Welcome Your Wild Neighbors
How Native Plant Gardens Provide Habitat For Local Wildlife & Beautiful Spaces For Humans
By Eva Barrows | Photography By Coline LeConte | Spring 2025
Strolling through a blooming garden on a sunny day or just after a refreshing rain is a restorative experience. The fragrant garden invites visitors to pass through slowly or relax on a bench to take it all in. Beyond the beauty found amongst garden foliage, deeper nature-driven cycles are at work, especially within gardens intentionally filled with native plant varieties.
From birth to fledgling adulthood, local wildlife experience their major life stages amongst the grasses, branches and blooms of California native plants. Hummingbirds collect the nectar of vibrant California fuchsia (Epilobium canum ‘Sierra Salmon’, also known as Zauschneria). Gentle native bees pollinate purple hummingbird sage flowers—stalks alive with buzzing activity. Monarch butterflies flit amongst narrowleaf milkweed’s white flowers where young caterpillars munch pointy leaves. Awareness of these delicate wildlife-native plant cycles helps us make informed decisions to support them.
Awareness of these delicate wildlife – native plant cycles helps us make informed decisions to support them.
The San Carlos Native Plant Habitat Garden (SCNPHG), a favorite shortcut to downtown San Carlos shops and restaurants, stretches between the San Carlos Library and City Hall. The public garden allows urban dwellers to experience the interplay of wildlife and local native plants. A joint project of Master Gardeners of San Mateo & San Francisco counties and the City of San Carlos, the garden was planted in 2019 to create a relaxing space and educational ecosystem. The 8,000-square-foot garden cycles in 100 native plant varieties, infusing the city center with colorful blooms.
“The garden is oriented around providing plants that support wildlife throughout the year,” says Master Gardener and SCNPHG co-lead Cathrin Callas. The Master
“The garden is oriented around providing plants that support wildlife throughout the year,” says Master Gardener and SCNPHG co-lead Cathrin Callas. The Master Gardener selectors plant for their wildlife hosting abilities as food sources and nesting grounds—as well as for their beauty. Some plants host a wide variety of wildlife, while others host just a few. Some insects, like a species of native bees, only visit specific plants in the their niche. “If that plant’s not there, neither are those bees,” says Callas.
In a native plant garden, plants need to be ready to sustain wildlife as they migrate through. If a non-native plant on a different bloom cycle replaces a native plant, local wildlife will not be supported by the plant. In the habitat garden, Callas noticed a clump of Douglas iris blooming in the fall and winter when it was supposed to bloom in the spring. After much research, she determined the iris was a non-native Algerian iris and planted by mistake. She replaced the off-cycle iris with native Douglas iris to support wildlife that depends on it in the spring season.
“The native plants now know how to support the wildlife,” says Kathy Crane, Yerba Buena Nursery owner and native plant specialist. Since 1960, Yerba Buena Nursery has provided home gardeners with native plants and plant knowledge. Crane became owner in 1995 and moved the nursery to its current location along Highway 92 in Half Moon Bay. She grows 600 native plant varieties in greenhouses. The nursery reintroduces plants that have lost their natural habitat due to human encroachment.
“People don’t move into a place that has native plants and keep them,” says Crane. “They tend to have their own purpose for the land that doesn’t include the plants.” When landowners clear out manzanita shrubs, the wildlife habitat they provide is gone. Crane encourages people to find creative ways to reintroduce native plants to their landscapes after constructing a home and putting in extensive features like driveways and swimming pools. Planting along walkways, on rooftop gardens and in between spaces helps bring back lost wildlife habitat.
“Spend time in nature and see how it makes you feel and how it reduces your stress and changes your perspective on what’s important in the world.”
—Kathy Crane, Yerba Buena Nursery
One of the most effective ways humans can protect the coexistence of native plants and wildlife is by developing an appreciation for what nature offers. “Spend time in nature and see how it makes you feel and how it reduces your stress and changes your perspective on what’s important in the world,” says Crane. Getting outside to work in the garden fuels an advocacy for nature.
As California’s landscape and climate change, the ability of native plants to adapt is being tested. Crane points out that coastal erosion introduces ocean salt into underground water reserves and affects what plants can grow. For now, California native plants are equipped to survive the summer heat. “It’s not some magic that they don’t need water,” says Callas. “The magic is that they grow deep roots that reach the underground water.”
Changing environmental conditions will shape long-term planting decisions. For most garden plants, 10 years is a long lifespan, so they are not likely to experience the effects of climate change. However, when deciding to plant an oak tree that could live for several hundred years, its odds of surviving in a changing climate must be considered. Callas notes there’s the option to grow “non-local” native plants that do well in warmer Southern California or plants that are “local” to the northern hemisphere and grow widely. But it’s also important to grow plants that wildlife can use for food and habitat— things plants from other regions and countries don’t provide. It’s a waiting game to see if local native plants will adapt to the changing environment.
