Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Yes, beardtongue is widely rated fire resistant, though its placement and upkeep still matter.
Across six published recommendations, beardtongue lands on the fire-resistant side every time. For beardtongue, FireSmart BC’s fire-resistant approval matches the recommendation from the extension services serving Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Beardtongue’s inclusion among fire-resistant plants common to Marin County comes from Fire Safe Marin. LSU AgCenter recommends the genus for firewise landscaping in Louisiana. Nevada’s extension compilers compared seven western plant lists; beardtongue met their requirement for favorable ratings from at least two.
These are expert-curated or compiled planting recommendations rather than one shared laboratory score. Their practical strength is that institutions working in several regions reach the same conclusion. The Pacific Northwest extension guide places this perennial in USDA zones 3a through 8b.
Fire resistance still depends on how beardtongue is handled around a home. Utah State says Penstemon species and hybrids can be firewise when properly used and maintained. Fire Safe Marin likewise says placement, spacing, irrigation, and removal of dead material remain necessary. Beardtongue is therefore a sound firewise choice, but it does not replace the maintenance and layout that help a landscape resist fire.
Form
perennial
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Louisiana; Marin County, California +9
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Louisiana; Marin County, California; Michigan / Great Lakes; Nevada / Great Basin; OR/WA/ID; Oregon; Oregon (Willamette Valley); Pacific Northwest (Oregon / Washington / Idaho); Utah / Intermountain West; Yavapai County, Arizona; western WA
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 10 scopes across 10 cited fire sources
Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
Marin County (CA footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2019-01-01
The publication is explicitly limited to plants common to Marin County. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as Marin regional context while retaining its placement, spacing, irrigation, and maintenance boundary. It is not statewide California guidance or parcel suitability.
King County's current wildfire page links this list for the Puget Sound Basin. FireApproved publishes 82 exact source owners as basin context, not statewide Washington guidance or a site-specific recommendation.
LSU AgCenter calls these 31 ornamentals commonly used in Louisiana and recommended for Louisiana firewise landscaping efforts. FireApproved publishes 31 exact source owners, mostly at the source's genus grain. Undocumented curation remains corroborative and is not site suitability.
Michigan State University Extension Bulletin E2948 is explicitly a list of wildfire-resistant landscape plants for Michigan and includes a Michigan-native field. FireApproved publishes 221 exact GBIF owners from 226 represented source rows and holds 15 complex or non-exact rows. This dated publication scope is not a current site-suitability determination.
Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01
OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.
The October 2023 joint Pacific Northwest Extension publication explicitly names Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and publishes more than 150 plant profiles. FireApproved has normalized 155 exact plant records from the source; publication scope does not assert that every listed plant suits every site within the three states.
University of Nevada Cooperative Extension compiled plants suited to Nevada climate zones and reported favorably by at least two upstream firewise lists. FireApproved publishes 126 exact source owners at Nevada publication scope. The source explicitly makes no independent flammability determination, so these rows remain corroborative.
Utah State University Extension states that this fact sheet selects examples for Utah landscapes and that they require proper placement and maintenance. FireApproved publishes 83 exact source owners at Utah publication scope. The table is not a site-specific planting clearance.
Yavapai County (AZ footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2025-03-14
University of Arizona Cooperative Extension authors Bulletin 34 for Yavapai County. FireApproved publishes 198 exact source owners from its resistant and prone tables and keeps the county boundary visible. County publication scope is regional Arizona context, never statewide scope.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in ID, OR, WA.
Native range
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 3–8.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
Plant hardiness evidence
These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA
Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value
is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping
statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.
Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating.
They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ extended zone (30-100 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Fire-Resistant Plants for Oregon Home Landscapes: Oregon [osu-frn6-oregon-regions] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Penstemon or Beardtongue profile (PDF page 76) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant plant profile galleries: Penstemon or beardtongue — Penstemon spp. [osu-2023-perennials-gallery] (with its recommendation)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)
The evidence
Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself
(a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or
republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.
“Fire-Resistant Plant Materials for Oregon”
· condition: green
Penstemon species (Penstemon) is listed under “Perennials 18 inches or taller”. The guide says most listed plants require some irrigation during Oregon's dry summer months and must be maintained in a healthy condition.
Listed as Penstemon, Beard tongue — Penstemon sp.. The bulletin says fire-resistant plants tend to resist ignition when irrigated and maintained, while fire-prone plants may ignite readily and burn intensely.
