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Yes, wall germander is generally rated fire resistant, although the available assessments do not give it uniformly high marks.
Michigan State University Extension calls wall germander wildfire resistant and recommends it for Michigan’s climate. The Los Angeles State and County Arboretum also included it among recommended low-growing plants, but placed it in Category 4, the least fire-retardant part of that recommended set. Under normal garden conditions at the Arboretum, that category represented leaf moisture capacity of 60 to 70 percent. These findings support using the plant, but the California result is a modest endorsement rather than a top rating.
Idaho Firewise scored wall germander 7 of 10. CSU’s published thresholds place this score in the mixed band. A University of California Forest Products Laboratory compilation likewise marked its fire performance as conflicting. The laboratory warned of undefined terms and a frequent lack of scientific basis in the more than 25 earlier lists it compiled.
Across four assessments, the balance favors fire resistance, with differences in strength rather than a clear warning to avoid the plant. Wall germander is a perennial in the mint family, Lamiaceae. For a homeowner choosing it, the fairest reading is that it has credible support as a fire-resistant landscape plant, but its 7-of-10 score and the California conflict argue against treating it as one of the strongest available choices.
Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
The UC Forest Products Laboratory says the guide covers properties of common California landscaping plants and was prepared for California fire agencies. FireApproved publishes 130 exact owners at historical California publication scope. The report is a 1997 compilation, not a current endorsement, site rating, or independent test of every row.
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.
2. Why this plant is relevant here
State distribution
Documented in ID.
Native range
Introduced / established
1 sourced range or established record. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Documented range 4–9.
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.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 40' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (mid-scale rating)
Fire-Retardant Plants for Brush Fire Prevention in Hillsi…: Category 4 [la-arboretum-1970-leaf-moisture-fire-retardance] (with its recommendation)
Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interf…: Chapter 4, Landscape Vegetation Database [ucfpl-1997] (mid-scale rating)
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.
“CATEGORY 4 — LEAST FIRE RETARDANCE Plants with medium leaf moisture content capacity (60-70%)”
· condition: green
Teucrium chamaedrys (Germander) is one of 30 low-growing plants in the source's recommended Table 1. The category reflects leaf moisture capacity under normal garden conditions at the Arboretum.
