Here are some useful websites for native plant gardeners in the Bay Area. Today, there is no need to go from nursery to nursery looking for a particular plant. Plant inventories for most native plant nurseries are now online. The web is also a good source of horticultural advice and information about what native plants are adapted to particular conditions and plant communities.
California Native Plant Link Exchange
The California Native Plant Link Exchange is the best go-to site for California native plant horticulture.
Plant availability: This is the place to begin if you are looking for a particular native plant. For virtually every California native plant species, this website shows whether that plant is in cultivation and which nurseries sell it – with links to those nurseries’ online inventories.
Horticulture Information: links to websites that provide information on growing a particular plant.
What plants grow with this plant: identifies the plant communities in which the plant is found in nature and other plants that are typically associated with that plant.
Powerful search features: for example, you can search for all members of a particular genus, e.g., Ceanothus, that are native to Marin County.
Links to other websites with information on a particular species: for example to CalFlora for plant characteristics and to CalPhotos for images of the plant.
Website use tips: Genus and species names are case sensitive. Genus must have an initial capital letter and species must be all lower case. If you don’t know or can’t spell the genus or species name, try common names.
Best way to access: type “cnplx” into the URL box or google “cnplx”
Native Plant Nursery Websites
Virtually all the native plant nurseries we list have websites with online plant inventories and some provide horticultural advice. The out of area Las Pilitas Native Nursery is a particularly rich source of horiticultural information.