Callas and Master Gardener co-lead Carolyn Dorsch teach the public about planting natives in an urban setting and the interconnection between plants and wildlife through sustainable gardening practices. The habitat garden showcases plant varieties that do well on the San Francisco Peninsula. On a warm day, fragrant Cleveland sage entices people to sniff its beautiful purple flowers and picture growing it in their yard. Master Gardeners hold garden tours and classes on the weekends with hands-on experience in the garden. Students learn garden skills how to divide and plant native irises or how to plant California wildflowers.
On a casual walk through the garden, visitors learn about the connection between native plants and wildlife through interpretive signs. The signs make it easy and fun to learn about the different natural cycles the organic garden supports. The year-round blooms support pollinators: butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, moths, and bats. Nectar and specific host plants feed adult butterflies and provide a home for caterpillars as they grow.
“Some people want every leaf to be perfect, but that doesn’t support biodiversity. It’s not a pest. It’s a guest.”
—Cathrin Callas, San Carlos Native Plant Habitat Garden
On garden tours, Callas shows visitors the leaf of a bushmallow plant. The leaves are punctured with tiny holes. She asks what they think is wrong with the leaf and, after some guesses, she reveals moth and butterfly caterpillars have eaten the holes in the leaves. “Some people want every leaf to be perfect, but that doesn’t support biodiversity,” she says. “It’s not a pest. It’s a guest.”
Bushmallow leaves are caterpillar food, and caterpillars are bird food. The replanted Douglas iris stand became integral to a baby junco bird nest. Dark-headed, cream-breasted parents swooped into a hidden nest under foliage to deliver caterpillars plucked from garden host plants to their hungry babies chirping inside.
Native plant-wildlife cycles happen inside Yerba Buena Nursery’s greenhouses, too. During nesting season, hummingbirds build their nests on rustic chandeliers hanging throughout the greenhouse from found materials—grass trimmings, cobwebs and Crane’s fallen hair. The small nests are big enough to hold the birds’ tiny eggs, and amazingly, the nest expands with the clutch as they grow because of the elastic cobwebs. “We leave cobwebs all over because we watch the hummingbirds collect them for their nests,” says Crane.
The San Carlos Native Plant Habitat Garden and Yerba Buena Nursery inspire people to grow native plant home gardens to create the conditions for amazing wildlife interactions like these at their doorstep. “The thing about being around native plants is you observe how important they are for the wildlife,” says Crane.
For people living in apartments, growing a native plant garden is a challenge. Residential property owners can landscape public spaces with native plants, but even renters can try container gardening. While the deep roots of many native plants won’t do well in a pot, plants like ground cover yerba buena and succulent cliff maids thrive.
Calscape is the ultimate online resource to guide native plant selections. It is an extensive, user-friendly planting guide created by the California Native Plant Society. The website shows which native plants will grow well in specific
Calscape is the ultimate online resource to guide native plant selections. It is an extensive, user-friendly planting guide created by the California Native Plant Society. The website shows which native plants will grow well in specific garden conditions and the wildlife the plants support. The site recommends nurseries where plants are in stock. Crane and her team at Yerba Buena Nursery provide in-person inspiration. They are always ready to help customers find native plants for specific growing conditions and share their knowledge for garden design, plant care and wildlife support.
Produce gardeners looking to grow a bountiful crop can take a tip from organic farmers. Set aside pockets of garden space to grow native plants to attract pollinators, making fruit and veggie plants more productive. But no matter how useful native plants are at hosting wildlife and pollinating vegetables, their quiet beauty attracts people to spend restorative time outside and to consider our role as stewards of the land.
Eva Barrows is a San Francisco Peninsula freelance writer and developmental editor for fiction and nonfiction books. She writes for Walks San Francisco City Guide and Kampgrounds of America. Eva is currently writing a historical novel. See more of her work at evabarrows.com.
Calscape
Native plant selection guide by the California Native Plant Society
calscape.org
Growing Natives Garden Tour
Sa-Su in April
The San Carlos Native Plant Habitat Garden is included in the free Growing Natives Garden Tour, which will visit public and private gardens staffed with docents to answer questions about growing native plants.
gngt.org
San Carlos Native Plant Habitat Garden
610 Elm St., San Carlos
(Between the San Carlos Library and San Carlos City Hall)
Yerba Buena Nursery
Pastorino Farms 12511 San Mateo Rd. Unit C (Highway 92), Half Moon Bay Store hours: Tu-Sa 9am–4pm (closed Su–M)
Email: info@yerbabuenanursery.com
Phone: 650.851.1668
yerbabuenanursery.com
