This hybrid Oregano works what it got to da max. This is made to order for heat waves, drought conditions, and hungry bees.  Lean soil with great drainage? Check. Dry summers? Check. Ravening hoards of deer and rabbit? Check. Loads of amethyst-pink flowers from light green bracts in summer.

Fabulous hybrid ornamental Oregano (O. rotundifolium x O. scabrum) which is both heat and drought tolerant and a perfect choice for the sunny rock garden or top edge of rockery wall.  This really does need sharp drainage to perform its best.  In the Midwest, it is used as an annual in window boxes.  Light pink flowers all summer long.

Originally introduced by Cistus Nursery from a seed collection at 8000' in La Siberica, Mexico. These have been undamaged in brief nighttime drops to 10F and have formed new crowns after flowering so the show will continue. It is mandatory to have a series of parties when these bloom, btw.

Pinecone Thistle.  Pretty cool 6"-12" tall plant from dry pine woods and wastelands in southern Europe and northern Africa.  The spineless gray-green, thistle-like leaves, are felted gray-white underneath and are a perfect accompaniment to the art project flowers.  Tufts of filamentous purplish flowers erupt from hefty cones of overlapping, feathered brown scales.

Got lots of sun and sandy or well-drained soil with average to low fertility in a dryish garden beset by rabbits and deer but still want lots of flowers for the bees and other pollinators? Look no further as this will nicely fill the bill. Mature plant has hundreds of pink papery bracted flowers in midsummer on drooping stems. Best displayed in a raised bed.

Formerly in the genus Cheilanthes, this dryland fern is found in Mexico, Central America and Argentina and just recently, one site in Brazil.  Evergraygreen fronds of fine texture are densely vertical on this smaller fern.  Perfect candidate for the rock garden or container for milder gardens - doing well at Berkeley Botanic Garden

A very welcome addition to our rock garden thanks to our generous taxonomist, Cody Hinchliff.  This native to the mountains of South Africa forms an architectural mound to 3' or so with many stems clad in short, stiff and persistent green leaves.  Terminal clusters of small cheery and sweetly scented yellow flowers.

Our seed collection of Martindale's Desert Parsley from our nearby Olympic Mountains. This West Coast native umbellifer is found from sea level to the mountains where it inhabits dry meadows and dry. often rocky, slopes.  Yellow flowers from this population where it grew with 3 species of Allium and Delphinium menziesii.

Nice Sedum from 10000' in Mexico that has more cojones than you might think handling 10F here just fine. This has yellow flowers in late winter-spring from gray-blue rosettes on lax stems evocative of Echeveria on a stick.  Some compulsives cut back after blooming to tighten up rosettes but we go with the flow.

Small green leaves and light pink flowers combine with the expected good bark color and texture and trunks and branches.  This will be an open broad rounded shrub 6 or 7 feet tall and as wide in ten years depending on the gardener.  Drought tolerant, this requires little summer water in our dry summers and good drainage is key.

Tender South American shrubby succulent making a 3'x4' mound of thin stems with small fleshy leaves  Flowers unknown and we are perfectly willing to accept that this might well be a different genus entirely!  Pairs well with cactus, bromeliads and xeric shrubs.  Let us know what it looks like when it flowers!

A very good evergreen fern native to Taiwan, China and Japan which we imported from a specialist in the UK.  Tidy and attractive species reaching 30" wide with fronds to 20" tall, this requires shade to part shade.  And brace yourself - it is tolerant of dry shade!  Happier of course with some water,  Spore-grown by us.

A Bay Area species thought to be extinct until a single plant was discovered in 2009 during a botanical survey prior to a freeway expansion. Low growing to 2 feet or so, and spreading with white flowers. Perfect example of ex-situ conservation by botanic gardens and specialist nurseries.

Arctostaphylos afficionados Paul and Greg at Xera Plants say this is their favorite Manzanita which made it a must-have for us.  Fits in the home garden and tolerant of garden conditions, this get just 2' high by 4' across in time.  Rocking reddish new growth turns to blue-green.  Pink flowers late winter.  Drought tolerant.

Guitar Plant.  Choice evergreen Tasmanian Proteaceae family member whose vaguely guitar shaped flower buds open to a wild riff of white flowers that will have you playing the air trowel.  Hardy to a normal zero degrees and drought tolerant when established.  Needs no fertilizer.

