Soil Condition.
If very few plants are returned in the results, it may be because the soil at that location has some extreme condition, such as high salinity, or very high or very low pH. To find out what factor might be responsible, open LAYERS (upper right), open Soil, and then select either pH or Salinity. If you are zoomed close enough, the map will display colored polygons indicating the soil factor at the chosen location and in the nearby area.

If the pH of the soil at your site is between 6 and 7, then pH will not significantly constrain plant selection -- these soils generally have the most readily available nutrients. If the pH of the soil at your site is much higher or lower than this range, it will constrain plant selection. (See this analysis: How many plants tolerate each soil pH?)

If your planting site has an extreme soil condition, but you are planning some treatment for the soil to offset that condition, you can find out what plants are appropriate for the site without taking soil factors into account. Open More Criteria and uncheck use soil factors to choose plants.

To see fewer results, open More Criteria and check easy to establish. With this constraint on, the application will only return plants that are commonly used in native plant gardens and easy to grow.

Or, check within 10 miles. With this constraint on, the application will only return a plant if there is a recorded wild occurrence within 10 miles of the planting site.

Soil data are not available for the whole state. If you choose a location for which soil data is not available, you will see a warning, and the plants you see in the results will have been selected only on the basis of the other factors (elevation, county, and climate).

Ecoregion data, County data, and Climate data are not available for areas outside of California. If you choose a location outside of California you will see a warning, and the plants you see in the results will have been selected only on the basis of elevation.

Calflora Taxon Report: From the Taxon Report page, you can find out more about the plant. Follow additional links for information about plant characteristics, distribution, observations, etc.

CNPLX: Information about which nurseries may sell the plant.

Location Suitability: This Calflora application will show specifically how well the plant's tolerances fit with elevation, soil and climate values of the planting site. It is also an easy way to see if there are any wild populations of this plant nearby.

in the same ecoregion
Only plants that have been observed growing wild in the same EPA Level IV Ecoregion as the chosen location will be shown.

in the same county
Only plants that have been observed growing wild in the same county as the chosen location will be shown.

within 10 miles
Only plants that have been observed growing wild within 10 miles of the chosen location will be shown.

use soil factors to choose plants
NRCS SSURGO soil data is available for most of California. If this box is checked, and if soil data is available for the chosen location, only plants that tolerate the soil conditions at that location will be shown.

omit plants at the edge of their tolerances
Check this box to limit the number of results; uncheck it to get more results. If this box is checked, a plant will be shown only if the climate and soil factors of the chosen location are well within the tolerances of the plant.

easy to establish
Only plants that are know to be easy to establish are shown. Information about ease of establishment is courtesy of NRCS California.

Plants that grow with:
If you want to limit the results to plants that are known to grow with an existing plant at the chosen location, enter the name of the existing plant. Scientific Name and Common Name are typeahead enabled.

For instance, if there is a Buckeye tree growing your yard, and you want to make sure you introduce plants that typically grow with Buckeye in the area, then enter Buckeye here.

The calculation of what grows with a plant is based on an analysis of 800m cells in the containing Jepson Region. For a plant that has a wide range, such as Sambucus nigra, Black elderberry, the plants that grow with it differ substantially depending on where you are in the state, so it is important to choose the location. Notice how different the associated plants are in these two areas:

Plants that grow with Sambucus nigra in Orange County
Southwestern California Jepson Region

Plants that grow with Sambucus nigra in Sonoma County
Northwestern California Jepson Region

There is a link to the Planting Guide from each Calflora Taxon Report page (lower right, just below Location Suitability). Click on this link, and then choose a location to see what plants typically grow with the plant in that area.

There is a similar feature available on CNPLX For example, here are plants that grow with Sambucus nigra in the Central Western California Jepson Region.

Check

LOCATION PROFILE

to see the elevation, climate and soil values of your chosen site. (When the application is searching for plants for a site, it matches these values against the tolerances of various native plants.)

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Click on the

Send as email

link, and the current plant list will be sent to you as an email. (This feature is available if you are signed into Calflora.) Once you have the list as an email, you can print it or forward it to a native plant nursery.

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Click on the

Download spreadsheet

link, and a spreadsheet containing the current plant list will be generated, Your browser will be redirected to the spreadsheet. (This feature is only available if you are signed into Calflora.) This spreadsheet may be a good way to request availability information from native plant nuseries. To use it for this purpose, edit the spreadsheet, and delete the plants you are not interested in.

The spreadsheet has a Quantity column and a Price column.

• If you are interested in plants usually sold as seed (Annuals, Grasses, sometimes Perennials), and are intending to send the sheet to a seed vandor, fill in the Quantity column with the number of pounds of seed that you want.

• If you are interested in plants sold in containers, fill in the Quantity column with the number of plants that you want, and the size of the container. For instance, "4 X 1 gallon".

Some seed vendors and native plant nurseries are accustomed to receiving requests for prices in this way. When they receive your spreadsheet, they will fill in the price for those plants they are able to sell, and return it to you.

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Click on the

What Grows Here?

link to see which wild plants have been observed in the area. When the What Grows Here? search first comes up, it is showing commercially available native plants observed in the map area zoomed fairly close (zoom level 13). Zoom out to find more plants. If you are interested in native plants in the area which are not commercially available, uncheck commercially available.

Elevation

Climate:

Soil:

Ecoregion

The plant has been observed growing wild in the containing EPA Level IV Ecoregion.

County

The plant has been observed growing wild in the county.

A: What Grows Here? reports all wild plant observations in a specified area. The results are sensitive to area, in that the bigger the area you specify, the more results you will see. Also, WGH does not consider where plants could grow based on environmental factors; it only reports plants that have been observed growing.

The Planting Guide application, on the other hand, looks at what plants could grow at a single point location. To do this, it matches environmental factors of the point location with the known tolerances of various native plants.

A: Open More Criteria and uncheck use soil factors to choose plants.

A: To see *ALL* plants that tolerate the conditions at your location, open More Criteria and uncheck omit plants at the edge of their tolerances. You should see a lot more plants in the results.