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Drought-Tolerant Plans Growing In Popularity

City of Fresno

As we enter a fourth year of drought, California nurseries and gardening centers say interest in drought-resistant plants is on the rise. Capital Public Radio's Steve Milne reports.

Greg Gayton is a horticulturist at the Green Acres nursery on Jackson Road in Sacramento. He's helping a customer shopping for tomato plants.

Gayton: "How you doing today? You finding everything okay?"

Gayton says the nursery has posted new signage promoting plants that require little water.  

Gayton: "You'll see signs that show 'water-wise' and now we've progressed to the point where at least two-thirds of the nursery, maybe even more, have signs on that are 'water-wise.'" Zanboni: "The trend right now is that water-wise plants are definitely the hot item."

Chris Zanobini heads the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers.

"Even though we're in a drought, people still want to garden."

Zanobini says that's good news for an industry that took huge hits when the housing bubble burst and people lost their homes and their yards.

Green Acres horticulturist Greg Gayton's tip for one of the best water-wise plants is a flowering evergreen shrub from Australia called: "grevillea".

Gayton: "They're beautiful, they look great year-round and they really do well in our climate with winter rains and no rain during the summer time."

He also suggests using mulch to help keep moisture in the soil.

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