Trellis

I mentioned back here, that I'd finished my garden trellis. Here's a photo. It's constructed of about $100 of redwood; smaller versions sold in the home centers for $200 on up. I may still add some cross members on the top.


I want to make a concrete garden bench to sit inside the trellis. And yes, the paint on the house needs work, particularly on this window sill. On each side of the trellis I've planted Roger's Red, a California native grape. The foliage will be stunning in fall, if this little plant is any indication.

Pasta with wilted arugula

I posted first about arugula some time ago. Since then, I've gotten to know it pretty well. I've had it on pizza (recommended), on pasta (mostly recommended, but not recommended if also with your standard tomato sauce). It's bitter (the degree depends on the age and farm practices - hydroponic arugula can be quite mild). It's smoky. It goes great with on pizza and with bacon or as a smallish amount of bitter flavor in salad. In this favorite pasta dish, I wilt it either over/in the hot pasta or in a pan with some crisped bacon. Broccoli was added as well in this variant. It's fine without it too.


Here's the very simple recipe sketch for the picture above:

Crisp up some smallish bacon pieces. Get them really crisp. Really. There's nothing worse than non-crispy bacon here. Reserve as much of the bacon fat as you feel comfortable with using in the pasta for extra flavor. Augment it with olive oil if you want.
Place arugula on top of hot, cooked, pasta. Allow it to wilt with the pot lid on. Maybe fold it in to the pasta to help it along and distribute it among the pieces of pasta so that it's not a compacted, matted, blob of arugula when it's done. (I speak from experience.) Remember, its best flavor experience is in counterpoint to the other ingredients, not as a giant spinach-like blob of cooked greens.
Place small pieces of left over steamed broccoli from the fridge in the hot bacon pan to warm.
Add olive oil, bacon grease, broccoli, and crisp bacon bits to the pasta.
Plate pasta and grate some fresh Parmesan on top.

Bloom Day; Blog Action Day

I normally don't participate in chain emails or calls to mass blog action. There is an exception to every rule, however.

The 15th is supposed to be "bloom day" among the garden bloggers. Today is also supposed to be a day of mass blog awareness/protest about the environment. I'm feeling curmudgeonly, so I'll kill two birds with one stone by posting pictures of one of my California native plants blooming in my garden.



This plant is about a year old, and it's in wonderful bloom after the recent rains. Unfortunately, I have forgotten what it is. I thought it was a salvia of some sort, but now I don't think so. It borders my meadow (you can see a few tendrils of yarrow at lower right) and exists quite nicely with the nearby wall of Italian Cypress. Out of frame at the top of the image is a nice native grass, the name of which I have also forgotten. One of the common names was something like "eyelash grass".

Water rationing "forever" ?

Long Beach seems to be in the vanguard of lawn destruction. New weekly publication The District Weekly, made it the cover story recently.

Choice quote from the end of the article:


According to Wattier, the problem goes beyond the current drought that last year gave Southern California its driest winter in recorded history.

“Back in 2003 we lost almost half our Colorado River supply because of drought and demands from Arizona and Nevada,” he recites. “Then there was that federal ruling reduced our supply from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by 30 percent because of the endangered smelt. Now comes news that storage in the three major reservoirs in Northern California has dropped from 90 percent of capacity in March to 42 percent today.”

Consequently, Southern California likely won’t be able to stockpile surplus water anymore, meaning that even a good rainy season this year probably won’t alleviate the crisis.

“That’s why we see this as a long-term change,” says Wattier. “It’s not something where, if we just tighten our belts and pray for rain, everything will be okay in the spring. It could be forever.”

More rain; The ants come marching in

A day ago this was to be a 50% chance of rain. Then only 12 hours ago it was downgraded to a probable light mist. We ended up with 0.49" overnight from a slow but steady rainfall, making the seasonal total about 1.75 inches in my backyard. This puts us well above the 3rd quartile for this time of the rainy season and well above this time of year compared to 2006-07 and 2005-06. In winter 2004-05, a big storm started on the 17th of October and dumped more than 2.5 inches by the time it was done. That year seems to be the wettest October in the last ~60 years. My data goes back to 1944.

