Fresno Gardening Green

Calycanthus occidentalis, or western spice bush, is a large deciduous shrub native to lower elevations of the Coast Range, Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades. Reaching 10- to 12-feet tall and wide, it makes an excellent specimen plant or can be limbed up into a small multitrunked tree.

It might be tempting to pass on this one, sometimes dismissed as a weed, at the garden center, but that would be a mistake. Erigeron karvinskianus, or Santa Barbara Daisy, is a tough, almost carefree perennial and so useful in the garden.

Stalked bulbine (Bulbine frutescens), native to southern Africa, is an undemanding succulent perennial perfectly suited to our hot dry summers. Fleshy onion-like leaves store a great deal of water, making the plant very drought tolerant.