Town Mouse and Country Mouse

February First Views, Country Mouse

2012-02-01T00:09:00.000-08:00

It was a foggy morning when I went outside with my camera to take photos for Town Mouse's meme, First Views. Please visit her post, and sign in to the Mr Linky thingy there to join in! It's fun to see wider garden shots each month. I like to step back and assess the state of the garden, and think about what to focus on in the upcoming months.

The ceanothus shrubs are bursting into bluish pink buds and starting to bloom. In this photo is Dark Star. The wartleaf wild native ones are also bursting into bloom. I'm restraining myself from showing a closeup. You'll have to wait till bloom day!

I decided to ignore the garden areas near the house this time, and the north side areas, and instead take you on a walk along the road, which bisects our property on the south side.

Below Rat is on the road, approaching our driveway which rises up to the right. We've been walking Duncan. You can hardly see Duncan in the distance. I'd like to get that bank on the right blooming one of these days. I've planted thimbleberry and seafoam shrubs along the edge of the redwood grove, local natives, where scrub oaks and hazels are also growing, and creeping snowberry, and wild rose, and hairy honeysuckle. I hope this spring they all put out some blossoms. Sometimes fairy lanterns and soap root grow here too. I've got them a-propagating and am hoping to be able to get enough bulbs to start making this area pop with color and liveliness in spring. But not for another couple years. Getting bulbs going from seed takes patience. Three to four years.

Turning to our right, we can see the rest of the bank around the small redwood grove behind dad's cottage, and our corral fence. The cute shed there is our neighbors'.

In the pic below, we've continued along the road a little and are walking past our driveway on the right. I've weeded this area pretty well but I want more pretty things growing there. It's a tough area. Dry shade, and the bedrock is close to the surface.

A little later when the sun came out, I rewalked some of the route. Just around the corner from the above pic, you can see the below area well thinned out, and the little oak tree I pruned last year.

Continuing on the road... Sorry for the "jumpy weather." We're back in the foggy set of pics again! This area was also thinned, and it needs to be cleared of dead annuals and generally just thinned out again (next summer). I might wait till the rains are done to clear the dead annuals. Haha, like we get rain any more! Well at least Duncan's paws were damp this morning - he is my moisture meter!

All along this road to left and right we have pretty manzanitas, all just growing there by themselves. All coming into full bloom. They are hairy and get chewed and invaded by fungus, but they manage to be stunning anyway.

More manzanitas. Prettification would be good here also, but takes time. Picture does not do justice to the manzanitas, whose twisty deep red-brown trunks and branches are smooth and marvelous.

Below we are looking downhill to the left of the road. This area has been thinned to about 10 - 15 feet in, then left undisturbed. Last year's (local wild) annuals also need to be trimmed back and also shrubs starting to grow too close to the road edge. Lots of monkeyflower here, and black sage.

Below is another pretty manzanita, this one on the lower chaparral side. Might be a different species. They interbreed so it is hard to tell. Most have burls but some seem not to. Maybe they're just younger.

This is the end of our property, and we've turned around. Now we are walking east, and the house is up the hill to the left.

Almost the same shot, when I came back about half an hour later.

I spotted some blue witch growing in the middle of the muddle of the upper chaparral slope. I got some seedlings to start this year, then they all died. I'll have to try again. It's pretty but gets eaten to the stems. I think it could be a pretty garden plant, with a little protection.

Looking downhill again, the wall of untouched (by us) chaparral just past the thinned strip, misty redwoods (not on our property) in the distance. I don't know when this area was last cleared if at all.

Below, again looking at the lower chaparral, fog starting to push back towards the ocean, which is on our right, six miles off. We have to cut back the chamise, adenostoma fasciculatum, which is the most flammable chaparral shrub we have. I don't remove it, just whack it back, let it grow to a couple feet or three. It's so pretty and it is a dominant part of the natural mix here, which is known as chamise chaparral, actually. I so want this whole roadside to be a pretty showcase of local natives. But it is a loooong strip.

OK, just one parting shot of the somewhat messy pool garden and greenhouse, just to let you know that Rat is planning to tack on an addition to the end of the greenhouse for dry storage, and where the black pots are there on the right, to build a shade house. So the greenhouse and the shade house will be something of an el shape. This will provide a wider range of growing conditions for my propagation efforts. The greenhouse gets too hot, but outside of it, critters munch the seedlings, so I want an area out of full sun and with some critter protection. I hope it will be a nice place to sit too.

OK, off to register with Mr. Linky on Ms Town's post. Why don't you show us your garden shots, too? Any time this week or so is fine, we're not going to insist on meeting any deadline... Happy gardening!

February First Views (Town Mouse)

2012-01-31T06:44:00.000-08:00

As Gardenrant reports, the NWF has come to a more or less satisfactory close. So we can return to our regular programming, and with the first week of the month just starting, it's time for First Views. I started this meme because I realized that I had lots of great close-ups of the flowers in my garden, but that I did not have pictures of the garden itself, as it unfolds month by month. Now I post views of the garden every month in the first week of the month, and invite others to share their views.

When I started walking around with my camera early this morning, I was actually somewhat surprised by how green it is. We've had 2.75 inches of rain since last June (if this were a normal year, we'd have 10 inches or more). But somehow, the plants manage. Sure, I've started to water once a week, but the annuals are coming up all by themselves, Just look at the bright green California poppy in the picture above.

Other areas are more sparse. Surrounding the green container above we have Columbine all spring and summer, followed by California fuchsia in late summer and fall. But I cut everything back to 1 inch in December, so now the color comes from the Camelia that I add to the garden buddha.

Around the corner things are already more colorful. The little pink blossoms of the Australian tea tree to the right are visited by hummingbirds every day.

Viewed from the other side you can see the bright green Clarkia that somehow seems to hang in there, drought or not. And the biggest surprise - yes, this calls for a close-up.

Salvia brandegii 'Pacific Blue' is actually blooming! Well, I've never seen that in late January before!

Meanwhile, the front garden looks fairly tidy, with most of the leaves gone and the seedheads removed from Eriogonum arborescens (channel island buckwheat). And while I'm sorely missing the rain, I'm not missing the weeds that usually appear with it. Sure, there are still a few weeds but nothing like last year!

In the panorama view, we can see that a few annuals are also risking it (Phacelia to the left of the path). I'm hoping they'll make it, and might just supplement with some water. No irrigation in the front, so we'll see how motivated I get.

As a final picture, another close-up to prove that things are not as grim as they might be. The manzanita "hedge", while not yet as hedge-like as I would have hoped, is blooming quite prettily. Let's add some water here so we can get a little more growth.

And now I'm hoping some of you will join me and Country Mouse in sharing some views of the garden. I'll put up a Mr. Linky widget and visit everyone who decides to participate.

Getting the Word Out (NWF and Scotts): A Contrarian View

2012-01-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

This is a response to Carole Sevilla Brown's interview with David Mizejewski of National Wildlife Federation. Read Carole's post, David Mizejewski Defends National Wildlife Federation Partnership with Scotts Miracle Gro and listen to her interview.

And before you read on please first read Town Mouse's response on our blog (just prior to this post) Getting the Word Out (to which my post is a response).

The issue, for those like me who are coming to the table just lately, is that National Wildlife Federation has partnered with Scotts, the company that brings you Miracle-Gro, Osmocote, Ortho, Roundup, Scotts Lawn Service, and Scotts Wild Bird Food.

Confession: Of that list I have in fact used Roundup and an Ortho nasty brush killer, which I used one time dabbing carefully on trunks of a huge swathe of poison oak near our home, not long after I moved in. Roundup I use very seldom and also only on poison oak. I've tried to get off the Roundup, but I periodically cave in, preferring careful and limited use of it once or twice a year in areas near paths around our home to the three weeks of itchy rash I almost always get no matter how careful I am. Roundup is also one that people have mixed views about, and people on the wildlife side I respect think it's not that bad and has its place. Thus I vacillate. I am a vacillator, in fact as you will see in this post.

I also use osmocote, as do many native plant nurseries such as Yerba Buena nursery.

We all in the choir know about lawns and the impact they have on the environment in so many ways, and if you don't you can easily find out by a simple google search. Lose the lawn, folks.

OK, here's my off the cuff response. I posted this as a comment on the Beautiful Wildlife Gardens post, but I'd like to bring it into our space here. ...

I expect David is totally sincere. I expect he is tired of just preaching to the choir and wants to make a difference in the lives of all the people in the Scott's camp, which is a lot of people. I expect he wants to shift their views and open their eyes and get their kids outside and benefit nature. I expect he feels that he's opening up Scotts to some input from the enlightened side. I expect people at NWF seriously argued themselves into the ground over this. And there is all that money, which they can use to broadcast their message more widely.

I expect Scotts may have had different discussions in their boardrooms, just like Chevron in theirs, regarding their environmental greenwash projects.

I expect NWF has in fact lost its base, and maybe they calculated the cost/benefit ratio of doing that. We'll take down our signs, and others will put them up. On their lawns.

As they say, there is no bad publicity - the discussions we in the choir are having, the loud chorus of protest - it's all good in terms of the larger cause. And that also probably played into the NWF calculations.

So I don't know. I'm not in favor of dumping chemicals on mother nature of course. But I do see the thick layers of insulation between different opinion and thought groups in today's media. Some people have a Fox News reality, some are Huffington Posters, and it's hard to bridge the gap and create cross communication - that insularity is promoted by the internet (we find what we search for) and it is a very bad thing.

I hope NWF does punch through to get kids off their sofas, off their lawns, and into the wilds.

As we fire arrows at their ships, sailing off towards these enemy shores I think I actually do wish them well in their changed mission, though I am almost afraid to say so in this unanimously oppositional space.

Politics is about compromise, that's what I learned in American political science 101. NWF is a political group.

We also need a choir, and I'm happy to be part of it. Life is a lot simpler in the choir. But I'd also like someone to reach certain folk in my orbit that are beyond my reach. Maybe then they'll be able to hear my song.

So - I'm just not as sure as the rest of you on this.

Getting the Word Out

2012-01-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

Normally I'm happy to stay in my little California Native Plant corner and let the great world of gardening unfold outside. But I do want to point anybody who might have missed it to some important posts:

Earlier this week, Carole at Beautiful Wildlife Garden wrote an informative and very even-handed post about Scotts partnering with the National Wildlife Federation. This was followed by a somewhat more spirited post by Susan at Gardenrant "Everyone Furious at National Wildlife Federation".
I particularly liked this part:
"And I'm not the only one (by far) who got their yard NWF-certified and came to regret it due to the onslaught of junk mail that followed. I've worked for nonprofits, done fund-raising for them, but never seen anything like the weekly pleas for money from the NWF. How many stuffed polar bears do they think we need?"

And today, Susan at Garden Rant points to the following information:
"Wow, Scotts is in the news again, with this announcement of their $4.5 million fine for selling pesticide-laden bird food and falsifying their EPA paperwork about it, no less."

Makes me quite happy that I never managed to sign up for the wildlife habitat program and had my own California Native Garden sign made. But also makes me sad. How far have we come with spin? Does NWF really believe this storm will blow over? And might they be right?

In Search of Rain

2012-01-24T18:49:00.000-08:00

Average annual rainfall varies for different San Francisco Bay area (and Santa Cruz county) towns, but where I live, 13 inches per rainfall year is normal. Last year, we managed 16 inches, and the garden looked great. This year, though, things are grim. With the rainfall year starting July 1st, we only had 1.5 inches of rain by January 10, the driest winter in recorded history.

I actually turned on the irrigation once a week and did some hand watering, but clearly the ferns under the redwoods did not consider my efforts adequate, and the Artemesia above looks as if it's destined for the compost pile.

Why is this happening? A big part of it is that it's a La Niña year. El Niño and La Niña are both weather patterns. During a period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean are lower than normal by 3–5 °C. This pattern results in more rain and snow in some areas (remember the news about the Alaska village?) and less rain in other areas.

During a La Niña year, southern California has below normal percipitation fairly reliably (see this discussion). For Central California, the situation is a little more open ended. The dividing line between the wet northern area in a La Niña year and a dry El Nino year is around San Francisco (see this discussion). So we can have dry El Niño and wet La Niña years.

This year, though, it's been very dry. My wildflower seeds did not sprout. Half of the Manzanitas do not seem to have buds. It's been a little depressing, and not as exciting to be in the garden. So I was really happy when a series of storms was forecast for last weekend, and went in search of rain at Arastradero Open Space Preserve.

I know we usually yearn for photos with blue sky and green leaves, but I was so happy to see the rainclouds behind the native oaks. In fact, it looked as if it already rained closer to the coast - would the rain make it over here?

The lichen looked just as dried out as my ferns, but as I started heading back to the car, the first rain drops started to fall. We had a good soaking rain the first night, and a slightly less impressive storm a day later. We're not at 2.7 inches for the rainfall year, still 50% of normal but it's a start. Let's keep our fingers crossed for more - the gardens, the trees, the flowers, the critters - we all need it.

"The Landscaping Revolution" - Review of an Out-of-Print Marvel

2012-01-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

Much as I support my local book store, I do like online book shopping. You look up one book and Amazon shows you ten other books you might like to read. That's how I came across The Landscaping Revolution: Garden With Mother Nature, Not Against Her by Andy Wasowski, with Sally Wasowski. This book was published in 2000 and no doubt some of the statistics quoted could use updating, but the points are all still relevant today.

READ ME

At first I was, in a weird way, totally dismayed by this book -- It's so good -- what's left for me to do? Andy (with Sally) Wasowski has said it all! And in such an entertaining and engaging way!

Andy (with Sally) is not talking to you and me. If you are reading this blog, you've already gotten Mother Nature's memo. You know from pollinators. You've banished the toxic chemicals that harm them (and your kids and pets). You are saving a ton on your water bill. You understand the importance of supporting biodiversity in your specific locale, and you already experience the deep enjoyment of nurturing nature's varied bounties right in your own yard and nearby wilderness areas. And, hopefully, sharing them with the children around you.

