Ceanothus is the Perfect Native Wildlife Shrub

Photo by Neilhooting

Ceanothus is one of my favorite shrubs in my beautiful wildlife garden and is often called California Lilac or Wild Lilac. If you’ve ever thought of native California shrubs as boring, you’ve never met this one. Ceanothus is the ultimate shrub for a beautiful wildlife garden.

There’s a huge variety of hybrid California Lilacs on the market ranging from ground covers, to low shrubs to high bushes. But the native ceanothus never needed improvement at all.

Photo by Hortulus

It blooms with a profuse blue intensity that it never fails to dazzle the eye. When you come across this native in its natural state, it’s hard to remember that this shrub wasn’t bred by man. In fact, ceanothus is considered unrivaled by any other shrub genus in color.

This wild lilac has a couple more goodies in store for the native gardener; it’s evergreen and drought-tolerance. Some claim that ceanothus isn’t deer-resistant, other claim that this is usually the case with the hybrid varieties, not the true shrub. I tend to agree. We have tons of deer here and the shrubs remain intact in their wild habitat. This is thought to be because the true native plant has very tiny leaves making it unappealing to to the browsers. Once ceanothus has been established in your landscape, it needs little to no watering from you.

Photo by Jim Downing

Bees, hoverflies, and hummingbird moths are some of the wildlife that this native shrub supports. Birds will sometimes use it for nesting or more often as shelter.
For gardeners on the West Coast, ceanothus is one of the top choices for a beautiful wildlife garden.

Chris’ suburban farm and beautiful wildlife garden is located in northern California.

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