Black Mountain Trail Hike

Once a year, on a cool day, Mr. Mouse and I attempt the feat of reaching the top of Black Mountain. It's a fairly steep hike, so we don't always make it. But this year, we decided on an early attempt on December 24 -- with the potential to try again on December 31 should we have to turn around.

Well fortified by a good breakfast, we started the walk at Hidden Villa, a community-supported organic farm and education center. We enjoyed walking past the barns with the sheep and goats, and were soon walking along a shaded little stream with ferns and other shade plants. The fall color of the wild roses was still quite stunning.

I'm always tempted to add a few of these beauties to my garden, but they spread rather aggressively and are better suited for larger spaces, not for my suburban lot. Still...

After ascending a few switchbacks, the view opened onto the chaparral. It was a beautiful sunny day, with temperatures in the 50s and perfect for a hike. But would we make it to the top?

Along the way, I could not help but enjoy the interesting shrubs and trees. Here's coyote brush in full bloom.

 

And here a different plant, just before opening up. I was quite impressed how green these plants looked. My garden is suffering from lack of water, but in the hills, the situation looks less dire. 

I also could not resist making a photo of this coyote scat. Coyote like to deposit their scat in locations with a good view, and this place must have been someone's all time favorite.

But for us, rest was not an option. We pressed on at a pretty good clip, ignoring temptations for more photos, and yes, dear reader, we made it to the top!

After a short rest, and fortified with some chocolate, we turned around to get back home in time for some cooking, and an evening with friends. No better way to spend the holidays!

Merry Christmas 2011!

Merry Christmas from the Country Mouse home. We're expecting Mr and Ms Town Mouse among the friends and family visiting tomorrow for Christmas dinner and are looking forward to eating, drinking, and being merry.

Rat and I were reluctant to go out and by an artificial tree after our ancient one bit the dust. Nor did we want to buy a live one. I'd like a wooden ornament type tree such as Town Mouse has, but we didn't get to it.

So today we walked the property looking for a Christmas-ish tree that could not stay where it was. We found a redwood sprouting among the toyons close to the house where we certainly would not want it to grow, and so - with  some sadness I have to say, we chopped it down and brought it in to be our festive tree. Here it is before decorating it today.

I can safely say this is the tallest tree I have ever had in my home!

Wishing everyone in garden bloggers' land and beyond a wonderful holiday season, in whatever way you enjoy midwinter festivities! And a satisfying, productive, and happy new year.

Winter Solstice Thoughts about "Novel Ecosystems"

On this winter solstice, which occurs in our Pacific time zone at 9:30 pm today, December 21, I've been exploring the idea of ecological restoration on the web. There is always something new to think about. Now I've stumbled upon the (not so new) idea of novel ecosystems and I'm not quite sure what to think about the idea. These are first thoughts, and not much edited - I reserve the right to change all the thinking expressed below at any time!

Definition. A novel ecosystem is one ...

... containing new combinations of species that arise through human action, environmental change, and the impacts of the deliberate and inadvertent introduction of species from other regions.

Source: http://www.fs.fed.us/global/iitf/pubs/ja_iitf_2006_hobbs001.pdf. Citation: Hobbs,Richard J.;Arico, Salvatore; Aronson, James; Baron, Jill S.; Bridgewater, Peter; Cramer, Viki A.; Epstein, Paul R.; Ewel, John J.; Klink, Carlos A.; Lugo, Ariel E.; Norton, David; Ojima, Dennis; Richardson David M.; Sanderson, Eric W.; Valladares, Fernando; Vilà, Montserrat; Zamora, Regino; Zobel, Martin;  2006.  Novel ecosystems: theoretical and management aspects of the new ecological world order.   Global Ecology and Biogeography, (Global Ecol. Biogeogr.)15, :1–7.

I think the idea is - hey folks, these ecosystems are here now. What do we do about them? Let's face up to reality. The idea also is, it seems to me, to get off the "guilt trip" of feeling bad about trashing the environment, and look for the positive in all these new combinations of life forms that we have brought together as we stir up the ecological pot that is the earth.

One person who has embraced this idea within the scope of landscape restoration is Emma Maris. She has a book out on the topic: Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. You can read an interview with her on this page in the American Society of Landscape Architects web site. I won't comment - just read and ponder and cogitate.