No, Andy (with Sally) is talking to those other people you know. You know who I mean. The ones with the large lawns, edged with neat rows of alternating annuals. The ones who live in a universe of gardening pleasures so very far from your own that your light just never seems to reach them -- and vice versa.

Andy's style reaches them. I'm sure of it. He amuses and persuades with so many well aimed points, in a book that is so pithy, so friendly, that is laid out in such a lively and non-confrontational way -- surely anybody with a lawn dependency who reads this book will say, "Huh. Well you know I never really thought about it like that before." And they'll ruminate on the ideas freshly sown in their minds, as they gaze out with changed eyes over that velvety green expanse, while a new way of approaching their gardens germinates quietly but surely...

The people I plan to give this book to are my sister and brother-in-law. Several years ago, they retired to an over 55 community called The Villages. (BTW my sister happens to be a generation or so older than I am.)

The Villages, located in south San Jose CA, is a large gated housing development divided into smaller communities, each one styled a village. It offers people who live there a rich community life with lots of clubs and social activities. They have swimming pools, club houses, restaurants, and golf courses. Golf courses are pretty central to the identity of The Villages. My sister and bro in law particularly enjoy golf and are active on their village's golfing committees. They also enjoy sitting outside with a Coke in the afternoon to watch the deer and the ducks that wander across the expansive green lawn (maintained by The Villages) that stretches from their patio all the way to the lake with its large, sparkling fountain. It is pretty, no doubt.

Here is how The Villages describes its setting on their web site:

1,200 acres of lush landscaping and sparkling lakes set against a picture-perfect background of natural beauty.

Friends, I need not comment to you on the many ironies of that description.

My sister and I love each other dearly, and agree to differ on many things. As my dad and I approached her home on our last visit, I noticed some of the lawn turf near the lake had been replaced by a new, more natural-looking section of landscaping, boulders with mulch and smallish new plantings between. I asked her about it and had to take a step back to avoid the blast of horrified disapproval. "I mean, that's what people come here for," she said, truly stunned and baffled, "The lovely meadows. People love looking out over the lawns, watching the deer and the ducks passing through. Nobody wants to see these ugly boulders. They're not even pretty boulders. They're just ugly. Our property values have depreciated for sure because of this. Nobody wants it, nobody!"

I myself in turn was stunned and baffled how to respond. "I haven't seen it up close," I said, lamely. "I'll have to have a look on my way out." I'm more of a writer than a talker to be honest. (BTW I didn't get a chance to walk around the new landscaping, but next time I visit I'll take their chihuahua for a walk, and will report back to this space.)

Well, now I have a response. I'll give them Andy (with Sally)'s book. Maybe they will even donate it to The Villages's library when they've read it.

If you also want to reach those in your orbit who have not yet received Mother Nature's memo, I highly recommend you give them a copy of The Landscaping Revolution. Right now. There are about 50 copies available as I write, used, on Amazon.com. On Amazon you'll also find later books by Sally (with Andy) Wasowski, which I hope to read soon.

And by the way, there are people at The Villages who got the memo. I met one. I talked with her when I was docenting at Town Mouse's garden during the Going Native garden tour the year before last. She was on a committee researching alternatives to the chemical lawn landscaping approach, most likely the very committee responsible for the xeriscaped area so abhorrent to my sister. "It's a generational thing," she sighed. "People just won't give up their lawns." But good for her - it seems that the group did succeed, or at least got a toe in the door. And as the younger oldsters in my generation start moving in -- and as The Villages company faces ever larger water bills -- the revolution will roll on.

They Put the Fun in Fungi. What Do We Do?

2012-01-19T08:10:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, like hundreds and hundreds of others, I went to the Santa Cruz Fungus Fair. I began my visit by standing in line for half an hour to get into the lecture by David Arora, author of the great Mushroonms Demystified. The lecture was called "the Wheel of Fungi."

I had time to observe the fungus folk wandering by, including this guy with the enormous fly agaric puffy hat and mushroom shaped dark glasses, shown above.

Not a stiletto heel in sight. (No offence to those who enjoy style, it just isn't for me.)

Instead, a collection of shaggy and variously tonsured individuals, generally genial. I was feeling generally genial myself, and enjoyed being one with the crowd.

Then I noticed among us more mature individuals, a high proportion of young people. Lively and - well - cool. Hip. Many were actually non-dorky. Waiting happily to attend a lecture about fungus. The line was out the door.

I sat pondering this in the animated audience hubub that lasted several minutes while Mr Arora futzed around at the front of the room getting the computer and mic set up.

"You might wonder what 'The Wheel of Fungi' refers to," he said. "Something like the wheel of life? well no." (I'm paraphrasing btw). "Or some cool fungus identification wheel where you spin things around to help you identify fungus in the field? Not that either. Actually, it's a drinking game."

Lecture is a bit of a misnomer for the eclectic and semi randomized collection of stories and slide shows that Mr Arora showed, as determined by the turn of a wheel of fortune type device that audience members got to spin for prizes.

One story was about a rough and ready mushroom picker, a big guy who swore a lot, but whose enthusiasm capped Arora's expert advice, when it came to convincing some people to try eating a new mushroom. That bugged him. He says when he revises his masterwork, Mushrooms Demystified, he'll use more lively language and not the language of the field guide genre, rather insipid.

Hm. I thought about that. Being lively and engaging. Made me think.

It was all a lot of fun, and none of it was heavy intellectual fare. It put you in the spirit of mushrooming, which I am now wondering comes directly from Mr Arora himself. Zany, enthusiastic, funny, unapologetically weird.

The prior week, I attended a talk at the Santa Cruz chapter of the California Native Plant Society, given by a young mycologist, Christian Schwartz. He was also very enthusiastic and a fun speaker. And very informational (unlike Mr Arora). There were about 30 or so grayhaired people scattered about the room, and maybe five younger folk. Most of the attendees were either on a chapter committee, or live with a committe member.

Dang. More people would have enjoyed this talk. How can we attract more people? Can't we plant people be more hip and funny, too? Maybe?

I took a quick look over at the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz web site. ("When it Rains, it Spores.") Hm. What's this on their page: a ministers' meeting?? -- Why, they have "Ministers" - instead of committee members. Minister of Propaganda for gosh sake. And they have a fun mission statement in addition to their motto:

We pursue fungi out of hunger, curiosity and addiction. We seek improved access to greener grass, deeper duff and the warmth and security of togetherness...

I mean, basically, it seems, they go on treasure hunts and eat good food. (Not a lot of mention of that other aspect of some mushrooms - their ability to change consciousness!)

What do we native plant folk offer? Well, we mice do our best. Here we are volunteering in the CNPS booth at last year's San Francisco Flower and Garden show, resplendent in our ears (Ms Town on the left and Ms Country on the right):

So I've been revolving ideas. I'm now co-chair of our CNPS chapter's publicity and outreach efforts, though our efforts have not yet actually begun. Except in this post.

Sustainability, ecology, restoration, wildlife, appreciating the mystery of mother nature right here, right now. Gardening. These are interesting but not zany.

OK, let the mushroom folk have zany, we can be something else interesting and engaging especially to the younguns amungus.

I'm thinking about it. Suggestions welcome!

GBBD January 2012, Country Mouse

2012-01-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

Like Town Mouse, I too had a lapse of awareness regarding bloom day being upon us, and this morning was busy at the CNPS propagation group, which was lots of fun, potting up rooted cuttings, sowing seeds, and dividing perennials, in the congenial company of gardeners. But I did run around with my camera just before leaving and here are a few of the native plants blooming today. Not so many, but what are there are nice.

Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) spikes, with seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus) below.

A currant bush just covered in blooms - Ribes indecorum

Here's the whole bush - photo does not do it justice.

Fuchsia-flowering gooseberry (Ribes speciosum) - hardly any so far this dry year.

Maybe wild indigenous pink flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) Or naturalized from a garden ribes. I'm not sure. When we first got here there were some ribes like this, but they disappeared, and I've planted different sorts since.

A nursery-bought spreading manzanita, Arctostaphylos 'Winter Glow.' It gets water. The local indigenous ones are starting to bloom too, but I didn't get a snap of them this morning.

Ceanothus 'Joyce Coulter'. The native wartleaf ceanthus is also blooming a little bit, again, sorry, didn't get a snap of it today. It's down by the road.

Amazingly some of the local naked buckwheat (Erioganum nudum) is throwing out some late blooms.

Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica) is covered in modest blooms, much loved by bees.

Part of the coffeeberry bush. It's an indigenous local that decided to pop up all by itself in a nice spot in our south garden.

Nursery bought Verbena lilacena 'De La Mina' is blooming quite profusely.

And coast sunflower (Encelia californica), a Southern California native, is also perking up with our midwinter summer weather.

This sweet little dudleya is blooming away. The label has faded and I don't remember which one it is. Anybody know? Its surrounded by Indian Lettuce, which grows like a weed here.

Another late bloomer - or early maybe - golden yarrow (Eriophyllum confertiflorum), local native propagated from seed. Oops what has fallen over behind it? I better go check...

Closeup of that golden yarrow blossom. No germination so far of the seeds I sowed in October. I may try again in February.

And that's it, folks. Please do click or just read on to see Town Mouse's bloom day post, and check out all - well, many anyway - of the bloom day posts available courtesy of Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Happy gardening!

GBBD - The Out Of Focus Edition (TM)

2012-01-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Between breakfast and a trip to the airport, I realized that I'd forgotten it was Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, when Carol at May Dreams Gardens invites us all to look around and appreciate the flowers and other joys our garden brings us. Well, no problem, I'd just pop out, snap out a few photos, and be gone. And indeed, the hummingbird sage (Salvia spatacea) above had been looking tantalizing all week, and I happily snapped away - except it ended up artistically blurred.

Next came the native buckwheat (with the leaves nicely in focus) which has been blooming non-stop since summer. I'm leaving it for the few pollinators that venture out in the current 60+ degrees.

The new Abutilon "Fruit Punch" I bought recently was going to be the big splash of color in this post. Except it just kept moving. Or maybe I was moving? No matter, here it is, a slapstick photography exhibit.

But there is more. Even without rain for 2 months, the Australian Tea Tree is putting out pretty pink blossoms, visited by hummingbirds every morning.

Turn around from there and you'll see that Arctostaphylos St. Helena, a native manzanita, is blooming for the first time in my garden. I'm very happy with this replacement for a Japanese maple that didn't like the sun in that spot.

Nice focus on the leaves, or was that the stem? Regardless, I had better luck with the yarrow 'Paprika' which, amazingly, still blooms.

Then I turned toward the redwoods for a photo of the Jade plant's blossoms.

And snapped the Hellebore while I was there.

Seeing that it was soon time to leave, I still took the time to look up at the first Camelia (the bushes are by now 10 feet high).

Then I found a second blossom close to the ground and put it on our garden buddha, thinking how happy I am about being here and enjoying the blossoms, the birds, and the hope of some rain next week.

This afternoon I'll go over to Carol and look at what else is going on in the world bloomwise.

And I hope you'll join Ms. Country Mouse and me for the First Views meme in the first week of the month. We show some big views of our gardens (rather than focusing on close-ups of the blooms). We've been finding first views educational, and we'll enjoy seeing what your garden really looks like.

A Whole Branch of Wartleaf Ceanothus, Chopped into Cuttings

2012-01-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

Wart leaf ceanothus with blossom

Wartleaf ceanothus, Ceanothus papillosus, grows here natively. Unlike the tree form of ceanothus that occurs here (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus) it's a shrubby form, somewhat sprawling and angular -and, yes, it has warty leaves that are not too appealing, in a garden way, to be quite honest. But overall, and when it's blooming, it's quite lovely, and quite drought tolerant.

Growing wild along the neighbor fence.

In fact it grows in very poor soil on our chaparral slope and down by the road. It seems OK with sun or part shade. It pops up in the most unpromising spots. But I have so far failed to propagate this shrub. The tree form, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, yes, from seeds. But this one - I tried cuttings in 2009, no success. I tried seeds. Nada. On Las Pilitas Nursery web site, I read:

This species is difficult in the nursery and in gardens. Not for a beginner. Some years, not for experts.

Well, at least I don't feel so all alone.

Anyway I took a notion last weekend, and cut a fairly large branch off one specimen that was growing out into the road. Like a good hunter-gatherer who uses up every bit of an animal, I made cuttings out of every morsel of that branch. I figure I'll try it all. Hardwood cuttings from the base, semi-ripe (which I take to mean not quite hard) cuttings from the thinner, somewhat softer woody bits, and tip cuttings.

I got most of my info about hardwood cuttings from this great book: The American Horticultural Society Plant Propagation. Editor in chief is the wonderfully-named, Alan Toogood. It says you can take hardwood cuttings from late autumn to mid winter. But on the Native Plant Network propagation protocol page for ceanothus in general, it says to take propagate using semi-hard cuttings in May. So if this lot doesn't work, well, that's the thing with propagation - there's generally always another chance. I'll also try from seed again next season. Try, try, try, again!

So, according to the above book, to prepare hardwood cuttings of evergreens, you cut them into sections 8 to 10 inches long. Just below a node at the bottom, just above a node at the top. Strip the leaves off the lower half, and stick them in a large pot (if you're doing just a few). You can also put them directly in the ground. Plant Propagation recommends soil-based rooting medium, defined as follows:

2 parts soil
1 part peat or peat substitute
1 part sand
To each 8 gallons (36 litres), add 1.5 ounces (42 grams) superphosfate, and 3/4 oz (21 grams) limestone.

This book is not specifically for native plants, so I took the general idea and adapted it. What I did in fact was use about equal parts perlite, potting soil, and native sandy soil. Then I added a bit more soil. And a bit of sand. And a few granules Osmocote. I was aiming to get a fairly well-draining and not too rich mix. Not very scientific, but quite a lot of fun.

