Wow, I am truly surprised at that lack of Californians, given the thrilling plants which are native - even I managed a 'Californian meadow' (although it did veer off towards South Africa a bit). And it's a big state - not Texas, granted, but contains a fair bit of geographical and climate diversity.

It seems like its not just California either from what I can tell way out here. I can never figure out why, but it appears so many people in the SW where there are so many unique (to us) and wonderful native plants, stuff that won't grow just anywhere mind you, choose to grow the same boring, common nursery plants everyone else grows just about everywhere else especially when you consider water shortages. Maybe there are lots of people who like the natives and they just don't belong to Gardenweb, I don't really know but if they are out there I never hear much about it.

To me it seems there are twenty or more NE'erners to every Midwesterner and even fewer SW'erners on GW. Oh, I almost forgot, and a couple of Brits. The people in the Pacific NW seem fairly common here but heck, seems like they are faced with hardly any challenges to growing stuff so its no wonder their gardens look like they do. I tend to just look at the photos as glossies from a magazine and not real life.

The A. arguta is very nice by the way. Maybe it would grow elsewhere but a lot of the California plants won't and its not just about climate zones. Texans have a big interest in natives, lots of people grow natives in Texas and even more important, places sell them. Maybe its a combination of the years of drought, attitudes and Lady Bird Johnson who was always pushing them and influencing people to appreciate their importance and beauty.

Campanula, there's a California Gardening forum on here. Looks pretty active. They may be able to help.

And have you seen Annie's Annuals a CA based nursery and mail order site. I went there once. It supports the illusion that everything in CA blooms all at once and as large as redwoods. (except the short stuff, like delosperma which spreads like s stoloniferous weed)

I have a new to me umbel maker, Daucosma laciniata. It volunteered from a plant that I grew from seed a friend sent me. This is un watered wildflower. Bad photo of it in bloom.

I only had two plants. and the butter fly laid a passel of eggs on it.

They were everywhere. One was on the other plant so I took him off and put him with his buds. They stripped every flower and leaf off of it . Nothing left but bare sticks

But , I have the other plant and the stripped plant is sending out flowers in the very bare joint of the plant, so all is well unless another butterfly dumps its ovary on it. Do butterflies have ovaries? I will get a photo of int tomorrow. I guess that I can safely surmise that this is larval food for the American Black Swallowtail.I hope to have seed left over after all this feasting. Maybe I should go buy some of those organza bags from the craft store.

oooh looking like a swallowtail cat too! Am getting so desperate to get my hands on the ONLY food plant for our ONLY native swallotwail (which lives in ONLY one tiny area of the UK - mine) that I am considering a nightime swoop to my local nature reserve. As it is under an SSSI, even hopeful pleading meant no chance of scrounging a few seeds of peucedanum palustre...and not one single supplier in the UK. This is a ridiculous state of affairs for an endangered species to be in...when there are people only too willing to help grow the foodplants this elusive butterfly needs.

I got curious when I saw Camp list zizia aurea in the want list above. I did some research and found it is hardy in US zones 4-9 which is most of the US. We have Queen Anne's Lace growing along the roadsides here in northern Illinois, don't remember the botanical name, it looks like one of the pictures here. I honestly can't recall ever seeing Campys choice plant growing anywhere here.

I have two forms of NATIVE queen ann's lace look alike,not the European invader. the d.laciniata is native to just the counties around me and one small population in New Mexico.

here is the eaten to sticks one rebounding and the other. Seeds are becoming more hopeful. They are not astoundingly beautiful umbels , but they will be fine in mass. and the bugs will love them.

Camp, I know how you feel about the short sidedness of the preserve runners. They have here in Texas established programs where one hill County rancher grew MANY and sent out some extremely rare Texas Snow bell , Styrax platanifolious sip. tetanus to ranchers with habitat in the adjoining watershed first and then they worked outwards in its historical range. Supposedly it is here in my county but very endangered. It would grow in my canyon, but I have not found a source that I can get a plant from. I should look again. That was several years back that I tried. They brought back Salvia penstemonoides from the brink of extinction and now you see it in many nurseries (in Texas) and countless salvia seed sites. It is still endangered in the wild , but not gardens. It got down to tiny 2 populations.Unfortunately the populations are along river banks that are prime vacation house land on a pristine river.

My sister grows a angelica in Alaska. It gets HUGE. like 8' and takes over her yard. She gardens a out of control garden fun of raucous color. I will ask her to collect some seed. Usually she butchers them for cut flowers (gargantuanly immense in a vase)before they seed.

Bets it's angelica ursinium (bears angelica) - a fabulous plant. But hey, good news - as it so often does, B&T World seeds have come up trumps (ahem) with european sourced FRESH milk parsley (I will have to wait for harvesting). They are based in the south of France but ship all over the world - a great seed source...although I only got lucky when I started searching for thyselium palustre instead of peucedanum palustre.

I am growing styrax myself this year - just the common sort - but was thrilled to get germination (the words 'double dormancy' always strike fear in my slack heart)...and even more thrilled that the little seedlings missed the spray catastrophe.

Your sister's garden sounds just up my street...but Alaska!

By the way, I had no luck with the muhlenbergia capillaris, but,m.dubia and acnatherum are going great guns!

Would Trachelium caeruleum be perennial in your zone? This one is a volunteer. Not a California native (although I do have some) but at least unique for my area.

I got a hold of my sister and she had already deadheaded and int them to the dump, but if you are still looking next year , she is game.

Definitely.

Funnily enough, I did get quite excited about trachelium caeruleum a couple of years ago - I hemmed and hawed and never sent off for seeds as it was borderline hardy...and I am mean and negligent enough without adding extra handicaps to my sowing experiments so tend not to zone push (or anything which requires fussing to be honest)