Manzanitas are absolutely magnificent

To many native plant enthusiasts, manzanitas embody all the best qualities of natural California.

They have subtle but dramatic beauty, exhibit year-round character and color, require nearly no maintenance and provide excellent habitat: hosting songbirds, providing nectar for hummingbirds and berries for birds, coyotes and other animals.

They are widespread throughout the state and extraordinarily diverse in their forms, ranging from groundcovers to small trees and growing in nearly every soil type.

The smooth, deep red bark of a manzanita trunk looks like natural sculpture and the waxy evergreen leaves give the plant a neat and tailored appearance.

The sculptural qualities of manzanitas make them excellent specimen shrubs. Prune them up from underneath to give the appearance of miniature trees and they bring to mind the pigmy forests of tundra country or a refined Japanese courtyard garden.

As if their foliage beauty wasn’t enough, some manzanitas have deep pink blooms and are often the first spring flowers in the garden, blooming in early January. They are related to blueberries and have similar clumps of tiny urn-shaped flowers often covering most of the plant at their peak.

But wait, there’s more! Some manzanitas have brightly colored new growth in the spring covering a spectrum from delicate pink to orange to fire engine red!

If you have a drought-tolerant garden and you aren’t already growing manzanitas you need to get on the ball.

Be warned: only some species of manzanita are tolerant of clay soils. Consult a knowledgeable native plant expert or nursery to determine which will work for you.

Clayton Tschudy is an ecological landscape designer and the assistant manager of Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery in Escondido.