On a blog called Ambiance, I read this about the novel ecosystem approach:

It’s about the futility and silliness of control and purism.  It’s about humans not as the destroyers of nature but its wild card, its agents of creative destruction.

It seems to be a "camp." For those in this camp, we in the restoration camp are characterized as puritanical zealots, or even "native plant Nazis" a term that we find offensive on this blog for various reasons.  Why oh why do we divide up in this way, vilifying the "other side?"

I like the very simple and universal principles of restoration expressed on this Central Minnesota (birthplace of my dear Rat) blog, "Restoring the Landscape with Native Plants" - (I'm linking to today's post, Is That Species Native? which is along the same lines as this one, and Town Mouse's prior post in this space, Native Plants and Garden Hybrids.) The principles support biodiversity of local flora and fauna. None of them is specific to Central Minnesota, yet following them would yield a landscape very specifically Central Minnesotan, just as, applied on the Central Coast region of California, they would yield a very specifically local landscape. Yes, this is for me!

How you manage a chunk of mother earth does depend on what state it is currently in. For a person from the Old World to find herself in the New World is an amazement. Our UK landscapes are worked over thoroughly, with some exceptions - think wildflowers and hedgehogs in hedgerows, and some remnants of the wild in marginal areas. Living here on three acres of native splendor, however compromised, is a privilege I never stop appreciating, and to do anything other than cherish this spot's unique qualities does have a taint of sacrilege to it, I admit.

I need to think about this more. I certainly do acknowledge that we are where we are. We have Mediterranean grasses all over California, for example, and they're not going away. But - I find this "it's all good in this the best of all possible worlds" kind of approach a bit too glib. The relief from guilt is all too palpable, and I hold that a little guilt is good for the soul, a sign that our moral sense is alive and operating.

I'm reminded of the joke I saw recently: the planet is at the doctor's office, and the doctor says, "I'm sorry to inform you that you've got humans."

Biological evolution is slow - which is why I have little truck with novel ecosystems. But I have some optimism that cultural evolution can be rapid indeed. I need to believe that, because otherwise I'll be depressed about the long term effects of our shortsighted mammalian tendencies.

Native plants and garden hybrids

Last weekend I met with a friend who had a beautiful garden with a fairly good percentage of California natives installed not too long ago. "How's the garden," I asked, hoping for an excited response. But my friend told me that she was disappointed that the garden was stunning only for a few months in late spring and early summer. "I want flowers!" she said.  I pointed at my California fuchsia, which no longer look as good as in the October photo above, but which are still good enough for the hummingbirds. And she explained to me that she wanted more from her garden.

I know what she's trying to say. She wants something like this double Camelia, which blooms for months, has showy flowers, and seems resistant to bugs and other problems. .

Or like this yellow rose, which I photographed at Filoli.

This made me think about my mother, who never distinguished between natives and exotics but between wildflowers and garden flowers. She knew a lot about wildflowers, and made beautiful arrangements with them, but actually did not know too much about garden flowers and, I believe, found them a little boring. This distinction is not commonly made, especially among native plant enthusiasts. Not infrequently, we compare native wildflowers with exotic garden hybrids, and that's a little like comparing apples with, maybe crabapples.

You might think that garden flowers are the same as flowers of non-native plants, but I don't believe that's true. In almost all cases, the garden flowers you can buy at the nursery where carefully selected, or hybridized, and usually both in an effort to breed a plant with the most desirable characteristics. Large flowers, long bloom time, resistance to pests.

We all know you end up paying a price for everything. Tulips are no longer fragrant because the fragrance was sacrificed for other desirable characteristics. Garden flowers have had other characteristics bread out, or lost them along the way. That can be a good thing, long bloom time and large flowers are great qualities to have. But it might be a bad thing, which is one reason why Country Mouse tries not to mix native garden hybrids with her local native plants -- you just don't know what got lost along the way.

Regardless, I didn't quite know what to tell my friend. Yes, for June, July, and August Trichostemma lanatum (wooly blue curl) is a great plant to have.

But I'll readily admit that some hybridized sages give you a longer bloom time and they are more clay tolerant.

I myself enjoy the different buckwheats in my garden (here Eriogonum arborescens, a channel island buckwheat).