Bottlebrush.  Perhaps the hardiest clone enduring single digits with scarcely a whimper.  (It may be whimpering but my own wails of despair drown all else out).  Evergreen picking up russet tones in winter.  Summer fuzzy red flowers on the stems.  Deer Proof/drought tolerant.

Very choice species native to CA and growing on old stablized sand dunes where it can reach 3' high and twice as wide.  This could make a nice specimen plant, low hedge or large informal groundcover.  Drought and salt tolerant with early season white flowers and birds will eat the fruit.

A Darrell Probst introduction which is superior to the typical x rubrum.  This has dark rose-red flowers held above the foliage as well as below.  The evergreen leaves are larger and more rounded than typical and when young are accented with a thin red rim.  Drought tolerant.

Butcher's Broom.  Stiff branches of these were gathered into brooms for the serious sweeping required in European shops.  This is the choice form not needing a partner to set red marble fruit right on the "leaf" surface.  Slow growing, evergreen, drought tolerant.  Medicinal.

This rugged South African is sun, wind and drought tolerant and absolutely hardy in the PNW.  One of the most admired plants in our border for its profuse display of large yellow to orange daisies on low stems.  Good drainage.

Fragrant Dwarf False Indigo.  An excellent plant for the xeric garden although not the best in sandy soils since it hails from good prairie soil in  the midwest from central Canada down to Texas.  Nice small woody shrub with erect small spikes of clustered small tubular flowes of violet blue petals and red stamens - whoa!

Leadplant.  A native to the upland plains of the Midwest, this leguminous shrub has  excellent textural foliage of small gray-green pea leaflets and quite nice terminal "antlers" of purplish flower spikes.  The flowers are tiny but are clustered in multitudes.  Good drainage, drought tolerant.

We acquired this incredibly tough, tuberous, summer dormant Geranium in the 80's from East Lambrook in southern England which was home to Margery Fish and the original English Cottage Garden.  Provenance alone is merit enough but good lavender blue flowers and drought tolerance carries the day.

Rock Fleabane.  A mighty mite in the Asteraceae family, this rock crevice dweller was not discovered until 1978 in the Chiricahua Mts in Arizona and later was found 200 miles east in the Black Range of New Mexico.  It has been very easy and rock hardy for us and although drought tolerant, adapts to frequent irrigation.  Small white flowers.

Rio Grande Rain Lily.  This has the cheeriest yellow flowers with burnt orange streaking which appear without leaves in late summer to early fall with the onset of fall rains if grown in a sunny dry spot.  These get 6" tall but are wicked cute and will self sow to make an enviably vibrant patch in time.  Native to the Southeast and Mexico.  Zone 7.

Heart-leafed Globe Daisy. Pleasing little alpine from the mountains of southern Europe and Turkey. Low and slowly spreading domes like a small overturned pie with evergreen leaves and lavender-blue pom-pom flowers on short stems. Easy and tough enough for a beginner, sweet enough for the rock gardener who has grown it all.

A very dwarf selection of our native red huckleberry found in the garden at St. Andrews in Scotland.  This is extremely dwarf to just a few inches high but spreading to 3' across in time.  That would be a long time.  Brilliant red and orange new growth.  Perfect little rock garden shrub.

A seldom-encountered Dianthus from the mountains in South Africa.  Apparently the local indigenous use this in magic - we can attest we are transported briefly to another realm when this flowers.  Nice pink flowers on slowly spreading mats which is best suited for the rock garden.  Good drainage in full sun and hardy to zone 7 and possibly lower.

A nice silver-foliaged selection of the California Fuchsia.  This loves a well-drained soil in a hot sunny spot where it has lots of tubular bright orange hummingbird magnet flowers in late summer.  Disappears in winter but comes up from the spreading underground rhizomes.  Cut back in spring.

Quite an uncommon evergreen species in cultivation from Shaanxi and Sichuan possessing an impish charm to which few others in the genus can lay claim. A smaller species to 12" with cute rounded leaflets which subtend stems bearing rounded simple spurless flowers which are a soft yellow.  Good drought tolerance on this winsome cutey,