To prepare the tip cuttings, I took three- to five-inch cuttings, cutting just below a node, stripped the bottom half of the leaves, trimmed the leaves I left on the top half so they didn't make it too top-heavy, and removed any buds. Then I popped them into a seed flat full of a mix that is mostly perlite with a bit of potting soil and vermiculite.

Also I soaked their ends in a liquid rooting hormone for a bit before putting them in. I did the same to the hardwood cuttings though it didn't say to do that. One day I'll take a class in propagation, and get much more informed about all this, but in the meantime, I'm having fun learning by doing.

Hardwood, semi-hardwood, and tip cuttings of wartleaf ceanothus. Bamboo stakes added round the edge to keep the plastic cover off them.

I put them all on the heating pad set to 85 degrees F, and draped them in plastic. Oops - I read on the Native Plant Network that they use 21 degrees C (70 degrees F)!! -- I just ran out and turned down the thermostat!

Plastic cover keeps them from drying out - but I also don't want to keep them too moist

I haven't been keeping them totally covered because they are chaparral plants and don't lose moisture from their leaves like softer-leaved plants, and they can get mildew or fungus if they're too damp. But I do have to go to work, so they have to survive all day without spritzing. One of these days, we'll put in a misting system. I'm going to follow the Curbstone Valley folk post on how they went about it.

In the meantime, I recently bought a "mini-greenhouse," which arrived today ready to assemble. It's a set of wire shelves with a zip-up plastic cover. I think it'll be handy for keeping cuttings in so they don't dry out. I plan to assemble it and keep it in the greenhouse.

Hardwood cuttings are supposed to take 6 to 10 weeks to root, according to the book. So I'll keep you posted on their progress or lack thereof in the upcoming month or two.

Using the same general method, I made some other hardwood cuttings a few weeks ago, of California hazel, Corylus cornuta, and rose, Rosa californica, and creeping snowberry, Symphocarpos mollis, all growing natively on our property. They all seem to have rooted nicely and are starting to bud out. I'll write more about those when I take them out of the pot to check out their roots, in a few more weeks.

The nice thing about propagation is that you get to enjoy the pleasure of anticipation every day!

My green mini wall

2012-01-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

As a gift from Santa this year, I requested a mini green wall. When I look out the kitchen window, all I see is fence and a green wall seemed like a fun thing to try. I had enjoyed the great information about green walls in the fabulous Garden Up, and said to myself: "How hard can it be?"

The wall I ordered was supposed to include mounting hardware, but to my disappointment the hardware would only be useful on walls and could not be used on a fence or a post. I got help from my garden designer, who used hardware similar to picture hanging hardware to attach to two holes on the side. Unfortunately, it was not possible to attach hardware to the top. My designer also supported the frame with a small piece of wood at the bottom (see above).

I then filled the box with a mix I made from potting soil, sand, and lava rock. I was planning on succulents for the green wall, and the individual compartments do not drain, so I wanted a mix that would dry out quickly.

Next came the fun part: From my own garden and from volunteering at the Arizona Garden at Stanford I had collected a decent amount of succulents, some in temporary little pots, some still hardening.

I collected all the plants and stuck them in the box. I kept the box in a fairly vertical position, both to see the design and to see how the plants would do. I grouped similar colors and shapes. The initial design was a heart made of little rosette-shape succulents, but the colors I had available were too similar to make this stand out. Going forward, I'll work on collecting contrasting colors.

As I was standing at the potting bench, I was quite pleased. Only time would tell whether the succulents would survive - I was quite concerned about drainage - but I liked the combination of colors and textures.

Then, I went over to the wall across from the kitchen window to hang the piece. Now, I know we all love success stories, but I'm sorry to admit that because of a very slight outward angle at the top - maybe 1/4 inch - many of the little plants at the top fell out of their little compartment and tumbled to the ground. I had to return the box to a place where it is angled backward just a bit, and stick in the plants again. Now I'm hoping that in a few months they will have rooted enough to allow me to actually hang the thing. An alternative would be to angle the box from the bottom, but that would mean a larger supporting block and an extra block to create the angle.

I'll let you know in a few months how it all comes out. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about making something myself from fabric remnants - I mean, how hard can it be?

(Yeah, I said that before. Well, no matter, it's fun to try).

Tale of Clarkia Number 3

2012-01-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed reading Ms. Country Mouse's post about the clarkias out in her garden, which were growing so nicely and much faster than the ones in the greenhouse.

Oh, how I wish I could report the same. Yes, late last year things were looking fairly promising, I had plants that were about 3 inches high, looking healthy. Then, one morning, I came out to find this:

Who could be the criminal? Not slugs, they would not climb up the stem to eat the leaves. Birds maybe, said my friend Chris, or Racoons which are common in these parts due to the unfortunate abundance of dog food and cat food. In winter, the city also removes some sewer grates so runoff is faster during storms, making the trip from the nearest creek a breeze.

For now, I've sprinkled some hot pepper amongst the remaining plants, but it's a bad feeling to be so totally powerless.

So, dear readers, do you have any idea who this could be, and any advice?

First Views January - Country Mouse

2012-01-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

Nice new banner, Town Mouse. Maybe that picture of ice and moisture, and a rain dance, will actually bring us some winter rains! So this is Town Mouse's First Views meme - views of the garden on (or around!) the first of the month. I'm looking forward to seeing each month in my garden, and those of others who join in. You can link throuh Mr Linky on Town Mouse's post here.

As I look at my photos, it is plain I have a lot of work ahead of me!

On the left side of the driveway half way up from the road, the birdbath has been doing great business. Hm. Maybe I should hide the toilet brush I use for scrubbing it though...

Hoses galore as I try to water things every couple weeks - Don't want recent plantings to dry out. This is "hummingbird hill" between Dad's cottage and the driveway. Lots of penstemons, and recently planted local native California fuschia, and a few succulents. Also Mexican sage, which was here before we came.

Dad's cottage, next to our house. Overgrown with rosemary! Somewhere on the list, making this little garden littler! Can't turn around in the driveway very easily. And replacing most of the rosemary.

Front bed to right of path is looking quite nice. Hummingbird sage in bloom there, and seaside daisy. Near the path itself, not shown here, I need to plant more pretty things. Also we need to hide the electrical stuff on the right there, but we can't settle on a good way to do it.

Front bed to left of path, holding its own. Dark star ceanothus. Under it, lots of Heuchera micrantha, Eriogonum nudum, and some Iris fernaldii. Some little fox sparrows were having a good feed in this bed this morning, jumping the soil and mulch backwards with their claws to look for things to eat. The twiggy trees to left and right are a scrubby flowering cherry type tree I think. I keep meaning to give them a good pruning.

Behind the dark star in the prior photo - the steps down into the chaparral, south east and south slope of the property. Needs plantings to the left of the path. Not sure what to try here - very sunny, very steep, very little soil. Monkeyflower grows here.

Looking to the front door and porch from the chaparral stairs. One of those scrubby flowering cherry (or sim) and manzanitas below. I pruned this one somewhat, to let light through to the manzanitas. I want to plant flowering things along the top of this slope, which is just below the flat south garden area, all the way to the neighbor fence. But maybe not this year.

Moving to the flat south garden area, more hoses, more deep watering. I weeded Experimental Bed #1 bed on the left this weekend. So much popweed and other annual pests. But also lots of Clarkia purpurea reseeding, and some naked buckwheat and lots of Madia elegans, too.

The far bed - I'm half way through weeding it. The low green stuff is Madia sativa, native but weedy. I'm taking it out. The coffeeberry shrub is nice though! You can't see the recent plantings - three spreading ceanothus (forget now which cultivar), and 2 bee's bliss salvia. I hope they'll do their thing and spread. I'm hoping to plant bunches of bunch grasses here too, and clarkia - they're all growing nicely in the greenhouse. I just want them to get a bit bigger before putting them out. And I want there to be some rain too!

Looking across that far bed towards the greenhouse patio. Still some shingling to do on this side of the greenhouse. Bit of the new succulent bed visible below the house windows.

OK I know it just looks like some random stones and juvenile Indian Lettuce, but there are a lot of happy little succulents in here, despite the richer soil that was added here before I decided on succulents. I'm leaving the Indian Lettuce, at least for now. It is quite a mat and is keeping nasty weeds at bay. I'll do something nicer with the stones, which are for access. I need a few more too and some nice boulders.

Duncan leading us through the gate from the little patio to the pool garden. I still can't believe I have all these garden areas. I grew up with such tiny gardens in the UK. How'd I get so lucky!

The long bed in the pool garden beside the neighbor fence. Here I am trying some natives and non-natives, hoping simply for a lot of color. Design sense isn't my strong point, as I may have mentioned before. The Monardella villosa may have to go - because I discovered some local wild monardella villosa, and have a few of its seeds in flats - not really doing anything as yet. But I'm hopeful.

This is the corner between the greenhouse and the neighbor fence. Heuchera micrantha is absolutely loving it here. Also more Iris fernaldii, and some golden yarrow, Eriophyllum confertiflorum, which is proving to be a nice garden plant. I pruned off the naked buckwheat's long stems which were flopping everywhere, and yanked out the thuggish Madia elegans. Shade, richer garden soil - and some irrigation coming through from the neighbor's orchard on the other side all contribute to lusher growth. I've put some yerba buena cuttings here to grow out, in their little liners. This area may turn into a shade house e'er long, if I'm lucky and Rat is ready to build it!

The mound at the beginning of the other long bed, at right angles to the first pool bed above (sort of). Path to the woodland area gate, which still needs a bit of embellishment above it. Encelia californica running wild, and bulb area starting to grow Ithuriel's spear. This area will be flattened and used for the ponds, when we do the natural pool conversion I hope most things can be transplanted.

Rest of that bed, looking towards the pool shed. Wheelbarrow with stuff I weeded/pruned from the sages here. it all looks messy and unformed right now Needs some structure. I hope Winifred Gilman sage will rebound from its pruning and be as stunning in its second year as in its first.

Well that's it. The garden is undertended I have to say. Oh, this month I totally forgot the "wildlife garden" on the other side of Dad's cottage, where I have a lot of ribes, and the woodland valley area. Too bad as some ribes are flowering, including the first of the fuschia flowered ones, Ribes speciosum.

I see a lot of potential and have lots of ideas! Unfortunately, this spring I'll be especially busy with work (work-work as opposed to garden-work). I'm hoping to keep things ticking over, then it's going to be an all out effort come fall.

I'm hoping last fall's hummingbird hill plantings will show some development, and it'll be interesting to see what the succulents do as well. I'm also curious to see what happens in Experimental Bed #1, where I planted a lot of our local perennials and annuals last year - how will they grow back in spring? And - I don't know what might yet pop up in the seedflats in the greenhouse - always a thrill!

I hope you share some photos of your garden, and link to Ms Town Mouse's Mr Linky link!

I wonder how many times I used the word "hope" in this post?

First Views (on the Second of the Year)

2012-01-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

As in previous months, we're continuing our tradition of sharing views of the garden (not just pretty close-ups of the plants) in the first week of the month. This being a casual meme, I forgot about it yesterday, but today's overcast sky made for better photos. Above, the view from the sunroom. Salvia spatacea (humminbird sage) in the front is lush and green and has a few blossoms. Yes, we have hummingbirds all year, and they also delight in the camelia and the Australian tea tree. You can also see the bright green poppies along the path, the banner photo (above) shows them covered with ice crystals after a hoarfrost night.

Turning to the right, we can see major clean-up has happened. The California fuchsia is gone, and I'm hoping it will be replaced by Aquilegia (columbine) in the spring. Meanwhile, the native currant (Ribes speciosum) adds a splash of color in the background on the right.

Around the corner in the side garden, the tea tree shows its first blossoms. In the back along the fence, Salvia 'Pacific Blue' has filled in nicely. I'm hoping for blue blossoms in the spring. And through the gate, we see the freshly pruned peach tree.

Turning toward the house, we see that Arctostophylos St. Helena, the manzanita I planted last year, is coming along nicely to the right of the fountain. The last blossoms of yarrow 'Paprika' are hanging in there, a nice contrast to the grey Cotyledon (South African succulent) and native Artemesia (hidden behind the post).

As we walk past the redwood habitat, we notice the different lichen on the rocks and another Ribes in its final yellow glow. The area looks a little sad. It's the third dryest winter in recorded history (since 1862) so far, and the plants really need some rain. So far, nothing is in sight for the next ten days.

Still, my native garden fares better than most, with the blue-green Festuca Californica as a nice contrast to the dark green Ceanothus and some succulents and monkey flowers to the right of the path. This is the time to appreciate textures, shades of green, and the interplay of leaves of different size and shape. I'm glad I got professional help with the original design of the middle of the garden, it's too easy to have your garden suffer from little green leaf syndrome if you don't watch it.

Finally, we're getting to the front where Mr. Mouse and I have spent a goodly amount of time cleaning up the leaves of the Liquidambar tree. I like to wait until everything has dropped and then do a decent clean-up. Most of the native plants do not like to be smothered by leaves, which make them susceptible to fungal infections. Besides, the neighbors do look at my native front garden, and I'd like for them to enjoy the plants, not the cover of leaves. The street sweeper will make short work of the mounds of leaves along the street, and they drive by here anyway, so I won't worry about the sustainability aspect of removing the leaves.

Here's the front garden from the street, with the seedheads of Eriogonum arborescens still beautiful and the light grey Salvia leucophylla contrasting nicely with the green coyote brush.

Finally, we return to the front door, where the Aristolochia californica (dutchman's pipe) is showing off a final bit of fall color, with flowers most likely not far behind.

And now it's your turn! Do you want to start the year by sharing the views of your garden with others? We'd love to see you on our Mr. Linky list and hope to visit your views through the year.

A Tale of Two Clarkias

2012-01-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Well, two separate sets of our local Clarkia purpurea seedlings anyway. One set, carefully sown and nurtured in the greenhouse at the prescribed time...

And another lot that fell where they may from the parent plant, ignored and watered only sporadically, out in all weathers...

Hm...

