If you’re wondering when and how to plant California natives, you may find helpful the following excerpt from M. Nevin Smith’s entertaining, instructive, and beautifully illustrated new book, Native Treasures (UC Press, 2006):

On fall planting:
“For plants of lower and middle elevations, fall is clearly the preferable time to plant. Temperatures descend, triggering the onset of new growth. In a normal year, new rains will relieve you of all or most of the job of watering. And best of all, root growth made during winter and spring reduces the need for summer irrigation...”

On preparing the soil:
Before planting natives, Mr. Smith is unequivocal:
“I have heard a good share of meaningless drivel and contradictory advice when it comes to preparing garden soils to receive native plants. It is common wisdom that clayey soils need to be mixed and worked deeply with some sort of organic amendment (sawdust, bark chips, peat moss, potting soil, or compost) to aerate it and make it penetrable by growing roots. This may serve to get young plants started without rotting away, but the roots of most trees and shrubs will quickly pass the boundary of all the amendment you can possibly afford, only to be faced with the same clayey soil. The fact that they usually succeed is a tribute to the role of roots themselves in opening and aerating dense soils. Excessive amounts of organic material can actually have an effect opposite of the one intended: they can provide a growing medium for opportunistic root pathogens, like Phytophthera cinnamomi. These often feast on dead organic matter but, given both high heat and moisture, can invade living roots.”

Native Treasures
An essential for the native plant gardener, is available at the nursery for a mere $24.99. (10% discount for members of Strybing Arboretum, Regional Parks Botanic Garden and UC Botanical Garden.)