An early wet season doesn't seem to be a predictor of an overall dry winter. I quickly counted 11 seasons when the Sept-Oct rainfall exceeded 1", and in all but one of those seasons total rainfall was significantly greater than the median.

The ants, recently banished from inside, have returned. They tend to seek higher ground when they get flooded out; my house is the locally highest ground. I don't have qualms about using any means to eradicate them but the best method that I've found once they are established inside is to use a boric acid / sugar water solution. I place it near their trails on a scrap of aluminum foil formed into a shallow dish. This tends to look like I'm feeding them as pets to the uninitiated. However, I long ago learned that they flat out ignore ant baits in fancy containers with more rapid acting and toxic poisons.

The last time I purchased boric acid, I had to ask the pharmacist for it. It was kept behind the counter, even though it is available without prescription. It comes in powdered form in a can large enough to poison a lifetime's supply of ants. 2% in whatever the ants want to eat is enough to do away with them in a week or so of feasting. Make sure there are no other sources of food for them to eat.

The information on how to make a 2% solution is readily available on the web. "To make a 2% solution, take the solution that you intend to use as bait (honey and water, sugar and water, dog food and water. or whatever). Add 2.5 grams(one level teaspoon) of boric acid powder to 125ml (4 fluid ounces) of your bait. Heat it on the stove until the boric acid dissolves. After it has cooled, pour some in a shallow gizmo like a jar lid and leave it where the ants will find it -and where your children and pets will not be able to get at it." Or purchase a commercial mixture.

Launch

http://ulalaunch.com/docs/AV011_MOB.pdf



"The WGS SV-1 mission is the first installment of the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) system. WGS will be an important element of a new high-capacity satellite communications system that will provide enhanced communications capabilities to our troops in the field for the next decade and beyond. WGS will enable enhanced and more flexible execution of Command and Control, Communications Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR), battle management, and combat support information. WGS will also augment the existing service available on the UHF F/O satellites by providing additional information broadcast capabilities via Global Broadcast Series (GBS).

The WGS SV-1 mission marks the eleventh Atlas V launch and the first launch of an Atlas V 421 configuration (4 meter fairing, 2 solid rocket boosters, 1 Centaur upper stage engine)."

Purchases at the Payne Foundation

I used my short list of plants at the Payne Foundation members sale last weekend, managing to purchase only one plant that was not on my written list. The Payne Foundation has expanded their selection to include some nicely fired garden pots that seemed to sell at fair prices (though no additional members discount was offered on them). Juli bought two (shown below) for $15 each for her patio, which I thought a good price. I didn't buy any, though I considered it seriously.


Discussion with one of the helpers at the Payne Foundation confirms that the smart shoppers eschew the sale dates, but do go during regular hours a day or two before hand in order to get best selection at full price. I missed out on Sidalcea malviflora (checkerbloom) because they had one plant which sold before the official sale.

My purchases:
3x 1 gal hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea). These were oddly expensive. This salvia is supposed to grow easily in a wide variety of conditions, including dry shade (meaning that it ought to be easy to propagate) yet it was $10 ea. whereas most of the 1 gal plants were $8. Maybe the cost is driven by low growth rate. Payne Foundation online plant directory indicates well drained soil, but I'm sure it wouldn't be on my list if I didn't have another reference saying that it can take clay.
1x 1 gal yerba buena (Satureja douglasi)This one was on my interest list, but I don't have any idea where I will put it. Who wouldn't be curious to try to grow some "good herb"? Yerba Buena was the original name for San Francisco and supposedly the herb makes a nice, minty tea.
3x 1 gal carex praegracillus (sedge) for the meadow. These were each divided in four and planted the same day in what I hope is a random looking but uniform distribution across the meadow. It seems to be doing well after hand and sprinkler watering.
2x 1 gal seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus "Sea Breeze"). Also planted in the meadow the same day and seemingly doing well. I have one other planted last year at this time that is now 14" across located where it gets partial shade from a citrus tree and doing well. Summer flowers were profuse and fairly long lasting. All three plants are visible at the same time from some vantage points - that's a useful design element (repetition and use of repetition to draw the eye into the landscape) that I have mostly ignored until now.
1x 5 gal western redbud (cercis occidentalis) for my back yard. This isn't planted yet, but it's meant to somehow join the one that I planted last year in the back yard.
1x 1gal California bush sunflower (Encelia californica). This was my impulse purchase. I think I can put it in the front yard behind the meadow, but I 'm a bit concerned about proper soil and water. Near the citrus might be a good since it will allow a bit more regular water.