Happy new year everybody! Hope your gardening year is full of such wonderful gardening puzzles - and successes!

Black Mountain Trail Hike

2011-12-27T09:21:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-12-24T17:53:00.000-08:00

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"

2011-12-21T07:41:00.001-08:00

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, :17.

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

2011-12-18T19:19:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-12T07:12:00.001-08:00

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

2011-12-06T20:39:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-04T07:59:00.001-08:00

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

First Views: December in the Country Mouse Garden

2011-12-02T08:13:00.001-08:00

I'm late for the First Views meme started by Town Mouse - but we're in our third day of a power outage, operating with carbon-yucky generator power!

I took these snaps with my phone, so I'm sorry for the quality. A quick walk through, near dawn, of parts of our property here... Lots of debris from high winds. Yesterday my dad and I ran into town for gasoline, and had to turn around two times due to fallen trees, and find alternate routes! I talked to a neighbor today off to town to get something for his chain saw - a large tree fell on his garage!

Looking down towards the road. I keep hoping to get color here but it's a tough spot.

Taken from Duncan's steps, just above the driveway. Mexican sage.

Duncan on his steps! Another tough area to get anything growing.

Looking up the driveway. Dad's 4 hummingbird feeders on R. The penstemons on this slope are actually coming back.

"Front path" to our door. Salvia spathacea in shadow on r. are not in bloom but are green anyway.

left front path bed. I hope these Heuchera micrantha will thrive and bloom this spring. The "Dark Star" ceanothus is bound to look wonderful come early spring also.

Steps down to the chaparral on left. front porch on right. Salvia 'Bee's Bliss' languishing to L of Duncan. I'd like more color to left. maybe penstemons. I'm trying to grow some seeds from nursery bought penstemon but no luck so far.

Bed 1 on left. with old Madia elegans and Eriogonum nudum and bunch of other stuff. Needs clearing - lots of seedlings growing up below the dead stuff! On right. new succulent bed seems to be doing OK. Getting weedy. Need container for hose.

To left of bed 1 - native manzanitas and slope down to chaparral.

Bed 3 - hope to put propagated plants here in early spring -- where the bunnies can't go!

Bed 2, succulents, from the new greenhouse patio looking out towards Loma Prieta (invisible).

The grey fuzzy bit just above the black is the Monterey peninsula. The slight tinge of white between both is the bay. Funny how to the naked eye it's much more significant than in a picture. It's really a lovely garden view!

Greenhouse peek. I have propagation updates to blog about, when I have time!

Wind blew down Rat's brace that was supposed to keep the fence up. Fence is up anyway. I cleared the gigantic old dead Madia elegans out of that corner. Hiding in the other corner are some luscious Heuchera micrantha and Iris fernaldii - hoping for blooms this year (and seeds!)

Pool bed 1, bit boring. Jerusalem sage is providing some color. Unfortunately it isn't in this shot.

Pool bed 2. I weeded here last weekend - so many weeds! Dratted sour grass (Oxalis pes caprae) etc.

A little volunteer Viola adunca come in from the wild - I'm trying to bag a few seeds!

Local propagated thimbleberry still has lush green leaves - others are almost bare. Plus - that native succulent whose name I forget. About twice the size of the one I planted near Duncan's Stairs. Nutrition makes a difference! Bedroom deck. Needs tittivating.

Looking out at the pool garden from the bedroom deck. Where the furniture is is where the natural filtration pools will be. Eventually.

We walked out of the pool garden through the pool shed, across the parking area and are looking into the "wildlife garden." Looks great in spring, honest.

We continued across the parking area and down the path towards the corral. Looking left we see this disaster area! Weeds, last year's downed tree, etc. Still, two baby Ceanothus are planted in here, somewhere, and a buckeye. And two Garrya elliptica are healthy but not yet significant. Plus all the other nice native stuff (plus a whole host of weeds).

We turned round and walked behind dad's cottage, almost back to our starting point. Lots of debris on the path through the redwood grove to clear. I'm trying to grow some native California hazelnut for an understory planting, from hardwood cuttings. I also planted thimbleberry and Holodiscus discolor around the perimiter - they are not yet very large. Hoping for great things...

Well, a hurried first view this month - I wonder what January will bring? Now I'm off to link to Town Mouse's post and I'll loom forward to seeing (after work today) what other people have posted for their first views of December.

First Views: December in the Town Mouse Garden

2011-12-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

Between the short days and some DSL troubles, this almost became a Second Views post. I'm sorry I'm late, but was happy to see that Sue in the Sierra foothills already posted her First Views post. But this morning, after the storm which brought down a few branches and lots of leaves even here, I did spend just a little time looking at what's changed. Above, behind the Mulenbergia rigens (deer grass) you can see that the front garden is covered with leaves from the Liquidambar street tree that the city planted.

Here's the other side of the front garden, with the tree on the left, the attractive light green Coyote Brush 'Twin Peaks 2' in the foreground, and manzanita and Festuca Californica further back.

Looking at the front garden from the street, I had to admit that the Eriogonum arborescens is now clearly past its prime. I hope I get around to removing the seedheads this weekend (before I start worrying about the leaves).

Even the side strip in the back garden has a sprinkling of leaves, but here we can also enjoy the more characteristic California late fall color: Green. The first rains this year, in late September, coaxed many of the seeds from dormancy and the Clarkia amoena reseeded heavily. I'll probably give these seedlings a rain shower from the hose once a week until it starts raining again.

The California poppies form a similar green strip near the walkway, and they probably don't even need water to keep going. It's lucky they are so easy to pull and they only reseed locally. I enjoy them, but I don't want the whole garden covered (and I expect my neighbors agree).

On the whole, though, the garden looks peaceful and the different shades of green are soothing and appealing. When I come home from work, with the traffic especially thick because of the Christmas shoppers who are out and about, I'm always so happy when it's still light enough to take a short spin through the garden. What better way to end the day (and to start the month) than looking at the new growth of the iris, the fresh green seedlings, and the buds of the manzanita and ceanothus already promising a colorful spring.

If you like to share what of your garden is doing in December, just add yourself to the Mr. Linky widget below. I'll enjoy visiting you!

Postscript: I'm finally realizing that I can't copy/past the Mr. Linky from a previous post or I'll get all those links included. Well, let's just leave it be for this month, next month (next year!) I'll do it correctly.

A Trip to Suncrest Nurseries

2011-11-25T18:09:00.001-08:00

Jim Marshall, General Manager, and propagation staff

Along with my horticulture class, I recently enjoyed touring Suncrest Nurseries, in the company of Jim Marshall, general manager of the nurseries.

As it happens, I come to this nursery one Sunday morning a month to work with the CNPS propagation group. It's quiet then - now there were workers all around, doing various purposeful things, taking a break at the ring of a buzzer, and beginning work again at the next buzz.

The propagation team above was sitting at a stainless steel table, in the propagation prep area of the greenhouse. The table is sanitized daily at least with a solution of quaternary ammonium. Another way is using a half to two percent solution of bleach. In general everything in this nursery was clean and neat.

In the room next door, another team was expertly popping rooted cuttings into two and a half inch "liners" or "rose pots," which are three and a half inches deep. Jim said they have had better success and healthier plants with the deeper liners, and in general with hand propagation rather than mechanized propagation.

Jim gave us a short history of the nurseries - which have been continuously operating since the 1880s. They were started by Leonard Coates, one of those sickly young Englishmen (born in 1855 in Saffron-Walden - lovely English country town name) who came out for the healthy life in California. He learned the horticulture trade and thrived, having most of his nurseries in Napa county. He produced 150,000 fruit trees per year for the burgeoning orchards that filled Santa Clara Valley and other fruit growing regions of California with heavenly scent every spring. He also enjoyed native plants, and propagated them too. He sold the nursery to to Ray Hartman (Heard of Ray Hartman ceanothus?), and the nurseries passed through various hands and existed in various locations before settling here near Watsonville, under the ownership of horticulturist Stan Iversen and a group of investors. Stan was named Santa Cruz County Farmer of the Year this year. I enjoy learning about the history of my adopted region, and about these horticultural pioneers.

The Watsonville area was also singled out by Luther Burbank as one of the best growing regions in California.

One of the best growing regions in California

Many nurseries are located here, seven miles inland, where the fog usually burns off by 10 am, and is held off by downdrafts from the Blue Sierra, or Sierra Azul, hills (well you can hardly call them mountains). The maritime influence keeps temperatures mild. If it gets into the high 80s in summer, “Everyone here falls over with heat prostration,” Jim said. Winters are mild too. Usually only about 10 frost days, and generally no lower than the mid 20s Fahrenheit.

As Jim talked, I was observing with interest the professional cutting cutters' technique (see first picture). They were snipping the leaves with small clippers, not stripping them by gripping and running down the stem with their hands like I do. They were working on some kind of nepeta, I think?

Expertly prepared. Lower leaves and apical (top) bud snipped, and larger leaves cut.

I should have asked them if they use the same approach generally or just for tender cuttings.

Not sure what all these cuttings were. Pretty though.

Our native fuchsia flowering gooseberry, Ribes speciosum 'Rana Creek' was in one of the baskets

The market for Suncrest Nurseries plants is independent nurseries, some retail and some wholesale, and landscape contractors. Eighty percent of their business comes from the surrounding 100 miles, but they sell up and down the state also, and have four or five large trucks to deliver their plants.

I enjoy unloading the Suncrest truck at our CNPS plant sales; it's like Christmas twice a year! This nursery is very kind to the native plant society indeed, with the support they provide. They care for all the plants that we work on each month. Jim said he enjoys walking through the area they have set aside for our plants, to see what we've got growing there.

Suncrest is a propagation nursery, and they sell about half their plants to other nurseries to grow out. They have about a hundred workers in the full swing of the season, and forty-five or so of them are full time workers.

Suncrest also grows an unusually wide variety of plants, about half of them California natives, and most of the rest from other Mediterranean climates - Australia and South Africa mostly. While other nurseries grow 400 to 1000 varieties, Suncrest grows about 3000, in smaller batches. This makes them more resistant to a financial crisis if a crop fails. In monoculture greenhouses, a crop failure can spell disaster.

The propagator has cut a trench for the cuttings, with a flat blade tool

I'll have to try the way of planting cuttings by making a trench with a tool like they use at Suncrest, a blade with handles - I didn't get a picture of the tool. Each cutting is also dipped in rooting hormone.

And here is where they go to grow some roots - Wow!

During phase one of growth: the cuttings are given TLC while they grow roots, two to three months on average. The cuttings get bottom heat from tubes running along the benches, and in dry weather, mist. They are not getting mist right now, since the air is humid anyway. It's light intensity that controls the misters. At this time of year, they are being hand watered.

Mist in the propagation house was the big breakthrough that made growing by cuttings feasible in nurseries. Before World War II, propagation was done by hardwood cuttings only, which was time consuming. But with mist, nurseries could grow from softwood cuttings. Much faster and easier.

In the prop house the minimum temperature is around 65 degrees. They don't heat the air, just use bottom heat, which alone costs about $8K a year. Most of the rest of the electricity cost comes from pumping well water, which is used here. I should also mention that when the nursery was being redeveloped by the Iversen group, a lot of drainage infrastructure was installed, and all the runoff drains to a pool for reuse. This place has been thoroughly thought through.

Tubular underbench heating.

I splurged on a small heating pad a while back but I haven't used it yet. It is only now getting cold enough, really. I should try one flat of something with heat, and one without as a control group. I also decided to try a few hardwood cuttings myself this year. A new venture - I'll let you know in a few months how it goes.

With humidity come fungi. Circulating horizontal fans are used in the prop house to eliminate grey mold, - aka refrigerator mold - which is everywhere, but is deterred by just a bit of air flow.

This is as good a point as any for some dry facts about Suncrest's potting media:

Rooting mix: 90% perlite 10% peat moss.
"Canning mix" - i.e., general potting mix for liners and larger pots. I think 25 percent each of peat, sand, bark, and perlite. Or anyway 25 percent perlite and the rest some combination of the other ingredients. Plus a little slow release fertilizer.

Canning is a local term. Originally, cans from the local canneries (Think "Cannery Row!") were used for potting on to one gallon and five gallon containers. Suncrest buys their soil mixes from a nearby commercial soil mixer. Soil mixer: oh, the many trades that you don't ever think of.

The greenhouse doors and main passage ways are wide enough to allow access to small vehicles. But wait, this isn't just anybody's small vehicle...

This is the small vehicle of famous horticulturalist Nevin Smith, one of the leading lights of the native plant gardening tradition, and I was very happy to be able to shake his hand.

Nevin wasn't casting a spell upon the cuttings, just talking to Jim about irrigation (as I recall).

Nevin has his professional home here at Suncrest. Suncrest also has a relationship with an Iris expert, whose name I didn’t catch, and with John Greenlee, who won the American Garden Writers award for his book The American Meadow Garden, photographs by Saxon Holt. Suncrest and John Greenlee are jointly developing a "graminetum" for grasses (like an arboretum for trees).Next year, they'll have an open house. I'm curious!

In general, Suncrest grows a lot more grasses thanthey used to; grasses in the landscape are definitely popular these days.

Rooted cuttings. Plants are also grown from seed

Rooted plants are popped into liners for two to three months or more before potting on into gallon pots.

This huge and amazing greenhouse complex was installed three years ago by a local company. In fact, the owner of that company lives on a hill overlooking Suncrest, so Jim figured he'd have to do a great job for them, since he'd have to look out on his handiwork every day! The greenhouse was built in Holland and assembled on site. It took twenty workers two weeks to assemble. Every piece had a serial number. It cost $800,000 and another $200,000 for the fittings. It is certainly a beautiful greenhouse, really a pleasure to walk through. Everywhere is impeccably clean, functional, and unfussy.

It's called a "venlo" style greenhouse. Where a traditional greenhouse might have one steep peak, a venlo style roof would have three shallower ones. This design allows for more peak vents, which improves circulation, and provides more convected cooling. (Sorry, I didn't get a photo of the outside but you can see some images of this type of greenhouse by clicking the link above.) It's made of a galvanized steel and aluminum framework, with acrylic bi-wall glazing that comes with a 50 year guarantee. Are we drooling yet?

