How to Start Growing Native California Plants in Containers

It’s California Native Plant Week! This event, organized by the California Native Plant Society, celebrates the 6,000+ types of plants indigenous to my state. These are the species that occur naturally in this region, not introduced by humans. Although there are loads of benefits to growing native plants, keeping them in containers comes with challenges.

But it’s worth doing. Even if the growing conditions are not ideal, some native plant species do better in pots than others. They nourish local wildlife, attracting pollinators to your space such as birds and insects, benefitting the overall ecosystem. They are tough and can adapt to the increasingly unpredictable weather we now experience thanks to climate change. They are beautiful.

Navigating the native plant scene

However, it can be tricky to find container-friendly native plants and good information on how to care for them. If, like me, you came to gardening because you finally had a small outdoor space to call your own, with no soil but room for a few pots, you probably went to the garden center to scope out the best options for containers. 

There, you likely met the usual contenders: herbs, succulents, geraniums, petunias. Perhaps you referred to more traditional gardening books, shows, and websites and got excited about growing vegetables, roses, tulips, etc. Native plants didn’t cross your radar, at least not right away.

Surely there are sinister reasons for this, like the colonialist destruction of the landscape and indigenous knowledge and the capitalist interests of the horticulture industry.

Thankfully now there are many resources and nurseries dedicated to native plants. However, to a small-scale container gardener, they can be quite intimidating at first. 

My interest in native plants first began a few years ago after reading Judith Larner Lowry’s book, Gardening with a Wild Heart. Energized by the book’s forceful case for native plants, I set out to find some for my garden.

I was met with native plant nurseries with inconvenient hours and tables piled with unfamiliar plants, clearly geared towards professional landscapers. At larger, more conventional nurseries, I found small and limited native plant sections. Nursery staff seemed skeptical that natives should be grown in containers at all, like birds in a cage. 

It was one thing to read a book and daydream about creating a native garden, but quite another to source the plants and get a little in-person advice! The unfortunate reality is that it’s much easier to pop over to the garden center with consistent hours and friendly staff, pick out some petunias, and call it a day.

Getting a grasp on native plants

Eventually, my curiosity overcame these barriers. Through listening and observation, I gradually acquired more familiarity with native plants. Now on walks or hikes around the Bay Area, I’m able to identify several species when they’re in bloom. I still have so much to learn about California’s incredible ecosystems and not enough time to devote to my studies as a budding naturalist.

However, if you’re a California container gardener and feeling compelled yet overwhelmed at the prospect of growing native plants, I empathize all too well. Through a combination of persistence and chance, I eventually found resources that helped me, and I thought it couldn’t hurt to share them.

Resources for learning about native plants, in California and beyond

• The California Native Plant Society, especially Calscape, their searchable database containing growing information for thousands of native plants.
• The books and website of Mendocino-based native plant champion and founder of Larner Seeds, Judith Larner Lowry.
• Botanical gardens in your area, which often offer events and classes to learn more about native plants.
• Many native plantspeople have active social media presences, such as Southern California-based Nicholas Hummingbird and San Francisco-based “Mr. Bloom.” I’ve learned a lot just from following these folks.

East Bay nurseries for finding native plants

• Oaktown Native Plant Nursery. Friendly people, good selection, and decent, recently expanded hours.
• East Bay Wilds. Slightly overwhelming and only open on Fridays, but a great selection if you can make it work.
• Native Here Nursery. I haven’t actually been to this one (they are only open for two hours on Saturdays) but it seems like a great nonprofit project to support, plus they have volunteer opportunities.
• Both the UC Botanical Garden and the Regional Parks Botanic Garden have shops and sales offering native plants.
• Annie’s Annuals and Perennials in Richmond has a wide variety of native plants.
• Ace Garden Center has a small but easy to navigate shelf of native plants, if you want to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

What to know before you buy native plants for containers

Not all native plants do well in containers. Because California is drought-prone, many plants, such as trees, shrubs, and even wildflowers, have evolved massive, deep root systems for survival. These should really be grown in the ground where they are happiest.

However, some native plants are naturally shallow-rooted or need very little water. These tend to be better options for containers. For more detailed tips and plant suggestions, I recommend this article by Pete Veilleux on the CNPS website or Nicholas Hummingbird’s class on growing native plants in containers (follow him on Instagram for class listings). 

I learned something from this class that I wish I had known sooner. Cultivars–varieties produced by selective breeding for certain colors or characteristics, the ones that have cute names in quotation marks–are not as adaptable as the naturally occurring varieties. If you don’t provide the exact conditions in which they were bred, they won’t do well. 

This explains why my “Thai silk apricot chiffon” California poppies were such a failure. I have a general frivolous tendency to choose plants for their color and appearance. So many widely available plants have been manipulated by humans to suit our own tastes and needs. 

But in nature, plants evolve for their own reasons: to attract pollinators, to deter predators, to survive. To have real success growing native plants, I must change my controlling mindset and let go of my arbitrary apricot color scheme. 

Must you grow native plants?

So, should you throw out all your exotic ornamentals and non-native vegetables and swap them out for natives? This is the question I’ve been grappling with, and frustratingly I don’t possess the botanical or scientific understanding to answer it. All I can offer are some reflections.

Undoubtedly, growing native plants is a worthy endeavor. Non-native invasive species threaten their existence, along with the web of life they support.

Due to human activity, much of it nefarious and violent, seeds and plants have moved around the world for thousands of years, transforming the landscape beyond recognition. We have upset the natural order of things and done extensive damage. Let’s not even get started on the agriculture industry!

At this point, how much harm are individual, small-scale gardeners like me doing by planting geraniums in their flowerboxes instead of native wildflowers, which don’t even want to be in flowerboxes? Probably some.

But I admit that I’m emotionally attached to all my plants, native or not. I love the marigolds and cosmos I grew from seed and the Mediterranean herbs and trees that remind me of Puglia (and seem to actually like living in pots). 

After much handwringing, here is my resolution: every time one of my non-native plants outgrows its pot or dies, I replace it with a native option. I’ve added six native plant species to my balcony so far, which I’ll write a separate post about later in the week. As time goes by, this number will grow, as will the population of pollinators visiting my garden, and that’s something to look forward to!