Gardening Tips and Know-How
This Sonoma, CA garden (USDA zone 9) includes Gaura 'Trader Joe's', Origanum 'Amethyst Falls', Nepeta 'Select Blue', Nepeta 'Walker's Low', Oenothera macrocarpa, Oenothera 'Shimmer' and Penstemon eatoni (our best bright-scarlet species). We don't carry a few of the common, non-cold hardy plants featured in this garden (tall Teucrium. purple Verbena, pale Diascia). We would suggest Scutellaria 'Dark Violet' as a cold hardy replacement for the Verbena as it has a similar, deep violet colored flower, and Diascia 'Coral Canyon' in place of the pale Diascia.
Not sure what plants will fit best for your landscape? Are the deer or rabbits feeding on your garden? Want to make sure your garden soil is just right? If you’ve ever had questions like these, then this is where you want to be — High Country Gardens is your resource for everything gardening!
Looking for something specific? Try our plant filters on the left of each category page or type in what you’re looking for in our search bar. We want you to succeed in all your gardening endeavors, and we’re always happy to help!
Importance of Bloom Times
When gardening with perennial flowers, it’s best to arrange plants to bloom across the whole span of a growing season. Most perennials bloom for a month or so during four loosely defined periods: early spring, late spring, summer, or early fall. By planning a garden that has successive blooms, you are also ensuring that pollinators, such as honeybees, native bees, and hummingbirds are supplied with nectar for the duration of the growing season.
To help you plan a more diverse and colorful waterwise landscape, we have provided the bloom time for all of the plants listed on our website. You can sort plants by bloom time with our handy filters, found on the left side bar of the product pages.
This Hardiness Zone chart can be used to select plants based off of the hardiness zone where you live.
Choosing the Right Plants
To help make sure you are choosing the right plants for your area, we have not only defined the water needs, but we also provide you with the cold hardiness zones for each plant. Hardiness zones are based off of the average coldest expected winter temperatures for an area. We use the guidelines provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to determine our zones.
When these zone guidelines are applied to our plants, we are providing you with the coldest temperature that this plant can withstand. By understanding your zone, and selecting plants that are proven to be able to withstand the temperatures of your area, than you are ensuring yourself a successful garden. Use the chart above to help you determine your cold hardiness zone.
Use the water symbols to help you determine what plants will work best for your area's yearly average rainfall.
Water Needs
Every plant on our website has a waterdrop symbol to help you choose the right plant for your location. In general, group plants with similar water needs together to make watering easy. With close attention to watering and soil drainage needs, you can also learn to mix plants together with different water needs. There are also moisture differences (water zones) across a yard that gardeners can use to plant a variety of perennials with different water needs. Use the rainfall map and water symbols guide to help you determine which plants to select for your area. Just like sorting plants by hardiness zones, you can also sort our plants by rainfall needs with the filters on the left of our product pages.
Use the Rainfall Map to find your area's yearly average amount of rainfall.
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