In many California housing developments, roads are created on hillsides and pads bulldozed off for houses. Then the problem becomes how to cover steep banks with plants to hold the soil. In some case banks are steep and extensive. Ground covers often are not sufficient to hold the soil through heavy rains. What is needed is a mix of groundcovers cloaking the ground and deeper-rooted shrubs and trees to grip deeply into the subsoil. Here is a list of possible choices that was created by us for a housing scheme where the landscape was 30 years old and needed replanting with better replacements for plants and more drought-resistant plant choices than those planted by the developer.

Taller Shrubs: (8 to 12 feet tall, including one to 20 feet high.)

• Bottle Brush (Callistemon citrinus ‘Pink Perth’): 8 to 10 feet tall, 5 to 8 feet wide. Weeping foliage, pink flowers in spring. Use low on banks as big, colorful screen.
• Bottle Brush (Callistemon citrinus ‘Splendens’ and C. citrinus ‘Improved’):
• Massive shrub, 10 to 15 feet tall and wide. Use low on banks as big, colorful screen. Brings birds.
• New Zealand Christmas Shrub (Metrosideros collina ‘Spring Fire’): 8 to 12-feet high, 6 to 10-feet wide. Gray-green foliage with a profusion of showy flowers in late spring to early summer bringing butterflies and birds. Makes attractive hedge, but is sensitive to frost. Use high on banks, thus safe from frost.
• Weeping Bottle Brush, (largest shrub form) (Callistemon viminalis ‘McCaskillii’): 20 feet tall, 15 to 20 feet wide. Flowers bring mockingbirds, orioles, and flocks of hummingbirds for their nectar.  Improved varieties, such as this one, tend to be thickly bushy with brightly colorful flowers. Drought-resistant once established but adapted to garden water.

Related posts:

1. Colorful Low Shrubs And Trees For Banks
2. Colorful Mid-Height Shrubs And Trees For Banks
3. Colorful Very Low Shrubs And Trees For Banks

In many California housing developments, roads are created on hillsides and pads bulldozed off for houses. Then the problem becomes how to cover steep banks with plants to hold the soil. In some case banks are steep and extensive. Ground covers often are not sufficient to hold the soil through heavy rains. What is needed is a mix of groundcovers cloaking the ground and deeper-rooted shrubs and trees to grip deeply into the subsoil. Here is a list of possible choices that was created by us for a housing scheme where the landscape was 30 years old and needed replanting with better replacements for plants and more drought-resistant plant choices than those planted by the developer.

Mid-Height Shrubs:  (5 to 10 feet tall)

• Bottle Brush ( Callistemon  ‘Canes Hybrid’): 10 feet tall, 15 feet wide. A big screen, measure so eventual height hits at the right level to see over. Narrow leaves and arching branches with pink-tinged foliage, soft pink bottle-brush flowers in late spring, early summer. Easily pruned to a tree shape. Can be kept smaller by pruning but why have that problem? Instead plant where it can grow to full size.
• Bottle Brush (Callistemon viminalis ‘Captain Cook’): Dense, rounded plant to 6 feet tall and wide.  For border, hedge, or screen. (‘Red Cascade’ is similar with large abundant rosy red blooms.)
• Geraldton Waxflower (Chamaelaucium unicatum ‘Vista’): Pink flowers for long season from fall to summer on rounded drought-resistant shrub, to 6 feet tall, for full sun. Cut back after bloom.
• New Zealand Tea Tree ((Leptospermum scoparium ‘Silver and Rose’): Dense growth habit to 4-to 5-feet tall and wide. Rose-pink, green-centered flowers with bright gray-green foliage. Excellent plant to use as screen high on bank.
• New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium ‘Gaiety Girl’): Slow growing to 5 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Double flowers are pink with a dash of lilac.
• New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium ‘Pink Damask’): Dense growth habit to 6 to 8 feet tall and 4 to 5  feet wide. Double ruby-red flowers red tinged leaves. Particularly good screen plant.
• Plumbago (Plumbago auriculata ‘Royal Cape’): Makes a mounding shrub 6 feet tall, 8 to 10 feet wide with large rounded deep blue flowers blooming over a long season. Excellent bank cover when placed away from paths. Give it room to spread. Named varieties are not invasive like the older unnamed type. Good mixed with lantana.
• Pride of Madeira (Echium candicans): (5 to 6 feet tall and 8 to 10 feet wide.) Blue spiky blooms on a gray woody shrub. Dot these around on banks. They will spread from seeds.

