California Native Flora » Island Snapdragon http://www.californianativeflora.com Euan Currie's Drought Tolerant Patio Garden of Mostly Natives Mon, 13 Jun 2011 05:00:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Galvezia Speciosa – Island Snapdragon http://www.californianativeflora.com/plants/island-snapdragon/galvezia-speciosa-island-snapdragon/ http://www.californianativeflora.com/plants/island-snapdragon/galvezia-speciosa-island-snapdragon/#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 06:12:53 +0000 Euan http://www.californianativeflora.com/?p=227 This red flowering shrub is native to the Channel Islands off Southern California. Galvezia Speciosa does well in full to part shade and grows quickly even without direct sunlight. The ability to grow well in shade makes it useful for us as we are trying to hide some ugly gas meters on the East side of the house with something a bit more attractive to us as well as the wildlife.

Island Snapdragon grows quite low and can be used as ground cover. It also tolerates heavy clay soil so that will hopefully be a benefit in the area we have as it air flow seems to be a problem and the soil is very slow to dry out. I’ve put a bunch of extra holes in the planter to try and help with that. I’m interested to see if these plants survive where some other “shade plants” that we tried have failed.

The long tubular red flowers appear in spring and I’ve also seen them into the summer. This evergreen can reach about 2′ high by 4′ wide. Island Snapdragon is one of many plants in our garden enjoyed by hummingbirds.

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