Can This Garden Be Saved? My California Natives Are Looking Bleak

Can this garden be saved? Specifically, can anything be done for the bleak California natives — not — growing in my backyard?

The yard was completely replanted two full years ago. I wanted an eco-friendly garden, so we put in deer resistant, fire resistant and drought resistant plants, California natives preferred.

My garden should be flourishing by now. But there it sits, skimpy and barren.

The few non-native plants in the garden — the bearded iris and the Mexican sage — are doing fine.

My California Natives Are Looking Bleak

But the native manzanita and California fuchsia are not — despite the fact that my backyard is allegedly their home turf. The California fuchsias are dead — disappeared — and the manzanitas look like they are on their way to dead. Should I pull them out and start over?

I needed help. So I headed off to two local native plant nurseries — East Bay Wilds in Oakland and Oaktown Native Plant Nursery in Berkeley.

At East Bay Wilds, the owner encouraged me not to give up on my pokey manzanitas. You can’t expect much of a two-year-old, he said. It takes a manzanita three years to come into its own. “The first to sleep, the second to creep, the third to leap.”

OK, I said. I’ll give the pathetic things another couple of years.

I also had a bare spot to fill where a manzanita shrub had died soon after planting.

How about a ceanothus, he said. They grow pretty fast but the deer will nibble on the tender varieties, so watch out. Pick a spikey one.

Over at the ceanothus table, I spotted a Blue Jeans with stems like daggers. It looked fierce enough to stare down even the most aggressive of our neighborhood deer. I  bought it.

Can This Garden Be Saved?

As for the California fuchsia, over at Oaktown I learned that I was giving my California fuchsias way too much water and that they probably did not like the acid soil under my Monterey pine.

OK. What can thrive where the California fuchsia could not? A young salesperson led me to a Red Monardella. It’s a type of mint, she said. Deer are put off by its aromatic smell. And — it has a playful red flower that blooms summer and fall.

Sold.

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