Montara Sagebrush, Artemisia californica 'Montara'

About Montara Sagebrush (Artemisia californica 'Montara') 27 Nurseries Carry This Plant

Add to My Plant List

Horticultural selection from Artemisia californica from Montara Mountain south of san Francisco. If you need an unusual groundcover that can tolerate the hot dry summer, try this low, spreading artemisia out. This lovely groundcover sagebrush has a nice neat, dense form with aromatic gray green foliage. It's a great way to add texture, color contrast and fragrance in a drought-tolerant garden. Despite it's north coast origins we have found 'Montara' to thrive in hot inland conditions with almost no supplmental water. Some speculate that it is a natural hybrid between Artemisia calif. and Artemisia pycnocephala. This is fast becoming a landscaping favorite, but is not commercially grown in many nurseries and so is hard to find.
'Montara' was selected from a cutting at Montara Mountain by Roger Raiche and introduced by Wildwood nursery in 1987. Tolerates almost any soil type. Prefers sun in coastal sites, and sun or part shade in inland sites. Selected for the garden.

Thanks to Moosa Creek Nursery and the Theodore Payne Foundation for sharing information about this plant

Plant Description

Plant Type

Shrub

Size

1 - 2 ft tall
3 - 6 ft wide

Form

Mounding

Growth Rate

Fast

Dormancy

Summer-deciduous

Fragrance

Fragrant - Pleasant

Flowering Season

Summer, Fall

Wildlife Supported

California Gnatcatcher, Quail, various other birds, insects
Butterfly gardens

Landscaping Information

Sun

Full Sun, Part shade

Moisture

Low, Moderate

Nurseries

Carried by 27

Ease of Care

Very Easy

Cold Tolerance

Soil Drainage

Fast, Medium, Slow

Soil Description

Tolerates a wide variety of soils. Soil PH: 5.0 - 8.0

Common uses

Bank Stabilization, Groundcovers, Butterfly Gardens, Deer Resistant, Bird Gardens

Companion Plants

Black Sage, White Sage, California Encelia, Chamise, Coyote Brush, California Buckwheat, Sticky Monkeyflower, Woolly Bluecurls, Scrub Oaks, Toyon, Lemonadeberry, Yucca spp, various cactus species

Sunset Zones?

7*, 8*, 9*, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

Site Characteristics

Print Plant Sign Print Plant Label

Sources include: Wikipedia. All text shown in the "About" section of these pages is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Plant observation data provided by the participants of the California Consortia of Herbaria, Sunset information provided by Jepson Flora Project. Propogation from seed information provided by the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden from "Seed Propagation of Native California Plants" by Dara E. Emery. Sources of plant photos include CalPhotos, Wikimedia Commons, and independent plant photographers who have agreed to share their images with Calscape. Other general sources of information include Calflora, CNPS Manual of Vegetation Online, Jepson Flora Project, Las Pilitas, Theodore Payne, Tree of Life, The Xerces Society, and information provided by CNPS volunteer editors, with special thanks to Don Rideout. Climate data used in creation of plant range maps is from PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University, using 30 year (1981-2010) annual "normals" at an 800 meter spatial resolution.

Links: Jepson eFlora Taxon Page CalPhotos Wikipedia Calflora

Montara Sagebrush

Artemisia californica 'Montara'

Sign in to your Calscape Account X

Montara SagebrushArtemisia californica 'Montara'

Sign in to your Calscape Account X

Montara Sagebrush

Artemisia californica 'Montara'