Thanks to both of you for the answers. The pictures were lovely! I do like your garden look. You replied even if you have large spruces with ground covers around it, it wont harm neither. The ground cover may try to crawl under the spruces, but it won't matter. Thanks for that statement. That is what my main concern was so now I feel better. What about something like a sea green juniper planted near a Colorado blue spruce? I don't know why but I thought I heard if you have a Colorado blue spruce and let low lying shrubs etc grow into them that the Colorado blue spruce tree quits growing where it touches the other shrub hedge etc. Do I need to be concerned about that? Can various evergreen shrubs of various sizes be planted in the bed with the Colorado blue spruce trees? And yes they will no doubt in time grown together. Is this all bad? Or do you remove the evergreen shrubs as the trees and the shrubs get larger and closer together? Thanks again!

When you read about a plant and it says it's good for erosion control, will naturalize, and spreads by root suckers, you know that this plant is going to spread its wings no matter what. Remember that each of those suckers turns into its own shrub and that will also want to spread. And they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on. I had suckering Evans Cherry trees - I had to take them out completely and spray roundup for 3 years to get rid of all the suckering wanna-be new trees. I have suckering chokecherries that require at least annual applications of roundup to control the spread. Be careful and at the very least give it the crappiest soil you have in your yard. Or take it back, get a refund and buy a really nice new daylily instead.

I hadn't looked at this topic because I know so little about California natives. I finally did, and just wanted to note that bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) is not the slightest bit drought tolerant. It also does not tolerate hot summers. Check out the timber press web site. I think they have books on California native plants.

So yeah, you can't just broadcast seed for some of the wildflowers and expect them to grow thru the turf. Especially when the clovers and bird's foot trefoil are supplying the lawn with lots of nitrogen, (and shade in the drought times) and keeping the turf lush! So I have transplanted quite a few tumble mustard, high knapweed, chicory, fleabane, smartweed, mouse-ear hawkweed, autumn hawkbit, etc. this fall. I transplanted some during the summer months with varying degrees of success - I hope these fall plantings work better. The problem with transplanting them during the hot sunny months: they don't take as well; I'm putting them in bare spots and disturbing the soil which leads to a lot of unwanted weeds; and of course they need to be watered which leads to a huge number of sprouting unwanted weeds! Next summer, I have a different plan. I will cover any bare spots with corn gluten meal which acts as a pre-emergent herbicide for several weeks and then decomposes to a fertilizer by the time the weather turns cooler and I'm ready to plant stuff without just getting undesirable weeds like plantain, knotweed, and crabgrass. My plan was initially to not have to water this lawn anyway and now I see that watering in times of drought really leads to unwanted weeds. The lawn is thin topsoil on top of pure sand so it has always died every few years when a bad enough drought hit. I have mulched endless leaves into the lawn for 3 years and with the great number of earthworms that brings, my soil is getting better. Also the shade and nitrogen provided by the clovers, vetch, and bird's foot helps the actual grass stay green. Some plants simply do NOT like to be transplanted - bird's foot is one of those. Fortunately, you can collect seed from the pods somewhere where it is growing and broadcast them over the lawn and it will eventually take hold. It is very small the first year (I haven't even been able to determine when it is sprouting), noticeable the second year if you know what to look for, and healthy and flowering by the third year. There is a saying: "the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, and the third year it leaps!" White and red clover and violets and of course dandelions will all grow easily if seed is spread over the turf, especially if it is mown very short first. The next thing I'm working on is which weeds help or kill other grasses and weeds. Obviously wide leaves like dandelion, plantain, and violets deny grass beneath them water and sun and can choke it out. But I'm more interested in chemicals that plants produce to fight or help competition. There is a lot of info available on companion planting for vegetables but for weeds - not much. So I'm just watching and watching. I had one patch of a lush green prostrate knotweed that killed everything beneath it. Another patch of lush pinkish knotweed that did the same. But regular knotweed is not as bad. Autumn hawkbit (like delicate dandelions) inhibits sprouting near it, even of its own seed! But it doesn't bother growing grass. Mouse-ear hawkweed does the same and so sends runners like strawberries to propagate itself into dense mats which will then smother grass. The first line of defense against unwanted weeds is to mow the grass very short, but this tactic is NOT available when the goal is to have lots of wanted weeds. Next summer I plan to try spraying leaves of dandelions, plantain, and violets with vinegar and a tsp. of dish soap on a hot, sunny day. This is said to kill the leaves but not the root. That's O.K. with me if it works. I just want to hold back these aggressive weeds from taking over.