Modoc County, CA Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

There is no Modoc County ordinance mandating, incentivizing, or prohibiting native, drought-tolerant, or xeriscape plantings, and the zoning code contains no landscaping plant-palette requirements. Homeowners are free to choose ornamental, native sagebrush-steppe, or other plantings. Where plant choice matters legally, it is through wildfire defensible space rather than a native-plant rule. Under County Code Chapter 8.31, Modoc adopts CAL FIRE fire-hazard-severity maps and the defensible-space requirements of California Public Resources Code 4291, which calls for fuel reduction, plant spacing, and removal of dead and dying vegetation within 100 feet of structures in State Responsibility Areas. CAL FIRE's defensible-space guidance favors low-growing, well-irrigated, fire-resistant plantings near the home and discourages dense, resinous, or highly flammable shrubs in the immediate zone. Separately, the state Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, tied in through County Code Section 8.03.130, encourages low-water-use plant material and compost/mulch for qualifying new and rehabilitated landscapes greater than 500 or 2,500 square feet. Given Modoc's high-desert sagebrush and rangeland setting, native and drought-adapted species are well suited but are a recommendation, not a county mandate.