Outside the greenhouse itself are other large protected areas for the next phase of growth, in the liners.

Liners in the shade house. Less protection begins to harden off the young plants.

Plants get pinch pruned several times in the shade house phase. That's something I really need to learn to do. And know when and how to do it to different plants. I'm so afraid of mangling their growth for ever.

They are experimenting with a topping of crushed walnut shells.

From this shade house area, crops are staged as needed for sale, that is, they are not potted into gallons and grown to full size until it's time to put on that growth spurt, to be ready at the desired time. For example, they may have 40,000 liners of Arctostaphylos 'Emerald Carpet' that they grow on in stages to provide a steady supply of this popular ground cover manzanita to the nurseries and landscape contractors.

Major aha for me! I didn't realize that you can keep plants small for a long time in liners and they won't become stunted or root-bound. I've been doing the wrong thing, immediately potting on plants that have filled their liners in spring, when I won't be planting them till fall. Now I do recall Denise in the prop. group saying something similar. It can take a stubborn brain a while to overcome preconceived notions. Well, live and learn (eventually).

Another view of the shade house.

And then finally, they are potted up into gallon pots.

More of the crushed walnut hulls, here topping gallon pots.

When it is time to pot them up, a machine fills the pots and drills a planting hole, but again, it's a human that does the actual planting - not like at the mass market nurseries where plants are literally never touched by human hand from start to finish. The walnut shells are a byproduct of the nearby nut industry, just north of the Bay Area, and Jim says they prevent the growth of unsightly liverwort, and other undesirable stuff like mold.

One of the few machines: it fills pots and punches a planting hole

And finally, off they go, neatly stacked.

Well as you can tell, I was totally fascinated by this trip, and I appreciated Jim's openness to talk to us students about the realities of running a medium-large nursery of this type. I'll write soon about our other stop of the day, at Sierra Azul, a smaller retail propagation nursery run by a husband-wife team, just a mile or so away from Suncrest, which was also totally fascinating, on a more individual scale.

Planting Hope

2011-11-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

Every year in October, just like many of my fellow gardeners, I succumb to bulb fever. "Do they come back or do you have to plant them again every year?" asked Mr. Mouse. "Well, theoretically, they come back. But there's the squirrels, and our clay soil gets just a little bit too wet for their liking. Better be safe then sorry." I replied.

Then, in early November, the package arrived, and Thursday last week I finally decided it was time. I always try something new, and buy a few of my favorites. I order from John Scheepers Dutch Flower Bulbs. I've found my success is slightly better with their bulbs, which are grown in Holland, than with bulbs from the local and very expensive bulb vendors. As for the shipping, the bulbs don't weigh more than a liter bottle of water, so bulbs from Holland seem to me a better investment than water from Fiji.

I always try to get as many native bulbs as possible, and this year, my special splurge were some Erythronium pagoda (Trout lily). These are, according to Brent and Becky's Bulbs " A vigorous hybrid between native american species E. tuolumense x E. revolutum". It sounded intriguing.

I was quite taken aback when I saw the size of the bulbs.

They were easily two inches long. So, does that mean I have to dig a 6 inch hole into the dry clay? Well, I'm lucky to have my trusted Hori Hori, and I did buy the carbon steel version, which is recommended for clay (even though it will rust if you're not careful). I dug a hole and eased in my new treasure.

And then I repeated the procedure. Again. And again. And again. I realized that I'm lucky the bulb bug had not affected me that much, it's possible to plant 75 bulbs in the clay, but 300 or 500 would have been a challenge for me.

But with less then 100, it's possible to enjoy the songs of the birds, smell of the earth and the vision of good things to come. Here's what I got.

Fritilaria meleagris, a European Fritilaria that was stunning last spring.

The Erythronium pagoda hybrid.

Brodiaea ixioides Starlight, a native also known as Tritileia which I already bought last year. I enjoyed the yellow flower clusters which opened in late May, and appreciated that nobody confused this Tritileia with Agapanthus.

A mixed bag of the native Colochortus (Mariposa lily). They are having a hard time here, and I get maybe 1 plant for every 10 bulbs I put in, but when they do succeed, they are stunning. They seem to be better in containers, so I'm setting a few aside. Also Colochortus 'Golden Orb', which was amazing last year in a container.

Finally, I bought a small back of Brodiaea Pink Diamond. I've been fairly successful with Brodiaea Ida-maia, and I'm hopeful these will look good in the pink-themed area near the Christmas fountain.

And that's what bulb planting is all about for me. I dream of the flowers and how they fit in with the annuals and shrubs. I visualize the beauty, and how much I'll enjoy watching the unfolding of the first blossoms. For a while, I forget about other troubles and think about what matters to me.

Madrone or Toyon - You'd think that would be easy!

2011-11-19T09:27:00.001-08:00

Mature madrone - smooth margins on the leaves.

Baby madrones have serrated leaf edges

That's why I confused them with toyon!

I recently shared some plants I propagated thinking they were toyon, and one of the people who received the plants must be working with Jeffrey Caldwell - she emailed me saying that Jeffrey had told here they are madrone.

At first I disagreed but when I actually looked with my eyes and not with my head, I realized he is right. The leaves are quite different. I kept making up reasons why the leaves were so large and lush - all the water and food they get in their potted state, I thought.

So I compared the potted babies with young and mature toyon and madrone, and -- of course they are madrone - how could I have been so wrong!

I've already put the photos into a flickr album and annotated it - so, in the interests of getting out to do the last planting of the season --- I'll just refer you to that set for more pictures and words.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/20456595@N04/sets/72157627979376239/with/6363999831/

GBBD November - Town Mouse

2011-11-15T17:22:00.000-08:00

I admit I was a bit envious when I looked at Country Mouse's Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post this morning. I mean, manzanita before Thanksgiving? What's the world coming to!

But then I took a stroll around the garden, and things were not as bleak as I thought they were, even down here in the suburbs. The California fuchsia is clearly struggling, it did not like the early rains, but a few blossoms are still available for hungry hummingbirds.

In the front garden, the San Bruno Mountain golden aster (Chrysopsis villosa) has been blooming non-stop since spring.

And the goldenrod plant that ended up in part shade delayed its blooms but is still going strong (in the background, our blue Nissan Leaf, the most fun car ever!).

Eriogonum arborescens is slowly fading to brown, but even that looks good on this plant.

But most of the blooming action is happening in the back this month. We have a Japanese Camelia, its delicate blossoms lighting up the shade.

And the Eriogonum river is still looking good and attracting pollinators.

Here's a close-up.

And Salvia spatacea (hummingbird sage) has also put out a few last blossoms.

While yarrow 'Paprika' shows an attractive combination of spent and new flower heads.

The Australian fuchsia (Correa) is again happily confused and blooming. I can't help but be impressed by this plant which survives afternoon sun all summer and then bursts forth with blooms in November.

The non-native sage tricked me into postponing a planned heavy pruning by putting out quite a few beautiful blossoms. Well, I can wait.

Same with the rosemary, which still has bees visiting on sunny days, so I don't have the heart to prune it back just yet.

Also blooming just a bit are Salvia clevlandii 'Alan Chickering', my wooly blue curl, and Eriogonum fasciculatum. Not bad, considering the cold nights and short days.

And now, I'll head over to Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what's blooming everywhere else. Or maybe I'll have dinner first.

November GBBD - Country Mouse

2011-11-15T08:59:00.001-08:00

A few spots of brightness this sunny and mild November day on California's Central Coast ...

Seaside Daisy

Naked Buckwheat

Rosemary

Mexican sage (and little bug)

Mexican sage

More naked buckwheat, manzanita in background

Wow - manzanita flowers, first this year (nursery bought manzanita)

California fuschia

Hotlips salvia

Winifred Gilman salvia

California Fuschia, beaten up by recent rain

San Francisco wallflower

Verbena lilacena 'de la mina'

Jerusalem sage

Another naked buckwheat - pink flower

Late growth of hollyhocks

Deer grass

What's left of the common madia

Coyote brush

Teeny fence lizard scrabbling - got through to the crawl space

local monkeyflower

Local monkeyflower

Thanks for visiting - I'm off to May Dreams Gardens to register my monthly blooms and check out blooms elsewhere!

Sowing Seeds of Naked Buckwheat, Golden Yarrow, Clarkia, and Madia

2011-11-13T09:09:00.001-08:00

Ruby chalice clarkia (Clarkia rubicunda) with friend!

Growing native plants local to one's region makes ecological sense. Alrie Middlebrook is a proponent of the native garden quilted ecosystem approach, where suburban garden habitats are close enough together for native life to get across them like stepping stones or pathways. Many gardeners in the Santa Clara valley embrace this philosophy enthusiastically, and are seeing interesting local wildlife as a result.

And some of them took my plants and seeds! Sure these plants and seeds may not be of the specific gene pool for those particular neighborhoods - but naked buckwheat, golden yarrow, and common madia are found all over California and ruby chalice clarkia are found throughout the Bay Area and in central to northerly coastal areas. And those suburban neighborhoods really don't have any of their own gene pool left.

So - I'll first put the specifics about the seeds I shared, and then some general advice about seeds, with pointers to other posts for even more details. This post is mostly for those who received the seeds and who asked for some help getting going. Thank you all for spreading California natives!

Naked Buckwheat, Eriogonum nudum

Naked buckwheat, Eriogonum nudum, in a tangle with common madia, Madia elegans

Pictures of the seedlings are shown in this post:
http://tmousecmouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/different-california-native-plant.html
Plant where they get some afternoon shade. They seem to also take shade, high shade particularly.

Golden Yarrow, Eriophyllum confertiflorum

Golden yarrow, Eriophyllum confertiflorum

Pictures of the seedlings are shown in this post:
http://tmousecmouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/different-california-native-plant.html
Similar to Eriogonum nudum. Success rate was lower, maybe 50% when I tried these.
They like sunny locations. They seem to grow on our property where they get just a little shade some of the day. Or maybe that is just where they get a little more moisture - not sure.

Common Madia, Madia elegans

Common madia, Madia elegans

Pictures of the seedlings are shown in this post:
http://tmousecmouse.blogspot.com/2010/12/different-california-native-plant.html
These seeds will propagate if you just look at them. They grow in sun or shade but prefer sun.

The important thing to know about Madia elegans is that you can whack them back and they will bloom as lower (3-4 foot) plants instead of higher (8-12 foot!!) plants. They will give cheerful yellow daisies well into November – I can say this because some are still blooming today, from the ones I planted this year.

Seed Planting Advice in General

When? November is good. February is also good, if you get a lot of frost where you grow and you are direct sowing them. I'm still trying to figure out the best time myself. An experienced gardener friend of mine sows hers in Feb.

I found all these seeds easy to propagate. You can probably sow them directly if you give them a little protection from being pecked by birds, such as sowing them with a light covering of fine gravel. Don't let them dry out.

Otherwise, I would sow thinly in several small pots or a seed flat. I would use potting soil or a mix of a little potting soil and a lot of perlite if you have it. When you transplant them, it’s easier to free the roots up from perlite than from potting soil.

Water
Water seedlings that are in in pots deeply. I unpotted a Nassella cernua the other day, and it was only damp part way down!

And I've been watering them twice a day with a mister. Don't keep em soggy - let them drain freely. But don't let them dry out. In other words, you have to baby them a little while they are babies.

Grow in a location sheltered from wind and rain. And critters, including birds.

You'll transplant seedlings one time if you sowed them in flats, or if they are growing too close together. You can transplant as soon as the seedlings develop true leaves - not the round seed leaves (cotyledons) that come first. The next set. Handle the plants by their leaves, not their stems. Stems are easy to crush.

Use a potting media with some nutrition in it. Just potting soil, or potting soil cut with perlite and / or vermiculite and / or sand, if you have such things, for plants that like a leaner life. Just think about where they grow natively. If woodland - more organic matter. If desert - virtually no organic matter. If chaparral - maybe a third of potting soil and two thirds of the other ingredients I listed above. Sand helps the pots to be more stable because it is heavy.

When they are ready to plant in the ground, general advice is to first harden them off for a few days, if they have been in a greenhouse. Let them be outside in their pots for a few hours a day. This is what I read. I haven't had this experience so I can't advise. Even my greenhouse isn't particularly warm.

First though, tip a pot out to check on the roots. If the roots are not filling the pot nicely, you might want to wait a while. You could even put a very little liquid fertilizer on them to encourage more root growth.

Fertilizer
Native plants that can handle fertilizer (not desert plants) take on average one third of the fertilizer dose mentioned on any label.

I'd choose something like Dr Earth. Another thing you can do is put slow release pellets in the potting mix. I use osmocote, again, at about one third the rate specified (and again, it might depend on the type of plant - some riparian plants may want more food). I usually do that when I pot the seedlings into larger pots if they are going to stay there over summer.

Well that's it from me - happy sowing! Do share any tips or questions you have in the comments.

Planting Thimbleberry, Toyon, and Ceanothus

2011-11-09T07:10:00.000-08:00

It was my great pleasure last week to distribute some seeds andplants I've grown to fellow enthusiasts of local native plants.These folk live within30 miles of me, for the most part. I hope to get a yet more local distribution (the opposite of what most people want in their enterprises!).

I promised the new plantowners some guidelines for their new acquisitions, and here is part the first. I always want to put all that I can share in one post, but I'll have to pace myself. I have seeds to go over, and other topics in mind, but today - planting plants from pots into the ground.

As ever please note: these are just gardener-to-gardener guidelines –I hope you all also check your plant out on www.laspilitas.com andwww.yerbabuena.com as well as www.calflora.org, to see what they have to say.

Potted Plants - General Planting Advice

Plant now! Theground is ready with the rain we've been having.

