Common name:Pacific Coast Irises
Botanical name:Iris Pacific Coast Hybrids

These Irises are 6"-18" tall and have clumps of grass-like foliage. The flowers are 3"-4" across; it makes good cut flowers and vary from white, yellow, lavender, purple, blue, and reddish purple.

Common name:Blue Fescue
Botanical name:Festuca glauca

This ground cover/grass will grow less than 1' tall and has small, blue green leaves.

Maintenance Tips

Festuca glauca is a perennial clump-forming grass. It has soft straw-like leaves that form a blue-green dome that can get up to about 10 inches wide and tall. They prefer full sun and well-drained soil, but can tolerate slight shade, drought conditions, and poor soil nutrition. These will send out flower stalks in the summer, which should be cut back to the base after a few months to give them a cleaner appearance. They will also benefit from having any dead leaves pulled from the plant at any time of year, but the fall is typically the best time to clean up the foliage. It is short-lived in the landscape, with a lifespan of about 2-4 years after which it dies out in the center. Some might dig up and divide the living edges into several new plants, but most of the time it is easier to replace with a new one.

Common name:Rock Purslane
Botanical name:Cistanthe grandiflora 'Jazz Time'

This perennial will grow 12"-36" and produces large blue-green rosettes that last for a long season. It produces large, silky, lavender pink flowers that have lime-green, purple spotted calyces.

Common name:Coast Sunflower, Coast Encelia
Botanical name:Encelia californica

Encelia californica is a fast growing woody subshrub with bright green foliage and yellow daisy-type flowers. It can be used effectively in the natural landscape with regular pruning to maintain form. It is more commonly used in native restoration work. In inland situations, it requires more regular water. It grows to 4' tall and wide.

Maintenance Tips

Encelia californica is a California native shrub that grows quickly up to 4' wide. It will look and perform its best when planted in full sun in well-drained soil with enough space to reach its mature size. It is very drought tolerant once established and rarely has any pest or disease issues. This shrub has lots of cross-branching and can grow very dense in just one growing season. Pruning throughout the growing season is discouraged as it will affect the amount of blooms that emerge. This is the type of shrub that can resemble a tumbleweed when the blooming cycle ends. Cutting it back hard in the early fall will remove many of the woody branches and will encourage new growth to occur. There is no need to fertilize as the plant will perform very well without supplemental nutrients in almost all soil conditions.

Common name:Spoon-Yucca
Botanical name:Dasylirion wheeleri

Spoon-Yucca requires little maintenance, as it tolerates drought, reflected heat and poor soils. It develops a short, thick trunk while reaching 6' tall and wide. Leaves are linear gray-green to 3' long and armed. During late spring and summer, erect stems of white creamy flowers are visible. It is a long lived shrub and slow-growing. It needs a well-drained site; it is cold and drought hardy.