But the flowers are not huge, and while I enjoy how the spent flower stalks change color over time, I can see it's not everybody's cup of tea.

So, what did I tell my friend? I encouraged her to get some garden flowers for containers in her garden, and continue to enjoy the butterflies and birds that are now populating her garden. I also told her to consider getting some native hybrids. For example, there are now some excellent monkey flower selections with large flowers and long bloom time. She does not live out in the country, so taking advantage of hybrids had no drawbacks for her.

In the end, having a garden with natives is about much more than just large flowers. For me, it's continuously fascinating how the garden changes, and I always find surprises -- birds nests, butterflies, sleeping bumblebees -- that delight me more than a double camelia or a rose ever can.

December GBBD - Country Mouse

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day is upon us and surprisingly, on our Central California coastal ridge, I do have a few blooms to share. Our weather has been drier and sunnier than average, and some summer bloomers just don't know when to stop.

Resprouting 'Hot Lips' salvia - I don't mind that this one just won't go away. The hummers love 'em.

Final few blooms on the wondrous and amazingly scented Salvia clevelandii 'Winifred Gilman'

Thank goodness for Epilobium canum, aka Zauschneria californica. These local natives keep the hummers a-hummin'

Sierra Foothill Garden has a lovely post on Zauschneria btw.

I'm loving this tiny Viola adunca that decided to take up an abode in our garden. here, wet with dew.

Another reliable hummingbird feeder well into late fall, the South African plant, Cape Honeysuckle, Tecomaria capensis. It's very robust, doesn't need water, glossy evergreen foliage, gets huge, and I haven't seen it spread by seed or sucker.

Coast sunflower, Encelia californica, a southern California native. Sprawls and takes no care but whackin' back.

I got this climbing or rambling rose for my dad's cottage, but he didn't want it so I put it against the fence in the pool garden where it is happy as a clam, but much prettier. I forget what kind it is.

This sweet pea bush has been quietly blooming in the corner of the garden without fuss or trouble for about six years. Almost always has flowers.

A few remaining Verbena lilacena 'De La Mina' - reliable garden native.

This non-native Jerusalem Sage has lovely big leaves and is still blooming.

I like this picture of one of the last coyote mint,  Monardella villosa flowers. I'm in a bit of a quandary as I recently discovered local wild Monardella villosa, and am propagating them, or trying to. Looking for seedlings to appear every day. So the nursery bought plants are probably going for a toss, as my Indian friends say.

Well, that's the roundup. I have a few seaside daisies besides, in the "front" garden, but it's dark and rainy outside and I forgot to snap their portraits yesterday, so you can just imagine their happy little daisy faces.

By the way, Ms. Town Mouse is skipping bloom day this month (unless she changes her mind) due to lack of actual blooms in her more shady garden.

Now, off to May Dreams Gardens to register and enjoy a sampling of some other gardeners' blooms! Thanks as ever for hosting this meme, Carol!

Propagation Update Part 1 - State of the Facilities

Hi Dave, this post is especially for you.

My beautiful greenhouse, built by my wonderful Rat. Patio by both of us.

David Sauter was my esteemed professor in last quarter's Foothill College class on greenhouse and nursery management, and he allowed me to do the practical portion of the course at home, thus allowing me to combine work and school. Before I get to the seedling report (in another post), I'm going to step back and take a look at how things are going in and around the greenhouse.

If you want to see the whole saga of the greenhouse planning/building project, Dave, you can search using the label "greenhouse" but my favorite post is the one where Dusky Footed Wood Rat and I serendipitously found the free glass windows. That was so much fun.

Inside the greenhouse: potting bench on the right, prop. benches on the (south facing) left. Three of the windows on the right open. The floor is hardware cloth covered by thick wood mulch. So far it's worked well. No larger critters indoors, just spiders and such.

Every greenhouse I saw while on the course had horizontal fans up high. Our dog spins around in here sometimes, creating a horizontal draft ;-D. But no fans otherwise. The two roof vents open when it's warm, due to expansion of wax.

We may want to add a fan in one wall. It can get really hot in summer, and even in late fall. I don't use the greenhouse much in summer. Temperature regulation is an issue. I lost a whole batch of  seep monkeyflower, Mimulus guttatus, seedlings last year due to an unexpected hot day while I was away at work.