Rat and I planted the ceanothus I grew from seed last weekend. These seeds came from the tree that blew over in a storm last year. Funny coincidence - when I went to update the planting label, I discovered that it was a year to the day, from the day I sowed the seed!

We decided to plant it just down the slope from its mother tree, which is still lying on the ground. We are being positive about it: it's creating habitat! We'll be chopping it up sometime I guess. It's in this picture, but hard to see.

The planting holes don't have to bemuch bigger or deeper than the plant you are putting in it. Rough up the sidesof the hole.

When you take the plants out of thepots, spend a few minutes loosening out the roots. (I didn't get a picture of this part.) This can be hardwork. As Fran Adams taught me, you should not see the shape of thepot when you are done. You can wet the roots if they are dry, to makeit easier to untangle them a bit. Try not to break the roots, but don't worry about the longhairy stragglers. Especially unwind or even just cut through any roots that are growingcircular wise around the pot. If you don't cut or unwind them, the plant will remain rootbound.

Make sure the plant is settled in well, and MOSTimportant, keep the crown – the part where the roots meet the stems– slightly higher than the surrounding soil. Kinda hard to see below but I did check. You want to avoid thecrown getting soggy. Fungus can attack there.

Water newly planted plants to fill in any air pockets. Rootscan't grow in big air pockets.

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus one year old, newly planted

Keepnewly planted plants from drying out till their roots have grown into the soil. Weanthem slowly from nursery watering. I'm an anxious parent and I dokeep my babies well watered.

First Year of Care

If there are dry spells during winter,water the plants. You might want to create a little watering bermaround the plants, creating a moat effect so the water you add cansoak in - but in winter this is not generally needed. Again, don't let water sit around the crown.

By spring they should be establishing good roots. Still, for their first spring and summer, give them somewater – occasional deep watering to get the soil wet all the wayto the bottom of the roots. And in between, if they look dry, give them a bitof water to keep them happy. Basically, don't overwater, but don't let them dry out completely – their firstyear they are not properly established.

I've lost a lot of new plants bynot watering them in summer.

Subsequent Care

After their first year, these plants (ceanothus, thimbleberry, toyon) may not need anywatering, though they won't mind it. They will look a bit better withsome summer water. But they've been growing here in the wild quitehappily, in their summer-dry environmental niches. The ceanothus maybe a bit sensitive to too much summer water, but the others won't mind.

Adding a light top dressing of compostis helpful when they start growing in spring. Natives don't need asmuch “food” as regular garden plants. But they will need some, and compost is best. Avoid rich fertilizer.Also, mulch helps to conserve moisture.

Now a few tips about the individual plants themselves.

Thimbleberry Rubus parviflorus

Yerba Buena page

Thimbleberry in an East Bay garden.

Plant thimbleberry where they are in shade part ofthe day, preferably where they won't get afternoon sun. Extra watercan compensate for extra exposure to some extent. They areedge-of-the-woods type plants. Around here they grow along dry dirtroads, as well as down by the creek, so they tolerate different waterconditions.

They are deciduous, so now they arestarting to look a bit ratty as the leaves wither.

Thimbleberry grow between four andsix feet tall and wide, with lush large soft fuzzy green leaves I really love, nicewhite flowers in late spring about an inch or so in size, and pinkraspberry type fruits that are fairly good to eat. No thorns. I would recommendpruning the babies I gave you to encourage bushy growth. I'm not sure– I plan to prune some of mine back to leave six or eight leafnodes that will grow branches, but it's up to you what kind of plantyou want to end up with.

They can grow into a thicket – pruneback any spreading growth you don't want. I don't think they are hardto keep in bounds, but I haven't grown them yet in my garden so Idon't really know – You are my guinea pigs!

Toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia

Yerba Buena page

My neighbor's berries. Mine get black sooty mold :-(

Please also look at Town Mouse's last post featuring toyon - lovely pics!
These shrubs/small trees grow both onthe sunny chaparral side and also on the shadier woodsier side of myproperty. Those in part shade are more leafy and smooth. The ones inthe sun are a bit scrubby looking, but then I don't irrigate them. Ibet with a bit of summer irrigation they would look better.

A bit more sun and drought tolerantthan thimbleberry, as you can tell by their leatherier leaves.

They'll get to be 15 feet tall, but youcan prune them. I've whacked back toyon here and it comes right back.They get leggy. You can train them to a tree probably. You can trypruning them for bushiness. Depends what kind of final look you areaiming for. I rather like the long trunks. With luck and a lack ofants and aphids and sooty mold (bane of my life here), they will getgorgeous clusters of small creamy flowers in early summer, and infall to around Christmas time, gorgeous clusters of red berries. Thebirds, of course love them.

California Wild Lilac, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus

Yerba Buena page

This is the tree form of ceanothus. (the photo may be showing Julia Phelps, a different one but with similar blossoms).
Itcan get 20 feet tall, and it is fairly wide too, with a prettypyramid type tree shape. Plant where you want a small tree. I havetopped some of my babies to see what they grow like as a shrub.

I don't see these growing on thechaparral side. They can take full sun but they probably prefer someshade, and richer soil than the lean chaparral soil.

They are fast growers. They have a niceairy look. In a good year they will be covered in pale blue blossomsthat the butterflies and bees adore.

Well, that's all there is to it - I do hope you will enjoy these plants as much as the wildlife surely will, and I hope you'll let me know how things go for you. Happy native gardening! -- I'll post about the seeds I gave out soon.

Native Plant of the Moment: Toyon

2011-11-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

It's the time of year when the berries of Heteromeles arbutifolius are ripening, and happy migratory birds (and all the locals) are feasting. Above, a photo I took on the Steven's Creek trail two years ago, and below a photo from the Black Mountain Trail.

With all that bounty, it has, of course, been embarrassing for me that my efforts at growing toyon have not yielded quite the desired results. In the first year, it seemed a struggle to keep this - supposedly easy - plant alive. All manor of rust and discoloration on the leaves showed clearly that this member of the rose family was not too happy in my clay soil. And while toyon grows faster than some native plants, it still took it's sweet time. Here a photo from January 2010.

But between fairly good winter rains and a summer that was not too hot, things improved, and when I came home from a week-long vacation on Sunday, I was delighted to find the red berries I'd been dreaming of for a few years.

And to make things even better, the toyon in the front garden, which I planted from a 5-gallon pot only 2 years ago - or was that 3 years? - is also showing berries. And because this variety, 'Davis Gold' has yellow berries, they are a bright, beautiful yellow.

I'm really very happy how the yellow berries light up the back corner where Davis Gold is planted, and I hope I'll soon see some birds coming to taste the feast I've prepared for them.

Paul Kephart's Advice about the Natural Pool Conversion

2011-11-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a visit from Paul Kephart of Rana Creek, who advised us on how we might go about building our wetland pools in stages, and answered other questions.

Paul is an interesting person, engaging yet taciturn. As if he waits for the breeze of what's going on to lift his sails, and then he's off. Paul told us how he had been up in San Francisco a couple days earlier, for the unveiling of a large living wall he designed, a mural in plants with an abstract design. He was expecting a small party. Instead Willy Brown himself (ex speaker of the California Assembly, ex mayor of SF) was the MC and lauded Paul at some length, in front of 250 people.

This pic. is not of the SF living wall - it's part of of another wall, taken from Rana Creek's FB page.

I can't yet find any images of the wall on the net. However on the 7story blog, I read this:

The Living Wall is a collaboration between ClementinaCares, the Yerba Buena Community Benefit District and 7Story. The piece was designed by internationally acclaimed landscape architect Paul Kephart of Rana Creek, known most recently for the living roof at the California Academy of Sciences. 7Story helped shape the vision funded by YBCBD and managed the project.

It is rather exciting for us to have an internationally acclaimed landscape architect design our living pool, I confess (along with his skilled team, including Zakiah who we met when she came and took measurements and who did the meticulously detailed CAD work).

And to have him offer to drop off his concrete-cutting saw when we need to use it. He and Rat also talked about their deep and abiding love of digging. I'm sure that's not one of the things Willie Brown waxed lyrical about. Paul also talked about the uncertainty of his work in this field over the past 26 or so years. How just when the money ran out and there was no work in the queue, miraculously another contract would pop up and keep them afloat.

We delved into the nitty-gritty of implementing the wetland pools that will filter the swimming pool water to crystal clarity (we hope).

I asked about the amount of water flow required. He explained that we will be able to calibrate the velocity using a valve that switches the flow between the current system and the new wetland filtration system, such that it's enough to keep things moving but not so much it disturbs the substrate. When we get it just right, we can measure the flow by (somehow) temporarily redirecting the water to measure how long it takes to fill a bucket.

The water will come into the wetland at the bottom of the backmost pond and filter upwards, fill the pond and spill over the weir, allowing sediment to settle and be munched on by the plant roots and organisms around them, then it fills the next pool, which is shallower, and then to a narrow third pool, before it spills into the swimming pool. Everything is very low, walls just inches above ground level, and the pools excavated below ground level. (Time to call in a few favors from some young and able-bodied friends and relations!)

As far as how to break the project into stages, he said we could pour the backmost pool concrete all by itself, and then later do the next pool... and so on. He answered Rat's more technical construction questions. (I was happy that Rat was happy and forget those details.) Paul explained how we have to calculate back from the swimming pool level and lip of the final pool that pours water into the swimming pool, to get the levels right for the other pools, because our ground falls away towards the back.

Plan view of the part of the wetland pools that flows under a low bridge and into the pool (on right).

I asked about that edge, the final weir where the water flows into the swimming pool, which I couldn't visualize from the drawings. He explained where the curb would be, oh and here's an idea, just save the bits of concrete from the existing lip, cut them up carefully, and use them as capstones for the weir. Nice! We need someone with some artistic ability to give us these sorts of ideas.

Elevation of area where water flows to pool (many labels hidden, color added)

That segment of the swimming pool edge will be lower than the rest, and as we sit looking over at the wetland from the opposite side of the pool, we'll be able to look right through and into the planted area. Nice nice! Plus we won't have to drain the pool to do the work, it seems. Bonus!

Paul also looked at my small and messy wetland native plant propagation area with great delight and confirmed that I do have iris leaved rush, which is in the planting list, and a couple other things, too, and verified that the leafy thing is a weed - I'll have to compost it.

My messy start to wetland propagation. Wild ginger, Asarum caudatum, is one of the things doing well.

The iris leaved rush, Juncus xiphiodes, and smooth horsetail, Equisetum laevigatum and tall flatsedge, Cyperus eragrostis are growing well and sprouting - I'll have to do some potting on before too long.

Equisetum laevigatum is sprouting new growth

And I have lots. LOTS. Of baby Cyperus eragrostis sprouting in the greenhouse, ready to be potted into liners today. A few anyway.

In general, Paul got us enthused and encouraged - we who had descended into a deep pit of trepidation about the size of this project and its feasibility. And he reassured us that he would be there for informal advice and involvement along the way, allaying our fears that Rana Creek would sweep on to other yet more magnificent projects and forget all about little old us!

What's your tolerance level?

2011-11-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

"You have thrips," my irrigation guy said to me as we were hunting for a potential leak a few days ago. "Well, yes, this time of year, after the long dry summer, the rhododenron, ferns, and huckleberries usually get it." I replied. "It gets better after a few good rains."

"Very interesting," he replied. "It seems they are inside your tolerance level. I had this teacher once who told me you cannot garden sustainably unless you have a certain tolerance level."

That really got me to thinking. And yes, I absolutely tolerate some grey-looking huckleberry leaves. Especially because it seems that after 5 years or so, the plants' roots get long enough to survive the summer without succumbing to thrips. Below, a 9-year old plant and a 3-year old plant next to each other. The difference is striking.

Things got even more interesting when I talked to a neighbor who had received some native ginger (Asarum caudatum) plants from me recently. "They're getting eaten!" she exclaimed."I don't know what to do. Big holes. What could it be?" "Very odd," I said. "I don't think mine are getting eaten. But regardless, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think they'll be fine."

Then I went home. Guess what. The plants had big holes. Not all plants, but several of them. How come I didn't see that? Well, it must be the tolerance level. (And I do expect the plants will be fine).

November First Views - Country Mouse

2011-11-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Exciting developments in the Country Mouse garden. Last weekend we completed the fieldstone patio in front of the greenhouse, and I planted all the succulents I bought at the Arboretum sale, as well as the cuttings freely distributed after the Cactus and Succulents class Tmouse and I took the past couple weekends. Unfortunately I didn't know I was going to be planting succulents when we prepared the bed under the windows of the house in the south garden - so the soil may be too rich for them. We'll just have to see what survives.

Hope you'll join in Town Mouse's meme, showing wider views of your garden on the first of the month... I'm off to link to mister linky thingy now... which is on Tmouse's post here.

So - starting in the driveway looking at the approach to the front door, going past it into the south garden, turning right into the pool garden. Then jumping back to the driveway and turning round to look at Dad's - er Duncan's - cottage.... here we go:

Standing in the driveway, looking at the path to the front door:

Front door to our right, south garden ahead. Dark star ceanothus on left.

Experimental bed #1 with a few madia still blooming.

Bed #2, some baby plants not really visible yet.

Voila! New patio! Shingling not quite finished on greenhouse.

Closer to show stones.

New succulent bed to right of patio...

Rest of new succulent bed.

Meanwhile - the pool garden is full of plants

Cape honeysuckle got away from us again. Hummers love it.

Closeup of epilobium canum, local native, and some succulents

Winifred Gilman just about done. Hope she'll be taller next year, cover that fence.

Still have not fixed up the pots! (We're still in pool garden btw...)

Behind the greenhouse outside the pool garden - the wetland plants a-propagatin.

Duncan stands outside his home! Still gotta remove the towering rosemary!

Looking down the driveway. Mexican sage finally blooming!!

Hope you enjoyed the tour. I didn't take you into the south slope chaparral or down the north valley or into the corral this time, just showing what's close in to the houses. Lots to do but we're very happy with what's going on in the south garden, which is all new work this year. The rabbit fences are a bit of a pain, but hopefully in a year or two when the garden plants mature, and we figure out what will work with rabbits and deer, we can remove two of the three fences. I also want to make the front garden more interesting. I'm thinking about putting a thimbleberry in the front bed right of the path... Fun in a garden - it's endless!

