Just getting started? HAT’s Top Ten plant picks are beautiful, hardy, and readily available. Start small. Establish these plants in your garden during the fall rains to get a jump on the summer dry season.

	OCEANSPRAY This beautiful shrub thrives in poor soils, drought, and salt spray. Plant it on a dry slope to prevent erosion and attract seed-eating birds. Lorquin’s admiral loves the creamy flower tufts that become orangebrown seed heads in winter.
	BROAD-LEAVED STONECROP A low groundcover for hot & sunny rock gardens, containers and garden borders. Edible, succulent leaves range from sage green to red. A hardy perennial, this plant’s showy yellow flowers are a magnet for pollinators and hummingbirds
	SWORD FERN Attractive copper-colored fiddleheads in spring unfurl into tough, waist-high evergreen fronds. This hardy perennial complements finer foliage of groundcovers in partial sun to shade. Other good native fern choices include Deer Fern and Licorice Fern.
	RED FLOWERING CURRANT Hummingbirds feed from brilliant pink to red blooms in the spring, and other birds enjoy currants in the fall. A showy specimen plant or massed in the back border, this shrub is a gardeners favorite.
	FALSE LILY OF THE VALLEY Low, shade-loving groundcover features small, white, perfumed flowers and creeping rhizomes. Greenish berries turn red in winter. Drifts of shiny spade-shaped leaves look great with strawberry, sword fern and bleeding heart. Grows under cedar too.
	TALL OREGON GRAPE Blue edible berries, big yellow blooms, and shiny leaves in one drought-tolerant perennial! Plant several behind low shrubs, around foundations, and in thickets. Spiny leaves, creeping rhizomes and upright habit creates a people barrier or evergreen hedge.
	ROCKY MOUNTAIN JUNIPER Tough evergreen shrub or tree replaces a thirsty cedar hedge and can be planted on top of berms. Excellent year-round privacy screen, food and cover for birds. Long-lived and aromatic, native junipers also come in creeping forms.
	NODDING ONION A drift of this long-lasting lily lures pollinators and butterflies for months. Handles salt spray, wind, drought & poor, gravelly soils. Best for dry open woods, exposed sandy meadows and rock gardens where it spreads quickly.
	WOOLLY SUNFLOWER Bees and butterflies will party around showy drifts of intense yellow that lasts all summer. Perennial with light green, velvety foliage enjoys dry shallow soils and looks great in banks, rockeries, and borders.
	KINNIKINNICK An early blooming, trailing evergreen ground cover with red berries in winter for birds. Best for pavement edges & dry, sunny slopes. Creeping branches cover walls and tolerate foot traffic. A caterpillar host and hummingbird feeder, this plant dresses up any site.