Gardening is the practice of intentionally cultivating plants, whether for food, beauty, ecological value, or any other purpose. You can plant a butterfly garden, a bird garden, or a garden for any other type of wildlife. You can plant a scent garden or a texture garden to delight your senses, a topiary garden or a bonsai garden to show off your pruning skills, a rain garden or a moon garden to make the best use of rainwater or moonlight, a rock garden or an art garden to juxtapose your plants with a rugged landscape or your favorite sculptures, or a vegetable, herb, or fruit garden to grow your favorite snacks or cooking ingredients.

Plant Shopping

Garden Supplies

Landscaping Firms

Need some help? These places can help you if you don't want to do all your own gardening.

Garden Conditions in Woodland

Woodland is in USDA Zone 9b, which means that our minimum average temperature range is 25 °F to 30 °F. This rating system is based solely on how cold it gets in winter, so knowing that a plant is considered appropriate for USDA Zone 9b does not tell you anything at all about whether the plant can survive our hot summers. However, cold-tolerance is what gardeners in colder parts of the United States worry most about, so national nursery suppliers will typically tell you what USDA Zones a plant is suited for.

Woodland is in Sunset Zone 8, described as "Cold-Air Basins of California's Central Valley." This less commonly used rating system takes into account heat tolerance as well as cold tolerance. Sunset Zone 8 refers to areas on the valley floor with no maritime influence. (In contrast, Davis catches the Delta breeze and is therefore in Sunset Zone 14.) Woodland's highest and lowest temperatures ever recorded so far (as of 2023) have been 116 °F and 15 °F, and that is pretty much exactly the range of temperatures that all places in Sunset Zone 8 have ever experienced. Our growing seasons for most winter-deciduous plants are roughly mid-February through November. However, many of the plants that are best adapted to growing in Woodland are summer-deciduous, either instead of or in addition to being winter-deciduous. Deciduous plants go dormant during harsh conditions to enable themselves to survive, and Woodland's summers are generally harsher (compared to the global average summer) than our winters are. This is particularly because Woodland receives rainfall more or less exclusively during the cool seasons.

Adjusting for Climate Change

Remember that climate change is not only making the climate hotter but also making it more volatile. Thus, although our summers may become increasingly desert-like, filling your garden with desert plants runs a risk of having them all drown when we get a very wet and stormy winter that a desert would not be subject to.

USDA Zones are defined by their typical winter low temperatures, so as climate change progresses, Woodland is moving further from USDA Zone 9a (minimum average temperature range 20 °F to 25 °F) and closer to USDA Zone 10a (minimum average temperature range 30 °F to 35 °F). However, Sunset Zones are defined by geographic boundaries, so as climate change progresses, the description of temperatures in Sunset Zone 8 will change, while the geographic boundaries of Sunset Zone 8 will remain unchanged. Woodland will always be in Sunset Zone 8.

Native Plant Ecoregions

Woodland is in the Sacramento Valley Jepson Region of the California Floristic Province, which is one of the five places in the world that have Mediterranean climates (characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters, and occurring on the southwestern edges of continents). All five of the Mediterranean climate regions in the world are biodiversity hotspots.

The main native plant community in Woodland is called Central Oak Woodland or (synonymously) Foothill Woodland. This plant community is occasionally further subdivided into Valley Oak Woodland versus Blue Oak Woodland; the city of Woodland has Valley Oak Woodland, which means that although both Valley Oaks (Quercus lobata) and Blue Oaks (Quercus douglasii) are native here, Valley Oaks are the more common and more dominant species here. Areas of Valley Oak Woodland have higher water tables than areas of Blue Oak Woodland, because Valley Oaks rapidly grow deep taproots to find the water table to survive in landscapes that look very dry at the surface, whereas Blue Oaks conserve their energy by growing extremely slowly to survive in landscapes that are very dry even at extreme depth.

A secondary native plant community that may historically have occurred in patches throughout Woodland is called Valley Grassland. Valley Grassland occurs where the soil is unsuitable for trees to survive in, usually due to the area being seasonally flooded in winter yet bone dry in summer. It occurs in seasonal flood plains that are too far away from water sources to remain wet in summer. If your yard has areas of standing water and mud puddles that linger for a week or more in winter, and you rarely, if ever, water those areas in summer, you probably live in a Valley Grassland area. Despite the name, areas of Valley Grassland were historically more often dominated by wildflowers than by grasses. Most of these areas have now been converted into rice fields and other farmlands, so replanting your Valley Grassland yard with native Valley Grassland plants could restore the beauty of an ecosystem rarely seen anymore.

Plant Lists

Check the Invasive Weeds page for a list of problematic plants to avoid growing in your garden.

Native Plants are a ideal backbone for any local garden, because they need little watering or other care, and they support native pollinators and thereby the rest of the native ecosystem.

You can supplement native plants with other garden plants. Some plants that grow well in Woodland are listed below, with commentary on different varieties of each and their positive and negative qualities.

 Ferns & Other Spore Plants Seed Plants
Conifers & Other Gymnosperms Angiosperms (Flowering Plants)
Magnoliids Monocots Dicots

 

 Basal Dicots Superrosids Superasterids

(See the Rosids table below for details on Rosids.)

(See the Asterids table below for details on Asterids.)

Asterids

Asterales Boraginales & Gentianales Apiales & Dipsacales Cornales & Ericales Lamiales Solanales

Aster Family:

Boraginales

Borage Family:

 

Gentianales

Dogbane Family:

Madder Family:

Apiales

Carrot Family:

Spikenard Family:

 

Dipsacales

Honeysuckle Family:

 

 

 

Cornales

Chile Nettle Family:

Tupelo Family:

 

Ericales

Heath Family:

Phlox Family:

Primrose Family:

Broomrape Family:

Lopseed Family:

Mint Family:

Olive Family:

Plantain Family:

Trumpet Vine Family:

Vervain Family:

Morning-Glory Family:

 

Nightshade Family:

 

Rosids

Rosales Fabales Fagales & Cucurbitales Malpighiales & Vitales Myrtales Sapindales Brassicales & Malvales

Rose Family:

Buckthorn Family:

Elm Family:

Hemp Family:

Mulberry Family:

Silverberry Family:

Pea Family:

Fagales

Birch Family:

Oak Family

Sheoak Family

Walnut Family:

 

Cucurbitales

Gourd Family:

Malpighiales

Spurge Family:

 Violet Family:

Willow Family:

Vitales

Grape Family:

Evening-Primrose Family:

Loosestrife Family:

 

Myrtle Family

 

Cashew Family:

Chinaberry Family:

Rue Family:

Soapberry Family:

Brassicales

Mustard Family:

Meadowfoam Family:

Spider Flower Family

 

Malvales

 

 

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