You can plant a meadow instead of a lawn! Native plants require no fertilizer, less water, and provide a variety of drought tolerant, lovely, easy to grow flowers for an attractive, easy to maintain front yard landscape! Because they have adapted to their environment and can tolerate drought, poor soil, and floods, they will take less maintenance, just plant them in the right place for their sun and water needs.

Organic Garden Club members were enthralled with the blossoming native plant display in the California Native Meadow at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, the nation’s first botanic garden to focus exclusively on native plants. 

Organic Garden Club members joined Bob Sussman’s Native Plant class for a beautiful tour of the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden featuring plants adapted to drought prone summers and mild, moist winters.

Native plants, which are adapted to local soils and climates, are the best sources of nectar and pollen for native pollinators’ food sources throughout the entire year. They are terrific aids to solve biodiversity and climate change and build a healthy ecosystem.

Organic Garden Club members enjoyed the uplifting, peaceful atmosphere at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden with some of the outstanding native plants supported by ponds and streams.

In the Home Demonstration display, we saw native plants that require no fertilizer, less water, and provide a variety of drought tolerant, lovely, easy to grow flowers for an attractive, easy to maintain front yard landscape.

At the end of our tour, we saw the Prtizlaff Conservation Center for native plant horticulture with a Seed Bank, rainwater collection tanks, and research labs. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean with a view of the Channel Islands, we walked through a garden of plants unique to those Islands.