15 best native plants to grow in your yard if you also want fragrant bouquets

LOS ANGELES -- Attention, anyone who thinks native blooms are brilliant in the wild — or our yards — but don't work in bouquets.

Boy, are we wrong.

This isn't an invitation to trample wildflower fields to pick bouquets — our precious wildflowers need to stay unpicked so their seeds will produce blooms in the future — but it is notice that native plant gardeners don't have to rely on grocery-store bouquets to grace our tables.

With the right preparation and care, you can grow and assemble stunning, long-lasting bouquets for your home while building habitat in your yard or patio, said Linda Prendergast, crew chief and lead designer for the California Botanic Garden's floral volunteer group known as Native Designs.

Prendergast had a career working in flower shops and then wholesale nurseries when she was younger, and she still appreciates traditional ornamental bouquets, but over the years her environmental awareness has