Margaret's mallow 2.0

Margaret wrote to me last month, "After our rains, I thought to check your blog for rain totals and take a trip down Mallow Memory Lane. Here is a photo of my mallow (there are actually four clustered together) taken on 3/3/14. I never watered it at all! Not bad for our dry winter. The mallow has been doing really well.  I try to keep it trimmed so that it doesn't grow past 10 feet.  I'm excited for the [upcoming predicted] rain.  Every year around this time, one lone sunflower plant will spring up in my backyard.  This year I have +/-10 scattered through the yard.  I guess the squirrels have been busy."


I agree.  My native garden is doing OK with supplemental water (I have some less than one year and one year old installed plants).

The source of Margaret's mallow (Lavatera assurgentiflora) was some seed from a neighbor of mine when I lived in Hawthorne.  Their mother or grandmother had brought the original seed back from a trip to the Channel Islands. The plants are short lived, but have beautiful flowers and of course they enjoy the climate here, just a short distance from the island where they are from.

Margaret's Mallow v 2.0

Margaret's Mallow (Lavatera assurgentiflora) has had an occasional appearance here on the blog.  Back in December she wrote that the original had died and she had culled the seedlings to a select few:

Below is a photo of my new mallows that sprung up after the original died.  I took this photo last month (November 2011).  As you can see, the ground is littered with mini mallows.  I let about 10 grow to 4 ft, before I chose one to grow.  I put some in the front yard to act as a fence.  I also gave several away. 

BTW, I didn't add any water at all to these plants.  Crazy how fast this grows. -Margaret

Margaret's mallow update

My friend Margaret writes,
After we had the heavy rains in December, my mallow just seemed to stop thriving. This photo was taken today. Note that this year the seedlings started growing.
Part one of my pruning is evident in the photo. Part two will occur after the trash is picked up. I do hope my mallow can make a comeback.
I have collected the seeds from the cut branches.

I wrote back,

You have really well-draining soil, if I recall correctly. However, you may want to transplant a seedling or two to a slight mound that will provide better water shedding from the trunk in case that is the problem.

If you follow the label link to Margaret's mallow you'll see that this was an early 2009 transplant from a 1 gallon pot, so it's had a two+ year run. Maybe that's all you get from Lavatera assurgentiflora. The main native plant web sites that I surveyed didn't call out a specific life expectancy, but this web site says that it is short-lived:

http://www.gardenguides.com/taxonomy/island-mallow-lavatera-assurgentiflora/

so perhaps it's run its course.


Back to my blog vacation.  See ya.

Catalina Ironwood as street tree

Over in Margaret's neighborhood the county recently put in new street landscaping with Catalina Ironwoods, deer grass, and a few other natives. Margaret had emailed me in May of 2009!! about a neighborhood vote to use the native plants. Although i think it was planned for 2009, apparently it took until now to put the native plants in.

Here is an bit from the May 2009, email from Margaret which shows the influence of a neighborhood association.

" Several weeks ago I attended the Del Aire Neighborhood Association meeting.
...it was discussed what will happen to the median strip at Aviation. The olive trees will be relocated to another Los Angeles city and in its place Catalina Ironwood trees will be planted. The Neighborhood Assoc. was adamant that only Calif. natives be planted. In fact they turned away a shipment of some east coast trees. The renovation is being headed up by Anne Kershner. Should start in the fall."







- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Margaret's mallow

Margaret's mallow is getting large! She writes that the trash can is in view because of some nearby cleanup.

Margaret's Lavatera; gopher predation experiences

When We last saw Margaret's Lavatera assurgentiflora, in Margaret's Mallow it had grown significantly, but now it's even bigger.

Of the half dozen that I took to my parent's house and planted on the Upper 40, all but one at last check (during my trip back from Andrew Murray) had been destroyed by gophers. Gophers LOVE this plant, so much so that they will girdle the trunk and nibble small branches above ground. The one surviving Lavatera is in a partially shaded area and somehow the gophers hadn't spied it at last check. These are really good looking large shrubs with flowers all over like Margaret's picture when they are a bit older, so it's a shame to lose so many. Here's a photo from Feb 15 where there's signs of above ground nibbling.

Another Lavatera was eaten about 3/4 of the way through and lying on the ground. The remaining upright trunk at left is girdled all around. By April, these were all dead as doornails.


A Mimulus croaked, and it looked like gopher predation, but I'm not 100% sure.

In contrast, a different good looking flowering plant, Romneya coulteri (Matilija Poppy at left) planted at several locations on the Upper 40 - including a couple right in the middle of the gopher hills - seems to be doing well with no noticable gopher predation. It will start slowly this year but next year ought to have plenty of great looking flowers. Holding the earth on this hill is a chore that's probably well suited to the root structure of R. coulteri. The weeds are Oxalis pes-caprae or Oxalis cernua (Sour grass, originally from South Africa). Gophers tend to farm that stuff in my experience.

Also surviving and flourishing despite gophers were several salvias (a white hybrid [perhaps Salvia apiana x leucophylla "Desperado"] that was too large for my yard, a S. Clevelandii selection propagated from cuttings in my yard, and local black salvia [Salvia mellifera?] that I grew from cuttings taken in the Santa Barbara chaparral) as well as a buckwheat.

Surviving with minor gopher predation were California poppies and any number of little oak seedlings growing from the several hundred acorns my brother and I planted last fall.

Margaret's Mallow

I gave my friend Margaret a couple tree mallows (Lavatera assurgentiflora) while back. I've written about her California wildflower yard before. Here's what she wrote to me recently.

