Pampas grass’ hidden meaning

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/30/exclusive-pampas-grass-sales-falling-secret-signal-swingers/

The presence of Pampas Grass in a yard is said to signal that the occupants are swingers!

Brent - via iPhone

Friendship Park II

What's not to like?


Brazilian pepper, wall to wall Euphorbia terracina, and mustard forests.

Aside from that it's a nice view.

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Friendship Park

Here's an interesting sign.


With all that mustard, one wonders how they define restoration.

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E. terracina pulled versus date: Is there a useful trend?

Here's a graph of number of E. terracina pulled versus date starting in 2013 and going to 1/2/2015.  This is based on my personal data from Lunada Canyon covering the same hillside area of perhaps 5000 ft^2.

I'm observing that:

Ahhh. Sunset...

 Ahhh. Sunset at Point Vicente on October 16th.  What could be more beautiful?

And we wonder how they get there...

Sometimes I wonder how known bad actor plants get into our wild areas.  I guess I don't need to wonder that much.  Here's photo from Sunday's grocery shopping trip to Sprouts market.

Lunada Canyon in early February

I volunteer in Lunada Canyon and recent rains mean the weeds will go wild.  Euphorbia terracina is the worst offender.  I pulled more than 74 seedlings (mostly) and mature plants (only a few) in early February when we hadn't had much rain at all. 

On the other hand, the restoration areas will benefit quite a lot and it will be nice to observe the changes over time.  In Early February the bees were loving this Rhus integrifolia (Lemonade Berry) which had both flowers and berries at the same time.

Euphorbia terracina

Here's a weed that's easy to pull and one where you might feel that an investment of time now will have a real preventive impact. The weed is Euphorbia terracina (Geraldton carnation weed, false caper), and it's just getting established nearby. Early prevention could make a difference, so exterminate on sight.

Jubata or Pampas?

I started reading about Pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana), and then quickly decided that I really ought to be reading about Jubata grass (Cortaderia jubata).  Both are undesirable invasive weeds along the California coast, but Jubata grass is more widespread.

According to Cal-IPC one way to discriminate is by pannicle (flower) height. 

Jubata grass (Cortadaria jubata) is a perennial grass six to twenty-three feet tall with long leaves arising from a tufted base or tussock. The inflorescence or flower cluster is a plumed panicle at the end of a long stem. Stems generally are at least twice as long as the tussock. Plumes consist of hairy female flowers, deep violet when immature, turning pinkish or tawny cream-white at maturity. Jubata grass is easily confused with, and often called, pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana). The two species are distinguished by stem height, leaf, plume, and spikelet color, florets, leaf tip, and presence of viable seed. The tussocks of jubata grass are less erect and more spreading and not fountain-like, when compared to tussocks of Cortaderia selloana.

Lunada Canyon gardening

I volunteer about once per month to look after Lunada Canyon.  This weekend I was inspired to spend about an hour cutting back on some Acacia cyclops (aka red-eyed wattle or coastal wattle) which is a native of Australia that is invasive in California due to prolific seed production and bird-dispersal of seeds.

In South Africa, they have used biological pest control to decrease the spread of this plant.  They report 90-100% seed damage when a seed-feeding weevil, Melanterius servulus, was unleashed on the Acacia population.(Biological control of an alien tree, Acacia cyclops, in South Africa: impact and dispersal of a seed-feeding weevil, Melanterius servulus, F.A.C. Impsona, V.C. Morana, J.H. Hoffmanna).  (The bad news is that the weevil spreads about 2 km per year.)

 As I started cutting back Acacia branches, I found Artemisia Californica (California sagebrush) and Heteromeles arbutifolia (Toyon) hidden under the outer branches.  Photo above shows Toyon in foreground and Acacia in background.

Gophers like castor roots

I volunteer in a local canyon that is owned by a land conservancy.  My charter is to survey invasive plants and I do so about once per month, hiking around and doing a little bit of wild gardening to encourage recovery of the local native plants.  I wish I had more time to spend there, so I'm always looking for ways to multiply my efforts.  I may have found an unwitting ally.  Here's how:

Last month I noted in my report the the land conservancy that the castor beans (castor plant or Ricinus communis, a plant from eastern Africa that is considered invasive) were going to seed that that the small to medium sized plants were easy enough to pull from the loose, sandy, soil.

This month I returned to see that the conservancy had been working in the canyon while I was gone and had done extensive cutting of many invasive plants - mostly anise (Foeniculum), which had immature seeds.  (By doing this work they were preventing the seeds from spreading further.)

I also noted that majority of the young castor bean plants were now dead.

I thought the conservancy had sprayed them with an herbicide.  Not so.