Related posts:

1. Colorful Very Low Shrubs And Trees For Banks
2. Colorful Taller Shrubs And Trees For Banks
3. Colorful Low Shrubs And Trees For Banks

In many California housing developments, roads are created on hillsides and pads bulldozed off for houses. Then the problem becomes how to cover steep banks with plants to hold the soil. In some case banks are steep and extensive. Ground covers often are not sufficient to hold the soil through heavy rains. What is needed is a mix of groundcovers cloaking the ground and deeper-rooted shrubs and trees to grip deeply into the subsoil. Here is a list of possible choices that was created by us for a housing scheme where the landscape was 30 years old and needed replanting with better replacements for plants and more drought-resistant plant choices than those planted by the developer.

Low Shrubs: (3 to 5 feet tall)

(Use these on low banks and at the top of tall banks so that they create a screen but do not hide views.)

• Bottle Brush (Callistemon citrinus ‘Compacta’): Mounded plant to 4 feet wide and high.
• California Lilac (Ceonothus ‘Concha’): Good blue color. This one can take garden irrigation without dying
• Matilija Poppy (Romneya coulteri): Superior, drought-resistant yellow-centered white poppy flower for banks. Gray foliage should be cut down in November if possible and will spring again from ground to bloom in spring through summer.
• Radiation Lantana (Lantana ‘Radiation’): 3 to 5 feet high and wide and one of the better and most colorful lantana’s for banks. Drought-resistant with long bloom season. Flowers are yellow, orange, and pink. Looks good when mixed with blue plumbago and red bougainvillea.
• Yellow Bush Daisy (Euryops pectinatus ‘Viridis’ or ‘Green Gold’): Long-lived woody, drought-resistant, evergreen shrub, native to South Africa,  3-to 6-feet tall and wide bears yellow daisies over a long season, mainly in winter. Shear off faded flowers and a little of the green growth once a year in June.  (Provides good yellow color to go near blue Pride of Madeira and pink and white dwarf tea trees.)

Related posts:

1. Colorful Mid-Height Shrubs And Trees For Banks
2. Colorful Taller Shrubs And Trees For Banks
3. Colorful Very Low Shrubs And Trees For Banks

In many California housing developments, roads are created on hillsides and pads bulldozed off for houses. Then the problem becomes how to cover steep banks with plants to hold the soil. In some case banks are steep and extensive. Ground covers often are not sufficient to hold the soil through heavy rains. What is needed is a mix of groundcovers cloaking the ground and deeper-rooted shrubs and trees to grip deeply into the subsoil. Here is a list of possible choices that was created by us for a housing scheme where the landscape was 30 years old and needed replanting with better replacements for plants and more drought-resistant plant choices than those planted by the developer.

Very Low Shrubs: (Up to 3 feet tall, not higher than 4 feet.)

Use these as fillers on banks or at the tops of banks.
(Sensitive to frost, but if you place these high on banks they should be in a frost-drained site, thus safe from frost.)

• Bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis ‘Little John’) 3 feet tall and wide. Very colorful waves of flowers fall, winter and spring, on superior dwarf bottlebrush with weeping habit.
• Dwarf New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium ‘Nanum Ruru’): 2 feet tall and wide. Dense growth. Dark-pink single flowers in winter, spring, into summer.
• Dwarf New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium ‘Pink Cascade’): 1 foot tall and 3-to 4-feet wide. Single pink flowers, sprawling, weeping, cascading growth.
• Dwarf Pohutukawa (Metrosideros villosa ‘Tahiti’) (to 3-feet tall and wide): No pruning needed. Gray-green leaves and clusters of orange-red flowers in spring, with sporadic rebloom. (Sensitive to frost, but high on banks should be a frost-drained site.)
• Groundcover New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium ‘Horizontalis’): 3 to 4-feet tall, 12 feet wide. Profuse show of white blossoms on drooping branchlets, spreading plant, makes good bank cover.
• Groundcover New Zealand Tea Tree (Leptospermum scoparium ‘Snow White’): 2 to 4-feet tall, 4 to 5-feet wide. Double white flowers with green centers on compact, spreading plant
• Shrubby New Zealand Christmas Tree (Metrosideros collina ‘Fiji’): is even smaller, just 2 feet tall and wide. Available from Monrovia Nursery. Red powder-puff flowers, winter and spring, bring butterflies.

Related posts:

1. Colorful Mid-Height Shrubs And Trees For Banks
2. Colorful Taller Shrubs And Trees For Banks
3. Colorful Low Shrubs And Trees For Banks