"As we passed below the hills the whole plain was covered with great patches of rose, yellow, scarlet, orange, and blue. The colors did not seem to mix to any great extent. Each kind of flower liked a certain kind of soil best, and some of the patches of one color were a mile or more across ... My daddy had traveled a great deal, and it was not easy to get him excited about wild flowers or pretty scenery. But he said that he would not have believed that such a place existed if he had not seen it himself."

By the time I came to California, 130 years after Jeff Mayfield, the miles and miles of wildflowers had given way to farms, ranches, cities, and highways. Today, the California landscape survives in its original form only in a handful of places like the Carrizo Plains and the Antelope Valley.

We can’t turn the clock back, but we can bring those glorious California wildflowers back into our home gardens. They are extremely easy to cultivate. Bed preparation is a cinch, cultural requirements few, and the blooms spectacular. The one area in which they need help is protection from invasive weeds. Give them the right conditions, and they will return year after year, just as they once did in all likelihood in the very same spot where your house and garden now sit.

So how can you introduce California wildflowers into your garden? There are two major approaches:

IN SITU: Grow them by scattering the seeds in beds directly. To do this, prepare the bed first by thoroughly weeding it. Remove organic matter like fallen leaves or mulch. You don’t need to loosen the soil or turn it over; just scrape the soil lightly to create nooks and crannies in which the seed can settle. Broadcast seed over the bed. Lightly tamp the soil to establish good seed-to-soil contact. Water well.

For wildflowers like the California Poppy which have no known predators and whose tender tap roots do not transplant well, this approach is preferable. The best time to do this is in late fall, when the rains can do the irrigating.

GERMINATE AND TRANSPLANT: This approach is more efficient and improves one’s chances of success if one is planting late in the season, or using plants which are often the targets of predation. Germinate the plants first in 4” pots, and tend them until their roots reach the bottom of the pot and leafy growth becomes significant. Then transplant them into the ground. The bigger the plant, the better it can withstand predation.

The only requirement is sun and moisture, both of which are provided by nature in the California winter. If it hasn’t rained in a while, you can help the plants along by overhead watering. Weekly water, either from the rains or the garden hose, will ensure strong plant growth and fabulous blooms.

If the weed seed load is high, they will germinate along with the wildflowers. It is critical to remove them as they come up so that the native wildflowers can gain a foothold. Without this help, the weeds will win.

One thing these wildflowers don’t need is fertilizer. They have evolved in California’s soil; added fertilizer only contributes to leafy growth but does nothing for their blooms. If you want them to reseed and return next year, avoid organic amendments or potting soil; they do best in normal clay soil which retains moisture better.

When selecting wildflowers for this Top 10, I used the following broad criteria:

1. easy to grow
2. high survival rate
3. reseed and return year after year
4. be locally native to San Jose and the neighboring areas

With that introduction, let’s begin the countdown. May we have a drum roll, please …

When you start growing native wildflowers in your garden, one variety of wildlife you’ll attract are the native bees (bumblebees and carpenter bees) which despite their size are gentle and harmless to humans. I find them infinitely amusing as they rush from flower to flower with a seemingly endless appetite for native nectar.

All good things must come to an end, and so do the wildflowers, which set seed and die by the onset of summer. When this happens, cut back the dry stalks, making sure to collect the seed for next year, or simply let it drop to the ground. Let the bed lie undisturbed (no mulching, no digging) until late fall, when the rains will bring it back to life. To add interest to a dormant wildflower bed, native gardeners will often imitate nature and intersperse native bunchgrasses among the wildflowers.

A large selection of native wildflower seeds is available from Larner Seeds. If you want an inexpensive way to get started, and don’t mind growing plants from seed, this is the way to go. If you prefer, you can get native wildflowers in 4” pots from Annie's Annuals. These plants have well-formed root systems and a high survival rate; under the right conditions, they can bloom within a week or two of planting. Locally, Annie’s plants are available at Payless Nursery, 2927 S. King Road (at Aborn), San Jose, phone 408-274-7815.