The roof and back panels and bit above the door are made of Solexx, which we have found to be just excellent - it provides diffuse bright light, and is very easy to work with. It's made of polyethylene, which I understand is easier to recycle than polypropylene.

Also all the greenhouses I saw this quarter used bottom heat. I finally started using a bit of heating under the flats - the orangy thing there is the heating pad, the green box behind is its thermostat.

Two pots of plants have responded so far to the bottom heat, and they had already germinated. I cover this area lightly with a plastic sheet because the heat dries out the planting media. Heat is set at 85, as suggested on the instructions. I'm new to this and. I don't really know what I'm doing. Should I set the temperature  lower at night?

One giant wake robin seedling, Trillium chloropetalum, germinated! I'm very excited! At least I think it's a giant wake robin seedling. And since adding bottom heat it has perked up considerably. It's one of the local wild seed mysteries I sowed this year from forays in earlier years., when I was clearing out my seed collection.

The other thing that put on a burst of growth was this mystery. I still don't know what it is.

I was also interested in the lectures on pests and IPM. So far I've just seen some tiny flies flying around the plants. I don't know if I should be concerned. They are enjoying the warmth and moisture, I'm sure. They don't seem to be causing any problems so far.

On the potting bench: all the junk, tidied up a bit I admit for this photo op.

It is really not a good idea to combine potting shed activities with greenhouse activities. It's a bit humid in the greenhouse and you want to keep other stuff nice and dry. We've been in discussions, about this, Rat and I. Negotiations ongoing. Also the potting bench shouldn't have that junk on it.

Under the potting bench: unused bulb growing boxes (built by Rat) on left and various media ingredients - peat, potting soil, vermiculite, fertilizer, sand. Perlite and re-usable media are in the bins at the end (see picture of interior).

I have a bit of a shaded area between the greenhouse and the fence (thanks again to Rat). Here I have wetland plants a-propagatin' for use in the natural pool conversion project (search using label Pool conversion for details). There's iris leaved rush, and wild ginger, and coltsfoot, and redwood sorrel, and a sedge and a rush and other things - some IDs only approximate.

My other prop. area is on the east side of the upper deck that wraps around the house.

Here is where plants "grow out," new term I learned in class. Right now there are mostly things left over from last year with, in some pots, their re-seeded seedlings. The four boxes on the right are bulb boxes in their second year.  It gets pretty packed up here later in the season, if the seedlings thrive. Here the plants are safe from the many and varied critters below, and it gets afternoon shade. We have a shady disused horse corral that might be put to good use one of these days.

In the bulb boxes are: soap plant, Chlorogalum pomeridianum; fairy lanterns, Calochortus albus; Fremont's star lily, Zygadenus fremontii; and a mystery. Advice: don't use Sharpies for labeling things - labels are now pure white. I'm only sure which one is soap plant at this point (above). Three of the four boxes are showing green shoots.

On the deck, one of the few nursery-bought natives I'm propagating from cuttings - Catalina currant, Ribes viburnifolium, one of my favorite partial shade foliage plants - stays nice and green all year. I lightly pruned them. I'm trying to get better at formative pruning.

One of last year's thimbleberry plants (Ribes parviflorum) - pruned. I hate formative pruning. It feels so - brutal. I need to understand the pruning guidelines for the different plants. Always more to learn..

One thing I've learned is that people in my neighborhood don't want more trees. Big surprise. -- Neither do I. I'm going to stop propagating ceanothus and madrone and toyon - or propagate them on demand, or for people in the Valley - where I had some takers when I put these extras on offer via the Gardening with Natives forum.

Instead, I'll focus at least initially on perennials that are attractive for use in the garden, and in wilder areas visible to the home, and for erosion control. Also clarkia. Surely I will fill the place with Clarkia purpurea over time!

And manzanita. The endemic species here is brittleleaf manzanita, Arctostophylos tomentosa ssp. crustacea. It's the only local chaparral shrub that everyone likes. I was talking to the owner of a local winery where they are going to put in a California native garden, and that's the one plant he knew he wanted there. Dave, your lectures certainly sharpened my sense of "the market" - who is going to want the natives I propagate. I tend to propagate just to see if I can.

