Los Angeles Garden Club

TOOLS + LINKS

Plan Your Perfect Garden

Choose from garden plans, complete with instructions and printable maps.

Or create your own garden with easy design tools.

<<< Click on Picture to get started

Did you know?

On average, Gardeners

live up to 14 years longer

than Non-Gardeners.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE!

Planting drought-tolerant plants in Southern California is commendable! However, in order for these plants to actually be beneficial they need to be Native to California!!

Only native plants will support local plant-animal relationships, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and help conserve water and energy.

Southern California is a Biodiversity Hotspot - one third of its native plants are found nowhere else in the world!

Therefore, we all need to urge Home Depot, Lowe's, Osh, Armstrong, Menards, etc. to offer native plants. We can increase the pressure by refusing to buy non-native plants!

Lisa Novick (Theodore Payne Foundation)
explains the Importance of Native Plants

The Beauty of California Native Plants
California Native Garden - Episode 1, etc.

Watch Videos here

WHAT EXACTLY IS A NATIVE PLANT?

A native plant is one that evolved over time (thousands to millions of years) in a given place. That plant has co-evolved with the insects and animals of that place, as well as the climate and soil conditions.

Worldwide, native plants are essential for the survival of up to 90% of leaf-eating insect species, such as caterpillars of butterflies, because of co-evolution. These insects do not have the stomach enzymes to digest anything other than their specific native host plant(s).
One of the many reasons we are in an Extinction Crisis is because people forget that ecosystems are based on native plant communities and the insect and animal life these plants support.

If we wipe out native plants, we devastate the food web! As a result, we will be left with a failing ecosystem and lose its benefits such as pollination, natural pest control by birds, watershed protection etc.

Create a California Native Plant Garden (Guide)

GARDENING 'HOW TO' VIDEOS

o How To Videos on California Gardening

o Online Video Series on:
The Beauty of California Native Plants
California Native Garden - Episode 1, etc.

ULTIMATE LANDSCAPING GUIDE

o Landscaping Network

o Landscape Design Styles

Hundreds of Ideas for the most popular Landscape Styles and Themes

USEFUL CHARTS + POSTERS

o Herbs (pdf file)

o Greens (pdf file)

o Pumpkin & Squash (pdf file)

o Beneficial Insects (pdf file)

o Kids Activity Book "Lilly the Ladybug" (pdf file)

INNOVATIVE + FUN IDEAS

o Great Ideas for any Garden

o Garden and Nature Crafts for Kids

o Kids Gardening Activities

o Fun Garden Ideas

HELP SAVE MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

To help save Monarch Butterflies, make sure to grow the correct Milkweed plants - those that are native to California!

o List of all California Native Milkweed and the Nurseries that sell them.

o Pollinator Conservation in Yards and Gardens (Xerces Society)

AVOID ARTIFICIAL GRASS

Avoid Artificial Grass - it's Plastic!!
It will not only suffocate and kill the soil micro-organisms below it, but will add waste to our landfills once it starts to break down!

HELP SAVE BEES / "NO BEES - NO FOOD"

In 2014, neonicotinoid pesticides were banned in Europe and the United States, because they harmed wildlife, but mainly bees as it caused their colonies to collapse. Sadly, in the summer of 2018, the Trump Administration lifted the 2014 ban on these dangerous pesticides and therefore labels at stores may yet again state "approved by EPA". Please DO NOT BUY plants treated with neonicotinoid pesticides!!

o How Neonicotinoids can kill Bees

o Trump Administration lifts Ban on the use of dangerous Pesticides at U.S. Wildlife Refuges

o Current (2021) EPA Regulatory Information about Pesticides

o No Bees - No Food

o Pollinator Conservation in Yards and Gardens (Xerces Society)

USEFUL LINKS