Winner plants: Sunset's Flora awards honor our favorite role-players

Sunset, Feb, 2005 by Sharon Cohoon

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), a native Western high-country tree (20 to 60 ft. tall, 15 to 30 ft. wide), is rarely silent. Its dainty leaves tremble with the slightest breeze, creating a pleasant rustling sound. Planting in small groves within enclosed spaces amplifies the rustle, says Santa Fe landscape designer Richard Wilder. Zones A1-A3, 1-7, and 14-19.

Lifetime achievement award

Matilija poppy

Hollywood hands out laurels to performers who keep producing year after year; we decided to do the same for a flower. "Mary Elizabeth Parsons [author of the 1897 book The Wild Flowers of California] called the matilija poppy 'the queen of all our flowers,' and I concur," says Mike Evans of Tree of Life, a wholesale nursery in San Juan Capistrano, California. With huge, diaphanous white flowers atop 6- to 8-foot-tall stems, Romneya coulteri is regal, indeed. "We tell people, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, not to plant it close to busy intersections," Evans says, "because matilija poppies definitely get attention." Plant on slopes or isolated borders where it won't overtake less vigorous plants. Zones 4-12, 14-24, and H1.