Gardening with Native Plants

at the rancho santa ana botanical garden in clermont james campos to always cedar whacks means and other birds are busily feeding that very snaps and pollen that they're eating come from more than eighty acres of california native plants started drawing interest the garden with visitors from the metropolitan water district this is that outweigh i was president hollywood people from the east coast public by halliburton really now it's a beautiful thang with bright red berries once the various again jess furman says birds that descend on the rows of right out there you can see the stockings heard it felt wonderful plan for gardens alliance o'brien is director of horticulture here he's been schooling and wto officials are native plants because they don't need much water and interviewed dea was to get people to cut back on the amount of water they use in their yards philip pace is president of the board probably better than fifty to sixty percent of the water used to be average household is just outside

so if you going to do a real conservation programs were to go before the waters where the waters used as we stroll through the garden we pass several bushes in blue red part manson eat is dangling tiny pink and white bell's say you know fitzgerald with clusters of blue and fragrance ages unfurling spiers a delicate lavender flowers bard o'brien says california native plants are more popular with gardner's in great britain australia and new zealand that with americans who've largely overlooked them he says in addition to a standing selection of flowers the plants offer foliage in a rich range of colors fund silver's of races are asleep face is one of our veterans grass is our land that's compensated from this fall fannie and fred phillips the life of four this nice color foliage they're some of the podium another one with a nice nice i see fragrance to it

yeah i am but a growing with black sage and white sage than the black and white savior so that when the commonly senior at night yes siri right in an hour of southern california sure you run into white sage and blacks at all on this foothills of the san gabriel's in the santa ana isn't and also to a lesser extent in santa monica besides getting people to use more native plants the metropolitan water district wants them to reduce the amount of water they use in all their gardening and deputy vice president a darn ortega if you were to put a wall around of residents house and you were to gauge how much they're over watering in a year maybe five feet deep in water at the end of the year that's were drawn in our plants it's a number one particular regardless of where they're from in southern california and the ladies website has an index that helps people adjust their water use to whether in soil conditions and soon the water district will offer rebates and high tech sprinkler

controllers that communicate with satellites or radio transmitters ortega says the goal of the gardening initiatives is to save two hundred thousand acre feet of water next year that would be enough to supply four hundred thousand families but due to the recent cutback of water from the colorado river and deputy will still face an overall cap of anywhere between four hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand acre feet so says chairman phil a pace and a beauty has other plans the combination of all the programs the stories the conservation the development of new sources new supply and water transfer has also and the lady is working to transfer water from farmers in the sacramento valley and it's subsidizing the development of desalination plants the metropolitan water district plans to have its native plant initiative up and blooming this spring the district will distribute literature to ratepayers get out plans to school kids and sponsor garden may covers for

kpcc news i'm ailsa set sail in claremont