November First Views - Town Mouse

2011-10-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

November is clearly a month where you can pretend you have an amazing garden on Garden Blogger's Bloom Day by posting a few close-ups - but the truth is evident from the First View. That makes it doubly interesting to see what's going on. Above, the Salvia spatacea (hummingbird sage) looks pretty respectably green, and the Festuca Californica has the first spikes of green. But otherwise, things are a little subdued.

That becomes even more obvious when we look at the former wine barrel fountain. Yes, after a summer of battles with algae and raccoons, I've finally decided a change is needed in this area. More of that in some future post.

Looking to the side, we find that the tall Epilobium is still blooming quite vigorously, but the shorter salmon-colored one is almost finished.

The low-growing Epilobium U.C. Hybrid also has very few blossoms left and I'm looking forward to cutting it down to 1 inch in early December. But here as well Festuca Californica is greening up after the rain we had in late September.

At the side of the house I've cut back Eriogonum grande rubescens, though Eriogonum arborescens still has enough white blossoms to make me want to wait a few more weeks, especially because different bees and small butterflies visit all the time.

In the front as well the Eriogonum arborescens has gone brown in a lot of places, but enough whitish flowers are left to make me want to postpone the required pruning.

From the side, it's pretty clear that the Liquidamber is getting serious about shedding its leaves. I'll probably wait until after the next rain to remove the first batch, and then wait again until all the leaves are down before I remove the rest of the leaves. Sure, my neighbors have fewer leaves in their gardens, but I really don't see the problem with waiting a bit.

In a way, it's kind of nice to have a little color in the middle of the greys and greens - though I do admit I like the grasses better without their leafy flowers.

If you like to share what of your garden is doing in November, just add yourself to the Mr. Linky widget below. I'll enjoy visiting you!

Natural Pool Conversion Plans from Rana Creek

2011-10-28T09:32:00.000-07:00

The wonderful designers at Rana Creek have sent us detailed plans for the conversion of our pool to a natural pool filtered by local native plants. I've excerpted bits and blown them up here.

These drawings are marked "not for construction - progress set" so just to CMA I thought I'd mention that.

We are a bit in overwhelm. It's a complex project involving much knocking out of concrete and very careful building of planting cells and bolting on of decorative rocks and constructing a very nice very low bridge near the pool. To say nothing of routing the water from the pool to the back of the planting cells.

We haven't yet been back in touch with Paul, but we have put string around the area that would be affected in our garden, and have pored over the drawings trying to decipher the technical labeling and so on. I though you might like to see closeups of the planting plan and the general look of the pools. I hid a lot of the labeling. I think you can click to zoom in. I also think that "extra large" option I chose for the picture below makes it wider than the blog width, apologies for that. Please click.

One thing I was surprised about is that the planting cell closer to the pool is shallower than the pond farther back. And I was surprised how flat it all is - the ponds are sunken and not raised like with a waterfall. I don't know why I had that preconception - and I'm very happy with and understand the flatness, the weir that the water flows over, etc. I'm still not quite clear about the part where the water finally falls into the pool. We have to study it a bit more, and we will also contact Rana Creek when we feel a bit more cogent about everything.

I have wetland plants a-propagating in the shade area behind the greenhouse. It's all very exciting and - like I said - overwhelming, as the reality of what we are about to undertake hits home!

GGW Photo Contest: Fill The Frame

2011-10-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

I have not participated in a Gardening Gone Wild Photo Contest for a while, mostly for lack of time. But this month's contest really is an interesting challenge to the designer in me. The focus is filling the frame, having just enough "information" in the picture, and nothing more. I had a look through some photos I made at the Arizona Cactus Garden at Stanford, and it really made me think. The photo above, with a nice collection of Cotyledon orbiculatum, a reddish Aloe (I think) and some Yucca leaves isn't bad - at least you cannot see a lot of bare dirt. But it's fairly unexcepitional.

The photo above, with Opuntia microdasis, Agave parryi, and Cleistocactus straussii (silvertorch cactus) shows off a more interesting combination of colors, shapes, and textures but the path in the background is distracting from the focal points. A different depth of field would have been better.

This photo is much better. I love how the morning light highlights the agave and the golden barrel cactus, and the background, being in the shade, recedes nicely. If this were a contest about light, I'd submit this photo. But it's a contest about framing, so I'm picking something else.

This photo, with Opuntia (prickly pear) as the focal point, Agave americana in the foreground, and yuccas and silvertorch mixed in really shows off the abundance of the cactus garden. I always think of cactus and succulent gardens as sparse, with lots of bare dirt because of the dry climate these plants are from. But it does not have to be like that at all, and this picture shows that quite nicely.

And now, let's go over to this month's contest and see how everyone else is filling the frame.

(I don't know) When to Propagate What and How

2011-10-23T08:16:00.000-07:00

Greenhouse on October 20. Nassella cernua in foreground

I've played with propagation for getting on 3 years now, and I've come to know a bit of this and that. To pour nearly boiling water over lupine seeds and let them soak overnight, for example, to break their dormancy, and to strip the leaves from cuttings even though it feels cruel. But I have a ways to go before I have that deep, internally felt calendar of events that tells me what to do when, which years of experience and attention (I hope) will give me. I'm still all at sea about when to take what kind of cuttings, and -- especially on my mind lately -- when to sow seeds.

Last year I started seedlings late, according to Dara Emery's calendar (which I blogged about here in 2009). This year I got closer to what it should have been, but I was still a bit late.

Last year so many seeds germinated I was overwhelmed. This year - not so much. Vast swathes of not so much, actually.

When I mentioned this to Denise, who guides our CNPS propagation group activities each month, she laughed and said, well, it would be surprising if anything came up at THIS time of year.

And another CNPS expert I know says she sows in February. So what's with sowing perennials in late July?

Why is this so confusing? I think the July date is so you can get plants ready to go in the ground by late fall - out of Mother Nature's natural cycle, but maximizing garden loveliness in spring, perhaps? Whereas February is Mother Nature's time, around here. Though I also see things popping up as soon as rain arrives. I've saved batches of seeds to try a February sowing too, and compare results.

There are other reasons for the low rate of germination this year. I tried a lot of wild gambles, seeds I collected a couple years ago and never planted, like false Solomon's seal and starry Solomon's seal. Also "mysteries" - seeds that lost their labels. I'm just curious to see if anything comes up. One or two things have.

Mystery 6!

Watching for seeds to germinate is more compulsive than Facebook!

I think giant wakerobin has germinated! But he looks a bit chlorotic. Am I drowning him? Does he need fertilizer? Or is this a weed or some other thing that got mixed in? I don't know - it's a mystery!

Trillium chloropetalum, giant wakerobin seedling. Maybe.

The other thing that's different this year is the planting media I used. I just went with commercial potting soil, as advised by Glenn Keator in his book The Complete Garden Guide to the Native Perennials of California. It's certainly easier than mixing up my own, but I think different seeds may prefer lighter sandier mixes and others might prefer a more peaty mix. So I'm not sure. I did mix peat into the riparian seeds, and in some cases they are getting so soggy green algae is forming on the top. Whereas the ones with a bit of sand or vermiculite sprinkled on the top and no extra peat are looking OK.

However, a couple things are doing well. I have Nassella cernua coming up fit to beat the band:

Nassella cernua, nodding needlegrass seedlings

I tried using this bunch grass down the southern chaparral slope to make a "river of grass" a couple years ago, but I failed to irrigate sufficiently and they all died, pretty much. A few may be struggling to survive there. Very thin soil on top of sandstone doesn't seem to suit them. This year I will probably try them in the south garden where I'll irrigate a bit more, and see how they do. I'll also try them in different light/shade situations. And I'll definitely be able to plant these seedlings when the good soaking rains begin so they can get going before frost danger arrives. They grow quickly as seedlings. And if happy - can live for a hundred years or more, they say!

I was also hoping for a lot of the nice soft green clumping Torrey's melic grass, which also does well with a bit of irrigation and/or shade, especially on banks where it grows natively around our place, but it is not cooperating greatly. I gathered a lot of seeds from last year's lot which did well in Experimental Bed Number 1 and a few other places. I'm hopeful the spring sowing will be more fruitful. Or seedlingful, rather.

Melica Torreyana - 5% success. I think spring is the time for them

I am thrilled to finally see some tiny tiny seedlings of alum root, Heuchera micrantha, coming up in one or two cells.

These small local perennials look a lot like coral bells. The ones I propagated last year did quite well their first year in the garden, except that they didn't blossom.

I'm hoping to plant these seeds in fall this year (instead of late spring/summer!) and maybe they'll bloom in spring. Also I hope last year's will also bloom this spring. I'll let you know! FYI, I've learned that they part shade and can take full shade. They can be pretty happy with minimal to no irrigation, look more lush with more water, and do very well in pots. Ms Town Mouse has some also and has enjoyed the foliage. So we'll be comparing notes by and by.

I have riparian plant stories to tell, and planting plans from Rana Creek to share - and I have so many succulent cuttings from the class Town Mouse and I took, that I'm just bustin' a gut to be finished with this post and GET OUT IN THE GARDEN!

Happy gardening to everyone, from this sunny late October day on the central coast of California!

Succulents for Fun and Defensibility in the WUI

2011-10-17T08:17:00.000-07:00

I may write about GUIs but I live in a WUI - how'zat! - spelled out them's Graphical User Interface, and Wildland Urban Interface. Though the Urbs are a few miles from us, technically that's where we are living here in my neck of the mountains. And in the California WUI, we think about fire. A lot. If we're me.

I'm also thinking about how to have more varieties of garden fun. In addition to my mania for local- local plants and restoration, I've decided to explore the world of succulents and cacti. Not only are they fun, and some are very good food for hummingbirds, and - well of course - they are extremely drought tolerant - but in addition they are composed largely of water, which as we all know beats fire, in the game of Fire Water Wood, whereas fire beats wood all to heck and gone. Also, these exotics from other parts of the Americas are not likely to survive here without a bit of gardening support, so I am not worried - global warming aside - that they would invade the wilderness here (With one or two exceptions which are listed on the IPC web site.).

When I aired my plan to some folk recently, one told me of a place they had heard about where the owners had planted a lot of very large aloes like a sort of hedge around their property - and a wildfire came up to the aloes, and no further!

So after the native plant sale on the 8th Oct - which was a great success! - I popped over to the neighboring University of California Santa Cruz Arboretum sale, grabbed a shallow cardboard box, and buttonholed Steve, an expert on succulents. "Fill 'er up!" I commanded, cheerfully, and cheerfully he complied.

And last weekend I attended the first of a two day class on Succulents and Cacti, offered by Foothill Community College, taught by Christie Smith, who is in charge of a very special garden on the Stanford University campus. As you can read here:

The Arizona Cactus Garden was planted in the late 1880s by the Stanfords, adjacent to the site of their proposed new residence at the Palo Alto Stock Farm. The home was never built, and the Garden was abandoned during WWII. It currently is being restored.

Here is how it looked in the 1880s:

And here is a view I took on Saturday - followed by photos of amazing plants! We walked all over the garden with Christie who focused on a set of about 20 or so plants for us to learn more about. I hope you enjoy these colors and textures. Interestingly it's the tiny fluff of the Saguaro - the traditional cactus with arms we all think about - that is so irritating, more than the spines. I forget the name of that fluff now but it was used as itching powder - and very nasty stuff it is too. Don't touch any of those types of cactus!

I do hope you enjoyed the show!

October GBBD - Town Mouse

2011-10-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

There's been a bit of craziness with the weather in the last few weeks. First, a really good rainstorm. Then a few nice days. Then a drizzly day. And now temperatures in the 80s, much warmer than most of the summer. It's really a small miracle the plants are hanging in there. But the garden doesn't look bad at all. Let's have a look.

Above, the California native Abutilon palmeri, which I planted about 2 weeks ago. The yellow flowers are very popular with the local pollinators, and I'm hoping this plant will work out because it's hard to find native fall bloomers.

Of course there's always Epilobium, the California fuchsia, now in its third month. It took a bit of a beating in the rainstorm, and I had to stake half of the plants. But the hummingbirds are enjoying the red blossoms so much that I'm finding it worth the trouble.

When I bought the Abutilon at the nursery, I could not resist the asters. 2 for $3, it was such a bargain and the bees showed up immediately.

Bees also congregate at the rosemary, which is still in full bloom.

I'm also happy that the fall blooming camelia is putting on a show again.

And Correa, from Australia, is fortunately again confused about the season and blooming in the Australian spring (which is our fall). I appreciate this plant that reliably brings some color in the garden and gets by with very little water.

The native goldenrod is finally coming into its own and adding a splash of color in front of the Mulenbergia rigens (deer grass).

Also blooming are two other native buckwheats, Lessingia 'Silver carpet', autumn sage, and some of the coral bells. As I said, not bad, considering the weather craziness.

And now I'll head over to Carol at May Dreams Gardens, where I'm hoping to find the links to many other gardens and their late fall blooms. Won't you join me?

Volunteering with Save the Bay

2011-10-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

The company where I'm currently consulting had scheduled a day of service learning today. When I found out we'd go to the Save the Bay nursery, I knew I wanted to participate!

Here's what Save the Bay says about their mission on their website:

Save The Bay is the largest regional organization working to protect, restore and celebrate San Francisco Bay. As its leading champion since 1961, Save The Bay protects the Bay from pollution and inappropriate shoreline development, making it cleaner and healthier for people and wildlife.

We learned a lot more about the history of Save the Bay (Happy 50th!), the importance of wetlands (flood control, filtration, habitat), and the history of the bay. Did you know that we've lost 90% of the wetlands since the 1800s? It seems hard to believe, but it's true and the effect on the salmon fisheries and the bay's filtration capabilities is very noticable.

