Drought tolerant plants for a Bay Area/Northern California coastal garden.

In the 1500's California went through an 80 year drought. During the winter there were blizzards in Central California, the Salinas river froze solid where it flowed into the Monterey Bay. During the summer there was no humidity, no rain, and temperatures in the hundreds for many months. During one year in the 1840's there was no measurable rain in Santa Barbara. (The highest measured rainfall in an hour also was in Southern California, 11 inches in an hour) The same native plants that lived through that are still on the hillsides of California. California native plants that do not normally live in the creeks and ponds are very drought tolerant.



The best way to find your plant is to check www.mynativeplants.com and do not water at all. But if you want a simple list of drought tolerant plants that can work for your Bay Area garden here are a few of the hundreds you can choose from.