers, resembling nothing more than fried eggs, has to be it! Beautiful, amazing, and incredibly tough.
Comments: Okay, one more native. The California poppy. World’s happiest flower. And weirdly, it doesn’t exactly behave as an annual. Leave those plants alone and they’ll come back year after year.
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| Calamagrostis X acutiflora ‘Karl-Foerster’ |
Comments: Super easy in mild climates, producing more ‘pups’ than a person could want! Forms beautiful drifts that are sure to impress your friends, making them think you know SO much about gardening!
Comments: Forms towering spikes of flowers lasting from May through October. Don’t be fooled by the other varieties, these are the two that reliably perform best in our climate.
Comments: You can’t kill this plant even if you try. It loves sun or shade, it’s drought tolerant, and snails & slugs leave it alone. It really brightens up a shady area, acting as the missing ‘sunshine’.
Comments: This plant will live in a cave, seriously! It’s one of the few that really thrives in deep shade, but the best part is that it’s always healthy and evergreen AND it produces highly fragrant teeny tiny flowers in the late winter (when nothing is blooming!). Plant this by a doorway and you’ll be greeted by its jasmine-like scent in the dreary months of March, when you need it most!
Comments: Can you tell I love shrubs? This one’s shiny, colorful leaves turn shades of pink and terra cotta once the cold temps hit it, really jazzing up a winter bed. It’s one of my go-to shrubs to add structure to a planting bed (along with, I guess, all the others listed here!).
Comments: A dwarf variety of your grandma’s big ‘ole bottlebrush shrubs. This one, however, has beautiful bluish grey leaves, it’s super compact, and blooms almost nonstop throughout the year with cranberry red flowers. This one is also almost impossible to kill.
Comments: Again, a super-reliable grass that adds much needed vertical height to a bed, towering to 6′ with its late summer blooms. Another easy one for a guaranteed ‘wow factor.’
Comments: A crucial plant to add structure, exciting colors and the necessary occasional ‘exclamation point’ to a planting bed. Plus, it looks FABULOUS with Anigozanthos ‘Tequila Sunrise’ planted near it. Do that and you’ll have 6 months of guaranteed excitement!
Comments: Enough about shrubs, here’s a flower for you. This climbing rose is partially evergreen here (yay!) and it blooms from April through December. No kidding. It’s amazing, and you will NOT be disappointed. Plus, it’s disease resistant and forms gigantic clusters of blooms, each one resembling a bride’s bouquet. Alas, it has no scent. But that’s okay.
Comments: These are so easy in mild climates. AND, they’re impressive as heck, can be used as a super cool ‘cut flowers’, are easily passed along to friends, and always look great no matter where you stick them.
Comments: You simply MUST find this euphorbia, no matter what! It’s another towering beauty, up to 6 ft. tall when in bloom. Speaking of blooms, they’re light and airy, and acid yellow and absolutely cover this euphorbia for six months out of the year. It’s such a stunning showstopper. Place it next to Rosa ‘The Prince’ (see how I snuck in a bonus plant here?) for a fantastic color combination.
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Comments: Handsome, worry free and classic. As comfortable massed in a formal garden as it is mixed into a naturalistic drought-tolerant planting.
Comments: Great color in every season, tough character and interesting ultimate shape.
Comments: Perfect midsized tree that offers flexibility in sitting, shaping and ultimate size.
Comments: Striking color and texture with an amazing bloom.
Comments: Sturdy ground cover that works in a variety of ways and spaces.
Comments: Favor orange and coral shades. Tough and beautiful, deciduous for a shorter period than most bulbs. Spring’s great surprise.
Comments: Classic style, great winter bloom, and a more relaxed feel make this a winner.
Comments: Spring has arrived when these great blooms show their beautiful faces.
Comments: Great structure, gorgeous summer bloom, and super fall color in a tough package.
Comments: Great midsized climbing rose with stop-you-in-your-tracks color.
Comments: Staggering color, superb shape and flexibility in sitting makes this one an easy qualifier.
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Comments: Go to plant for soft gray foliage in full sun or partial shade.
Comments: Well behaved small grass that adds flair in perennial borders.
Comments: Lawn substitute.
Comments: Gloriously tropical-looking big shrub, silvery leaves.
Comments: Woodland look that works in Southern California.
Comments: Tough native, small enough for any yard, winter flowers.
Comments: Star performer, delicate look.
Comments: Medium succulent with scrumptious foliage margin and bright winter flowers.
Comments: Tough as Sally Hansen’s nails, super low, water thrifty ground cover.
Comments: Silvery mound in low sunlight, low water.
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| Alstromeria aurantica |
Comments: Changeable and nonstop flowers!
Comments: Tough and handsome.
Comments: Color, color, color.
Comments: Must have.
Comments: Killer color foliage and flowers.
Comments: Care free.
Comments: Handsome and attracts insects and birds.
Comments: Show stopper in bloom and intoxicatingly fragrant in evening.
Comments: Good for a dark corner.
Comments: Saturated color.
Comments: Had to throw in one of my favorite potted plants.