GBBD - August: Fire and Fog

The "Lockheed" fire has burned, at latest count, 6,800 acres up near Bonny Doon since August 12. So far only two outbuildings have burned, but a couple thousand people plus their animals have evacuated because of the danger. It's about 20 miles north of us or so (not sure but it's farther away than danger distance anyway). We have the smell of smoke in the thick morning fog, which is now lifting. It's been 62 years since that area burned, and a lot of talk about how that is a typical period to go between fires. I think our area last burned at least that long ago. But the area by the Lockheed testing facility is steep and remote, with lots of knobcone pine - and manzanita. We have manzanita, and also a lot of Monterey pine that was planted about 40 years ago, when the forest service was almost giving them away, and the neighborhood thought it was a good idea to plant them. It wasn't. They are now starting to fall over, and they are very flammable. They are native near here, but don't grow in the wild here.

I haven't been posting lately. Thank goodness T. Mouse has been providing such interesting reading and viewing. She is away from home right now so this post represents our contribution to GBBD this month.

But I've been thinking a lot. Judith Larner Lowry calls this the fifth season in California - neither summer nor fall, but that time when nothing much is happening, a time to think, a time to plan, a time to step back, to enjoy, to contemplate, to rest.

Fire, and restoration, and the effect of gardening on the environment have been uppermost in my thoughts. We have been thinning in the chaparral below the house, and I'm liking how it's shaping up. The manzanitas, with just a little more aesthetic pruning, and with a few low growing plants added here and there will be stunning, but I'm not sure how much we can keep in the "defensible zone."


A tour around the less wild parts my garden reveals to me that I am just not a landscape designer and need help. I have hopes for my development as a propagator and nurseryperson, but landscape design will have to emerge where there are natives to nurture, as there are in many parts of our property. Paths are emerging, nice forms in the remaining shrubs.

In fact, I bag that as a name for a web site - emergentlandscaping.com. I haven't claimed it yet but will. Patient landscaping that helps the native flora and fauna emerge. I'll let others deal with the aesthetics of creating a garden landscape from a blank canvas, a stretch of empty ground. I just don't have that kind of imagination.

So - what's blooming? Well not a lot. I have one area that is full of stunning blooms. It's a bit hidden behind these coyote brush bushes I trimmed up.

See the little patch of white in the middle above... Here's what it is...

Eriogonum giganteum, Saint Catherine's Lace. It's a tall wonderful eriogonum that is apparently quite deer resistant, and takes no irrigation at all. It isn't a local native - it's from the California Channel Islands. Here's a close up of those lovely umbels:


I'm propagating it for garden use. I like the leaves, they're a bit larger than many native plant leaves, and nicely rounded:

I'm pretty hopeful I can get those babies in the ground this fall, along with the bunch grasses you can also see above. And these California Fuschia (Epilobium canum) - propagated from local indigenous natives -

But I hope the bunnies don't eat them. Look at the miserable condition of this bed in our "entrance garden" that I hoped would be a mass of their red-orange blooms:


Between the gophers gobbling things from below and the bunnies binging on what's left on top, not a lot to look at there. At least the two little Ceanothus bushes are doing well.

Just for comparison with the July GBBD picture, here are the gone-to-seed monkeyflowers, and the seaside daisy and mondardella villosa from the other side of the entrance path:


Elsewhere a few sparks of color. The Keckiella cordifolia, heart-leaved penstemon, is blooming - a nice orangy red bloom:


But be advised - these blooms are on the end of rangy stems. Best for "back of the border" plantings, tying on trellises and so on. They are also not native to this area, so I cound them as an exotic native. And they volunteer, so that isn't good, for me here anyway. Still. Good to have things that bloom in summer, in the California native garden. The above blossom is on a volunteer. Here's the whole thing:

California poppy Eschscholzsia californica, is blooming too. I just have one right now, and it's a volunteer.


I have a few garden flowers blooming of the non-native persuasion, but I'd rather see those blooming in greater profusion in other people's garden bloom day postings, and just share with you what's growing in a California native garden. Over to May Dreams Gardens now to see what's happening in other gardens...