If you are a big Bay Area plant nerd you are probably familiar with the website Calscape that is part of the CNPS (California Native Plant Society). It is an invaluable resource for native plants in California. They tap in to the Jepson Herbarium* database which you can find here. They did recently update the website and add some new offerings to help people design well with native plants. You can find inspiration, example planting plans, and find certified native plant designers (including Wild Things Garden Design)!
At the most recent APLD International Design Conference in San Diego we were able to tour the home garden of Dennis Mudd the original creator of Calscape. It was a gorgeous garden! But he was also in the process of rolling out his new offering - Easyscape. This is an on the go design tool that helps you design your native garden based on native plants that are local to your area.
How it works:
Input your address and the web app will pull up the google map of that address, then you can choose a plot category -low water, part shade, etc. You can then choose your plants, hit the design button, and then place plants from the list directly on to the map. Is it a tad kludgy rn, maybe. But I love the idea of making this intimidating stage so easy. Do I think you still need a designer that is familiar with the plants, yes.
So you can see here it looks quite a bit like Calscape. The pictures are nice and you can click on them to get to a plant info page. And in the picture below you can see the design tool. You can add plants at the correct size, make landscape areas and label them, etc. I haven’t messed about with it extensively yet.
Do I think the Emeryville City Hall landscape could use some upgrading? Yes, I do. :)
Jepson Herbarium at UC Berkeley - I am VERY excited that I will be getting to tour the Herbarium this October for Parent’s Day at UC Berkeley. Although, for some reason I thought that this was NOT open to the public. I think it is though. See info about visiting here: https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/main/guidelines.html