Native plants are plant species that existed in Woodland before people of European descent first visited the area. Native plants have had many more centuries to adapt to the conditions of our local climate, soils, and ecosystems than non-native plants have had, so they are more likely to survive without the help of a gardener than non-native plants are. Our local wildlife have had many more centuries to adapt to them as well, so these plant species are more likely to be edible to wildlife. This ecosystem balance helps keep native plants within reasonable limits, so they are less likely to spread out of control and kill every other plant in sight like invasive weeds do. Why are so many garden plants non-native, anyway?

In Woodland, the main original native plant communities were central oak woodland (also called foothill woodland) and valley grassland, with the former probably always predominant but the latter more thoroughly destroyed in the past couple of centuries. There could also be some of the riparian plant community along small streams. In the distant past, when the water table was much higher, there could also have been some of the freshwater marsh plant community.

Native Plant List

The following native plants have been documented within the city limits of Woodland, according to the records on CalFlora, and/or are believed to have historically grown in Woodland, according to the range maps on CalScape. Wetlands statuses have been added from the USDA Plants website or occasionally from CalFlora.

Native Trees and Large Shrubs

Native Smaller Shrubs

Native Grasses, Sedges, Rushes, and Bulrushes

Native Perennial Herbs

Native Annual Herbs

Native Ferns

Why are so many garden plants non-native, anyway?

Sure, it makes sense that some plants from other parts of the world would be desirable to grow here. But why is it that when you walk into a standard garden center, nearly everything for sale there is non-native?

One of the more obvious reasons for this situation is that many garden centers today are owned by national or multinational chains that find it easier to sell mostly the same plants in every one of their locations. But gardens in the United States have been dominated by non-native plants since long before locally owned family nurseries started being displaced by corporate conglomerates. So why is that?

A lot of the answer likely comes down to changing horticultural philosophies regarding insects. Plant-eating insects, especially during their larval stages, often can only digest or survive on a few plant species—and those are usually plant species they co-evolved with. So, native plants tend to get significantly more insect-chewed holes in their leaves. As manufactured chemical pesticides began to be developed and sold to the general public in the 1800s, their marketers also sold the public on the idea that if you saw any insects chewing on the plant leaves in your garden, you should immediately go spray the insects with insecticides. A pristine, unchewed plant was prized as a sign of a gardener's vigilance. Nursery owners and gardeners alike soon realized that non-native plants attracted fewer insects in the first place, and this made non-native plants seem more desirable than native plants.

But what happens as more and more wilderness gets replaced by cities, and those cities are planted almost exclusively with non-native plants? Cities have been losing many of their butterflies and bees. Adult butterflies can nectar on plenty of non-native flowers, but caterpillars' diets are much more restricted. Some caterpillars can make use of some non-native plants that are very similar to the native plants they co-evolved with, but overall, many caterpillars do not fare as well when they don't have access to their native host plants. And you don't get butterflies if their caterpillars don't survive. You don't get a lot of other types of insects either, without the native plants that are the best hosts for their larvae.

When the populations of pollinating insects decline, so does the fruit production on your fruit trees and your fruiting vegetable plants. So do the populations of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other wildlife that rely on insects, seeds, or fruit for food. So do the populations of carnivores that eat those other wildlife whose populations are crashing. Entire ecosystems can collapse without healthy populations of pollinating insects.

So it turns out that having a yard full of insect-chewed plants is a good thing! Insect-chewed plants keep the world around us healthy and help bees and butterflies grow to adulthood and pollinate our gardens.

A garden is also usually more interesting and more beautiful when it's full of insects and the other wildlife that shows up to eat them. Wandering through a collection of plants that isn't supporting any other life is hardly more interesting than looking at a photograph of flowers. Sure, real plants are three-dimensional instead of two-dimensional, and some of the plants might also have a scent. But in a garden full of butterflies and moths, dragonflies and damselflies, mason bees and sweat bees and bumble bees, ladybugs and praying mantises, with nesting birds and croaking toads and skittering lizards and so on, there's simply so much more to see and to learn about all the different animals and their life cycles than in a garden of just plants alone.

The more that we start choosing plants not just for the pretty flowers that come and go from them at different times of the year, but also for the pretty butterflies and fascinating caterpillars and other interesting insects that come and go from them on a more rapid timescale, the more we will naturally start to prefer growing mostly native plants rather than mostly non-native plants.