(Click to enlarge)

It would take a while for my seedlings to get this beautifully twisted, and maybe they wouldn't. We cleared away the rest of the shrubs that were intertwined with this manzanita (fuel reduction, fire safety) and this is what was left!

Well, that's the tour, Dave, hope you enjoyed this look around my nascent nursery and ongoing propagation efforts. Thanks for the solid grounding in nursery and greenhouse basics. I know I've got a long way to go, but so far it's been a very pleasant journey and I'm looking forward to the next leg.

I'll do another post on the state of the seedlings, but I think I've rabbited on long enough for one day.

California Fall Color

I've been wanting to show off my CA natives in their fall colors for a while. We've had an unusually long and colorful fall season, though many of the most stunning displays are street trees that are not native to the area. Still, the Ribes above (I think this is Ribes aureum) is certainly quite stunning.

I also like what the thimbleberry has done, the pattern has been building on the leaves for a few weeks and it's pretty as a picture.

Some of the best displays can be seen when hiking. The big leaf maple and the smaller vine maple both with large golden leaves don't even look as if they belong here, just a few feet from some evergreen oaks.

I took these photos a few weeks ago. Since then, it's been so cold that the picture most likely changed.

In my own garden, a non-native Japanese maple has been especially stunning this year - until a single night of wind and rain removed all the leaves at once. But before that, weeks and weeks of color.

Latecomers to the fall color extravaganza are the Ribes speciosum. They started out like this maybe a month ago.

And then, slowly, slowly they've changed more and more, until I saw them light up the corner of the garden yesterday.

And of course I had to make some photos of the show - it really was special.

Meanwhile, in the front, Aristolochia California is also turning yellow before turning brown. I feel so lucky to enjoy those fleeting days of color, before some of our plants go dormant.

 

This might well be the latest set of fall colors that Dave at The Fall Color Project is getting - but you'll have to agree that I had to wait for the Ribes. Have a look at who else is showing off his fall colors, and enjoy a little color before the snow covers most of the country.

A Trip to Sierra Azul Nursery and Gardens

Jeff and Lisa Rosendale have been working the 6.5 acres site that is now Sierra Azul Nursery and Gardens and its sister business for wholesale customers, Rosendale Nursery, for 23 years. It was strawberry fields when they bought it. Strawberries, as we know, are grown with just about the worst agricultural chemicals there are, so before they could go into production, they had to give the soil time to recover, planting various cover crops and tilling them in. Then they tried their hand at the cut flower market, growing in a simple grid layout. Their plants became waterlogged. The soil is loam for about 18 inches down then clay for 150 feet! Now they use berms to raise up the planting areas, and they switched business models. Sierra Azul Nursery and Gardens is a retail garden nursery specializing in Mediterranean plants, and it has been in operation for 16 years now. It is owned by the Rosendales, and operates with a small staff.

Part of the demonstration gardens, with informal lawn paths, berms and sculptures

  And BTW Jeff wrote a thoroughly great article on building berms here.

Sierra Azul and Rosendale Nurseries are a very different proposition from the large investor-funded business that my horticulture class toured earlier in the day (see A Trip to Suncrest Nurseries). Jim Marshall (General Manager of Suncrest) is a thoroughly passionate and dedicated nurseryman. But I get the feeling Jeff is viscerally connected to his nursery. He struck me as a brooding visionary, a hard working dreamer.

The nursery truly is a delightful place to visit. If you live near Watsonville, go there - it's just opposite the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.

The first thing you see when you park at Sierra Azul Nursery is a spectacular border of succulents dividing the nursery from its neighboring property.

Then you enter the nursery itself and find interesting islands of plants, each with a theme like  Succulents, Australians, California Natives, and so on

Wander on through the nursery and you find yourself in two acres of demonstration gardens and picnic tables. Pleasantly haphazard in that wonderful way where you don't know, but anticipate, what amazement awaits you around the next bend. Amazing sculptures are tucked away all over the garden. Jeff works with the Arts Council of Watsonville, and places art from as many as fifty artists in the gardens each year. Here is an extract from an essay Jeff wrote in 2006:

The garden is more alive and more moving because of these sculptures and because the artist's expressions are moving within the garden, they are moving within our minds.

Wow, I really like that.