Hi Brent,

The top photo is from the first day of planting. The bottom photo was taken today. The mallow has been in the ground for one month. As you can see it is growing nicely. BTW, the plant is not as close to the wall as it appears. The other mallow I planted this past weekend at my parent's house. My mom was very excited to receive it. I told her the back story.

In other news, a lady walked by my yard and told me she makes it a point to walk down my street to see the progress. She told me she is letting her lawn go and will replace it with drought resistant plants. I gave her a bag of seeds harvested from my yard. She was so thrilled. Slowly, but surely, lawns will be a thing of the past!


Margaret

Margaret's flower yard

Margaret's yard is looking good. She has mostly wildflowers visible at present, but there's a few shrubs in there somewhere too. Margarent lives closer to the beach, so she's on more of the sandy back dune soil, but she says that one block away it can be dense clay at the surface, probably an artifact of the the grading for her housing tract.


There's more beautiful photos at http://podfeet.com/NosillaCast/photos/margarets_flower_yard/album/index.html

All photos are courtesy of Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast podcast hosted at www.podfeet.com A Technology Geek Podcast With An EVER So Slight Macintosh Bias.

Here's what Margaret had to say about her start with native plants:

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'How I Started Native Planting' in Margaret's words

I have NEVER watered my lawn. Brown in summer, green in winter. Never believed in watering a lawn in SoCal. I grew up during the '70s drought, so I was well-schooled.

While riding my bike I met Brad Henderson before he planted. I admired his house. A couple of years later I read about his problems in the Daily Breeze. I remembered being outraged as I am very familiar with the (lack of) landscape in Lawndale. Reading the article I also discovered, "There is such a thing as California Natives that aren't succulents?!"

A few more years went by as I did not have money to pursue conversion of my lawn. By happy coincidence a friend's daughter was volunteering at the SEALAB and told me about their plant restoration projects. She urged me to contact Monica Acosta at the SEALAB.

One year later, I did. Summer 2006 - Dec 2006 I started weeding out my yard. December, 2006 I hired a friend to rake up behind me while I rototilled my lawn. My next door neighbor came out and SHE too decided to hire a gardener to rototill her yard. I was her catalyst. She even went inside and gave this book to me: 'Gardening With A Wild Heart' by Judith Larner Lowry.

Yard rototilled, I headed off to the SEALAB and met Monica. She warned me that her plants are not the kind you see in gardens, but rather in seaside restoration projects. Also, I wouldn't get instant gratification. I was unfazed. Since I had no clue what native plants to buy (or even what they should look like), I followed Monica around while she described the plants. I did bring a drawing of my front yard with measurements as reference. Basically I said, "Give me 5 of those, 2 of those", and so on. Monica was also the one who gave me reference to Las Pilitas, Theodore Payne, Ranch Santa Ana Botanic Garden, 'California Native Plants For The Garden', The Complete Book of Salvias: Sages For Every Garden' and the name of the maintenance book that you and I got when we became Payne members. Monica also advised me to buy some wildflower seeds from Larner Seeds and just throw in the yard to kind of fill it in.

I went home and planted as well as laid down a pathway and brick work (with same friend who raked). It took us a couple of days. The following week we had the coldest night with frost on the ground. Everything survived! Plants in ground, I decided to read the 'Gardening With A Wild Heart' book. Boy, am I glad I did. The author has a militant, but not off-putting style about her. Her message was wonderful. Basically, to just do it and not get caught up in the details. She has a wonderful story in the book that starts out, 'A Plant Is Not a Couch'. Here is a passage from the book:

"A plant is not a couch" has been our motto for some years, somewhat cryptically calling attention to the element of uncertainty that is always part of dealing with living things. We hope to encourage our gardening customers to relax, take chances, be of good heart, take the losses lightly, and enjoy themselves.

I was so laid-back that I didn't even bother to research before I planted!

A couple of months pass by and no rain. I had by this time made a trip to Payne, and bought plants while my neighbor went to Las Pilitas (we gave each other our wish lists). I'm working on my yard +/- 15 hours a week. I received lots of compliments and questions from the dog walkers. Unlike you, I have not had any negative comments. Lucky for me, my neighbor two doors down has a run down, unpainted (until last year when the neighbor offered to paint at cost) and weed filled yard. I guess all the attention was focused there. Also as I was outside so much that first year, the neighbors knew I was up to something. Where was I? Oh yeah, a couple of months go by. I'm hanging out with my friend I hired to help with the initial demolition. She lives with her sister in Lawndale 6 months out of the year. Together we went to the Henderson house to check out his plants. Brad was outside and came over to talk. I proudly told him how we converted my yard and how I had met him years earlier. He was very gracious...even gave me a copy of the Huell Howser video. I watched it and was happy to see that he advises new native plant gardeners to read the 'Gardening With A Wild Heart; book. CHECK.

By this time I had also read the other books. I am glad I didn't start first with the Bart O'Brien books. It might have overwhelmed me. Very informative and NOW a good resource tool, but in the beginning I would have been paranoid that I was planting or maintaining incorrectly. Too much information is not necessarily a good thing.

I made it through that first drought year just fine. Even bought more plants from Payne as well as Rancho Santa Ana. Only my Dune lupines from the SEALAB died after about 6 months. They just did not like my clay soil. This year, everything took off. I even had to 'weed' some of the wildflowers so they did not crowd out my other plants. Summer, 2007 I rototilled the backyard and in Nov, 2007 I planted Festuca rubra molate and meadow wildflower seeds in the backyard. So far, so good.