But back to my volunteer day - well, half day. We started with a delicious picnic lunch in the Palo Alto baylands near the duck pond with view of water and the clear blue sky.

Thus fortified, we walked over to the Save the Bay nursery.

Seth, our trainer and teacher for the day started out by playing a game of Save the Bay jeopardy with us. We were able to answer more than half the questions, which I found quite impressive. The next step was to do some work, and our task was to transplant grass seedlings from flats into tubes for later transplanting. We were transplanting Leymus triticoides (creeping wild rye), a cool season grass with upright green blades that reach 2 feet high. The roots of this perennial grass get up to 60 feet long, so it's excellent at stabilizing the ground and great at surviving dry years.

With a crowd of people, we were able to do the job fairly quickly. Here's how it worked.

Find a single seedling with some roots and some green.
Put a hole into the soil in the tube with a chopstick.
Stick the seedling into the hole.
Fill the tube with more soil.

It looked easy. Of course, it didn't take long for us to find out that some of the grass had been sown in clay and was hard to find those single seedlings. The clay stuck to your fingers, glove or not. After only an hour, a few backs started hurting, but we perservered. We kept asking Seth for more flats of grass, and finished a respectable number of trays of tubes, which were then put into the greenhouse to be babied there for a little while.

After some final clean-up, I turned around just once more to imagine how our grasses would soon be in the nursery, together with the California poppies and other native plants.

I imagined how, in a little while, a different team of volunteers would plant our grasses near the Bay. Our grasses would give shelter and food to the different birds and other critters, including the two endangered species native to our region, the California clapper rail and the California salt marsh harvest mouse (photo from Wikipedia - isn't she cute?). Well, let me correct that, the mouse actually lives in the pickleweed, but if our grasses can keep the shore stable with their 60 foot roots, it helps the ecosystem overall and the mouse will be happy.

I was sorry to say good-bye to Seth and to my volunteer friends, but also happy to be able to ride my bike home along the baylands and Steven's Creek trails where I enjoyed the warm Indian summer afternoon and the first white pelicans.

Greenhouse for the Rest of Us

2011-10-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I enjoyed the posts about the greenhouse Ms. Country Mouse prepared for us tremendously. It was fun to see the design, fun to see the implementation, and fun to see the plants (like in the photo above). And of course I've enjoyed the generous gifts of plants even more.

But not all of us have acreage. I actually feel very lucky to live on a 10,000 square feet lot, but the sunnier spots of my mostly shady garden are all spoken for. Yet it gives me great pleasure to see the little plants peek out with their green little heads, and for me watching a seed become a 5 foot beauty in just a few months is miraculous. So, when I was at our local nursery recently and saw a greenhouse on sale for $39.95, I couldn't resist. I took it home, and unpacked it right away.

Of course assemblage was required, but how hard would it be? No matter, a woman who's put together an IKEA file cabinet isn't afraid of a little greenhouse. And actually, I needn't have worried. With one page of documentation and about 10 minutes of work snapping the pieces together the job was done and the little greenhouse was waiting in the utility area next to the bee house and across from the potting bench.

It's a nice spot with morning and noon sun but mostly sheltered from the hot afternoon sun. I'll have 4 shelves for plants, and might put a few gallon puts all around it. I might have to cover the baby plants with chicken wire to protect them from birds, but I'm hopeful that things will work out.

For really cold nights, I can add the plastic cover that was included in the package. But most CA natives are prone to fungal diseases, so I'll probably go with air circulation over protection. All I need to do now is fill my little pots with soil, put in a few seeds each, and water as needed. I'm already dreaming of baby blue eyes, clarkia, five spot, and a few other seeds I've collected and Ms. Country Mouse has promised to share some of hers. And this time, I'll be better with the labels. Most of the time. I hope...

San Francisco Botanical Garden

2011-10-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

I hadn't visited the San Francisco Botanical Garden for quite a while. Now that non-resident visitors have to pay to get in, I want to make sure I have the time to really enjoy the many different habitats from all over the world. A few days ago, though, the time had come to return, and the garden did not disappoint. Of course, I was especially drawn to the California native areas - the Acer circinatum (vine maple) in the redwood habitat was amazing. I fell in love with it all over again. True, after having lost 2 already that I tried to grow in a large container, I'm just a little cautious. But I think I'll try just once more. Don't you love the fall foilage against the native ginger (Asarum caudatum)?

My friend and I also visited the open California native habitat, and I was somewhat reassured that it looked similar to parts of my garden.

You can see dormant native grasses, and a few Madia - all accented with green in the background. I like even more how this brown/green mix looks along the path.

Here, native iris, and blooming buckwheats, as well as a gray-leaved native sage and a low-growing manzanita result in a pleasing variety of colors and shapes. The rocks are also well placed. Also delightful were a few blossoms of the Fremontodedron (flannel bush), with the branches covered in lichen because of the famous San Francisco fog.

I also greatly enjoyed the succulent garden. It's easy to overlook its beauty when there's flowers everywhere, but this time of year it really stood out.

And I'll leave you with this halloweenish picture from the fragrance garden. I loved the chewed up leaves, together with the dark blossom. Altogether, a wonderful visit to one of my most favorite places on earth.

Planting Time! - Plant Sale Time!!

2011-10-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

Duncan presenting the new rabbit fence (aka Duncan fence). Hopefully temporary.

Rains have come early this year. Good solid soaking rains. Tree toppling rains.
Planting rains!
And plant sales upcoming! What a great combination. This Saturday I'll be helping with the CNPS Santa Cruz chapter sale, which happens at the same bat time and same bat channel as the UCSC Arboretum sale - a great event for gardeners all around. This year I'll also be anxiously thinking about what to buy as I unload the truck full of native plant gems that the propagation group has been working on all year. I have two beds to create and many more planting opportunities all over the place.

Last weekend I impulsively went to the Native Plant Revival nursery sale and bought nine plants at 25% off:
3 Ceanothus gloriosus "Anchor Point" a low spreading ceanothus that won't intermarry with my native ones. (I always feel weird saying this as it makes me sound like a person who disapproves of mixed marriages or something!)

Low ceanothus to spread and make a swathe leading to the seat

Also purchased 3 Salvia sonomensis Bee's Bliss, also very low and spreading, which I put down the other side of the new bed, and across the pathway to make some kind of informal symmetry (that's the idea anyway).

These two tiny gray green blobs should spread and spread.

I put deer protection on the little green grey blob that will spread and spread to the right of the path

And 3 Sisyrinchium bellum, blue eyed grass, species, which are awaiting their spot. I had bad luck with dwarf varieties so I thought I'd try the straight species.

Several plant sales are upcoming in the San Francisco Bay area - you should google for sales in your area too. Here are the ones I know of:
October 8:

CNPS Santa Cruz plant sale and at the same time and place, UC Santa Cruz Arboretum plant sale
Pete Veilleux is holding the grand opening of his new nursery in Oakland, East Bay Wilds
Foothill College Hort Department plant sale.

Oct 15

CNPS Santa Clara chapter Plant Sale at Hidden Villa in Los Altos

Have fun choosing native plants for your garden and enjoy your planting season!

October First Views (Country Mouse)

2011-10-02T10:16:00.000-07:00

It's time again for First Views - views of the garden as a whole, instead of closeups of plants which are fine too of course. October finds our gardens in various degrees of attractiveness this year. Next year I wonder where we'll be!

I've been busier propagating than gardening lately, but yesterday Wood Rat cleared the path along the curve of the north-facing valley, through the disaster zone that resulted from me being too busy to do the usual spring weeding this year. Thistle seeds are clustered everywhere. So much progress wiped out in one season. Well, picking self up, brushing self off...

Wood Rat cleared this whole path! I'm inspired to return to this area. The pool garden is above and to the left of this picture - you can sort of make out the pool fence just behind the scrim of foliage that's "blown out" - not such a great picture.

A view down into the north valley, and the dead madrone that I love but that will probably have to go one day.

The red blossoms of the California fuschia are still popping out - hoping to propagate and plant a lot more of these later this year. Hoping the seeds will be ready by late October.

Through the gate from the pool garden to the south garden.

Pool garden is still looking quite nice, with salvias and verbenas and sunflowers and a rambling rose.

The pool.

On the south side of the house, looking over the valley to the south east.

South garden's "Experimental Bed #1" on the left with mad madia, and new beds on the right and ahead to work on this fall.

Looking down into the chaparral, neighbor's house over there down on the left. Hard to convey the down-ness of the slope. Needs work after all the thinning we had to do.

Looking along the south garden to the left of Experimental Bed #1. (Chaparral slopes down to the road on the left, and continues past the road.)

This is the area where I'll plant today: three spreading Ceanothus gloriosus 'Anchor Point,' a selection of Point Reyes ceanothus, and three Salvia 'Bees' Bliss' which is a cultivar of Salvia sonomensis I think. Attentive viewers may note that the front of the greenhouse is now shingled, thanks again to Wood Rat who was on vacation. And what do you do when on vacation? Shingle, of course!

A closer view of the greenhouse - been so sunny I've had the shade cloth on the south facing windows. I also have a little shade area to the left of the greenhouse, with some potted wetland plants growing there. We hope to make a little patio in that nook between the greenhouse door and gate into the pool area. The shrub on the left of the picture is a volunteer coffeeberry. I'll probably be planting a spreading ceanothus in the bottom central area of the photo today.

Another area awaiting inspiration and planting, to the right of the greenhouse. I'd like to put a lot of succulents in here. We'll see. Have to mound up a little to cover the concrete post bottoms. Also these stones acting as path markers will need to be replaced with more solid rows of the round and reddish-brown sonoma rocks, about head size and smaller.

Thanks, Town Mouse for starting this meme. I'm off to your First Views blog post to add my post to your mister linky thingy! Hope if you're a blogger reading this that you'll join in and show us some garden views.

October First Views (Town Mouse)

2011-10-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

It's the first week of the month again, and I'm hoping some other blogger's will join me showing off the views of their garden. I started this project because I found many close-ups of flowers on my blogs, and I couldn't share the actual views of my garden with friends far away.

Now that it's October, I can really see some changes. Above, the Eriogonum arborescens (native buckwheat) is fading to a beautiful reddish brown, and the coyote brush, so brilliant green, is looking more dried out but starting to bloom.

The side view of the front garden shows even more noticeable changes, though not imposed by nature. Last weekend I removed the two Salvia mellifera (black sage) and the monkey flowers, which had annoyed me for most of the summer by having the nerve to go summer dormant. I replaced them with Lessingia filaginifolia 'Silver Carpet', a low-growing plant with greyish leaves that I hope will have pretty purple flowers for most of the year. I also put in two Arctostaphylos 'Emerald Carpet'. This manzanita cultivar has a reputation for needing quite a bit of water, but I have it in the side strip and it seems to cope with a hosing off once or twice a month.

So far, the new plants have settled in well, and I hope the winter rain will make them healthy and strong. For spring, I will interplant them with annuals.

In the side strip, you can see Salvia leucophyllia (purple sage), Mulenbergia rigens (deer grass) and A. 'Emerald Carpet' - an also the first of many leaves from the Liquidambar tree.

In the back garden, I've pruned the seedheads of the grasses and the hummingbird sage and the Asclepias speciosa (butterfly weed) is turning yellow. The view is quite different from the August view with blooming poppies and lavender.

When I look toward the hammock, the brightly blooming Epilobium 'UC hybrid' California fuchsia more than makes up for the lost poppies.

Looking toward the house, in the other direction, the non-native sage delights with another flush of purple blooms, and the native buckwheat adds a splash of brightness between the Ceanothus (native wild lilac).

The side strip in the back is truly ready for a makeover. I have to prune the seedheads of Eriogonum grande rubescens (rosy buckwheat) and I've decided to transplant or compost the two chaparral currents. I don't even mind that they go more or less summer dormant, but their location fairly close to a fence gives them too little sun in winter so they didn't bloom last spring. I'm trying a small manzanita (A. densiflora 'Sentinel') instead.

Here's a side view of the same area. I do plan on leaving the scattered seeds of the Eriogonum for the birds, but it really is time for some clean-up.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying the feeling of fall, seeds and hungry migrating birds, and the first of the changing colors.

If you like to show off some views of your garden, just add yourself to the Mr. Linky widget below. I'll enjoy visiting you!

Wildflower Wednesday

2011-09-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

I've missed Wildflower Wednesday, the last Wednesday of the month, more times than I care to think about, but this time, with a timely post from Diana at Elephant's Eye about her South African wildflowers, I actually did remember. Considering it's later September and the days are getting shorter, it's really quite summery here in Silicon Valley. Temps are in the 80s, and in my native garden there are still some flowers. Above, Solidago canadensis looks more resplendent than in reality. The good thing about this species of goldenrod is that it doesn't spread like crazy. The bad thing is that it doesn't spread a lot and it doesn't look like much. But the different pollinators seem to enjoy the offering.

An even bigger success is the Eriogonum, shown above between two ceanothus bushes. The original garden design had a Cistus (rock rose) in that spot. It bloomed spectacularly for one spring and then died just as spectacularly. I replaced it, and the replacement died. I tried again, and, following the three strikes rule I have in my garden, planted an Eriogonum instead. No longer sure which cultivar, but it fills the spot nicely, blooms at a time when I need it, and seems fairly indestructable. Here's a close-up.

The other big attraction with both pollinators and hummingbirds is Epilobium.

And finally, new to the garden, is Abutilon palmeri, an Abutilon from the California desert. I just purchased three of these for the annual fall revamp of the garden, and was delighted to find that butterflies were already gathering there even while it was just in a pot. Exactly what I'm looking for in a wildflower!

And now, I'll go over to Clay and Limestone, where Gail has invited others to join her in a celebration of wildflowers.

(I hope you'll all come back here on Saturday when Country Mouse and I will share the first views of October with everyone, hoping others will join. We've wanted one day devoted to garden pictures, not to close-ups, and have enjoyed visiting each other that way. See you soon!)