I love these colorful screens that add mysterious perspectives to the garden

More sculpture in the garden ...

Whimsical dragonfly sculpture

But my main interest here was not so much the pretty retail side of the business - I wanted to see the sister business, Rosendale Nursery, where plants are propagated and grown for sale both at Sierra Azul and also to wholesale customers.

The nursery's dog accompanies us to the other half of the property.

It isn't the deluxe million dollar structure they have at Suncrest, but the propagation house does the job. This is not the peak season so the prop house was not in full swing.

The propagation house, with misters and underbed heating.

In the prop house, cuttings get heat and mist. The temperature is kept to a minimum of 70 degrees at night, using underbed heating. The mist is delivered for three seconds every twenty minutes, or when the weather is cool, every 40 minutes. The amount of mist required also depends on leaf size.

A wide variety of propagules

Jeff explains about the heating, while our illustrious professor, Dave Sauter, listens with interest (I blurred out other students' faces)

This photo shows the underbed heating - hot water runs through the tubes, which are bedded in pebbles (Jeff said they are switching to lava rock) which I expect retains and radiates the heat evenly.

Underbed heating. The crusty stuff on the tubes is no doubt caused by minerals in the well water.

More healthy babies

On to the potting bench...

Jeff's wife Lisa Rosendale, is the chief propagator. Here he's showing us the mixes they use. Interesting that each of the two nurseries we visited uses different kinds of mixes, and different treatment for the propagules.

• For rooting, they use 75 percent perlite and 25 potting medium (peat? - I missed the detail here sorry). And also Root Shield. It's an anti-fungal powder, itself a "predatory fungus" which we just heard about in our class. Fungus in the greenhouse can be deadly of course.
• For liner soil the mix is potting soil plus perlite and fertilizer pellets, and I'm sorry that I didn't get the percentage details. 

Jeff said that this mix costs too much to use for regular large pots, but I missed what he uses for the larger pots. I did catch the economic considerations that illustrate the reality of running a small business, though.

The rooted cuttings (or seedlings) go into liners. Tiny liners. If you've read the post on Suncrest, you may recall Jim saying that they now use extra deep liners. At Sierra Azul by contrast, Jeff said they get great results - and save money - using very short liners. Again the economy.

Jeff showing a nicely rooted plant that was growing in one of the tiny liners.

They are also experimenting with selling plants in quart containers instead of gallons. Very successful - and saves money in potting media.

Rooted cuttings (and seedlings) in liners go into the shade house to grow more roots. I like shade houses in general. I like the feeling of airy protection.

We follow Jeff into the shade house where cuttings grow

Growing roots

Propagules that need extra protection and warmth go into a quonset style house covered in shadecloth and plastic.

More plants growing on in a quonset-style shade house.

Students asked various questions along the way. I had a lot of questions too - most of which I didn't think about till after we left. Like - How many hours a week do you work? How do you make a living here? I mean how does it all break down? I'm so curious. But though Jeff was very open, there are certain questions you don't ask.

The tour made me admire Jeff and Lisa greatly. They are doing both what Suncrest does, and what Suncrest's retail nursery customers do. It made me realize that I'll likely never run a nursery as such, not one that pays any bills. Just a "gentlewoman's nursery," like a gentleman's farm. Maybe I can earn my bread and butter by writing a book about living in the WUI. (Wildland-Urban Interface). We in the WUI, I'll call it - It'll sell millions! Millions I tell you!

Here is the very large shade house where the plants are finished off

Jeff did tell us that they've had a 40% drop in sales with the mortgage disaster. Around eight hundred nurseries in Oregon have gone out of business in the past three years, he said. And his main advice to us starting out - don't get into debt! (I wonder if there is some debt he regrets, another question you can't ask.)

Note: After Jeff read this post, he left a comment on the topic of debt - please see his comment at the end of this post.

Very large! There is also a similar area outdoors (see photo above, with dog)

Touring both these nurseries was truly fascinating, and I'm grateful to Jim at Suncrest and Jeff at Sierra Azul for their time and for the information they shared. Such a contrast in the scale of these businesses, but in both cases, such dedication, and such a variety of nice healthy plants they are providing for use in California gardens. I'll close with just one -

Fremontodendron blooming in the shade house - one of my favorite California native shrubs