California Restoration Gardening

A typical front yard or garden is often a large patch of lawn bordered by mass-produced annuals such as marigolds, petunias, and geraniums. This type of “plug-and-play” garden is nearly identical from coast to coast across a wide variety of climates and biological communities, and it provides almost no habitat value for wildlife. In addition, because the introduced plants are disconnected from their natural food webs and nutrient cycling, they typically require frequent inputs of water, fertilizer, pesticides and labor to look their best. As a result, these homogenized gardens are expensive ecological deserts.

In contrast, restoration gardening is an entirely place-based approach that aims to create a garden that is informed by and in synergy with its local environment. Every home has its own combination of soil, lighting, and moisture, and a restoration gardener uses this information to identify plants that will thrive naturally in this space with limited additional inputs. Beyond this, a restoration gardener chooses plants and garden design that provide maximum habitat value for native wildlife while protecting and enhancing human enjoyment.