I feel that I'm moving out of the experimental, "let's try one of these and see how I like it / if it dies" phase and into a more design-driven phase. I've learned some valuable lessons about how a meadow can and can not work in place of a lawn, and the fact that I am now buying multiples of the same plant seems to indicate that at least in part I'm focusing more on design than in the past.

The list of California native plants that don't like me or my garden includes:
manzanita - One of two different species killed, one going strong but poorly sited from a design standpoint.
Idaho fescue - It didn't like either of the two places I tried it and eventually faded to nothing.
California polypody fern - Maybe I watered it to death, maybe it died back to a dormant state.
Fremontodendron (Flannel bush) - Not the usual watering problem; this one died of thirst. I had it in a pot and didn't water it enough.
Deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens)- This ought to be impossible to kill, but I planted it poorly and then moved it at the wrong time. Several others are going strong.

I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten.

"California" pepper tree

Funny how information sometimes seems to converge from different places and answer your longstanding questions. The question was whether the California pepper tree was actually a native plant.

At El Dorado Park the other day I learned It's actually from Peru. It turns out that the first one only made it here to California in 1830. It's still alive at the Mission San Luis Rey.

Evil lawn

There's yet another article in the LA Times Home & Garden section about losing your lawn.


...drought-tolerant plants became part of the solution -- although in entirely different ways. Despite being dissimilar in architectural and garden styles, the [two] homes prove just how versatile these plants can be. Once used mostly as stylistic botanical props where something unusual was called for, they are becoming part of the garden vernacular, equipped to live on low doses of moisture and survive bouts of drought.

Updated with a relevant picture 1 Oct


Here's a picture of some interesting grass area from a June-July 2007 trip to Germany. This is on the grounds of the Wurzburg Residenz, a palace known as "the Versaille of Germany." Needless to say, no expense is spared on grounds upkeep. Note the "weeds" in the turf lawn, which would never be tolerated here in the US.

Also, take a look at John Greenlee's presentation from 2004 (works best with MS Explorer, ugh ).

Native plant interest list

There is a newer version of this list here.

The optimum time to plant California natives is now, and with that in mind I've been preparing my list of plant needs for the Payne Foundation fall sale. This blog post will be my scratch paper for that planning effort. There are some plants that I'd like to know a bit more about - those are listed here too.

Trees

• Cercis occidentalis (Western redbud) - Great looking tree. I need another. Last year's petite 5 gallon bucket planting has tripled in height or more over the spring and summer; from a tiny twiggy looking thing to about 4' of graceful tree. Next summer it'll be over the fence. Status: Got one (small) from TPF. Planted it in a 15 gal container for this year. Plan to install in garden Fall of '08.
  
• Betula occidentalis (sometimes identified as water birch, but no widely accepted common name) shrubby tree needs investigation
• Fraxinus dipetala (Flowering Ash, no widely accepted common name) shrubby tree needs investigation

General Interest
Claytonia perfoliata mexicana (Miner's lettuce aka wild Purslane) - for my vegetable garden and to naturalize around the yard. Bad luck trying to germinate this. Perhaps need to scatter seed in fall, not late winter.

Salvia spathacea (Hummingbird sage) - ground cover. Easy grower. Got three. The one in dry inpenetrable shade with kid traffic died a horrible death. Two in full sun are OK in mid spring, but I'm concerned that they are too exposed for summer sun. We'll see.

Satureja douglasi (Yerba buena) - 6" scented groundcover. Makes a tea. Original name for San Francisco. Have some planted under citrus tree where it gets water and part sun. Doing ok as of May 08.

Wyethia (Mules' ears) - sun to partail shade. Heavy soil preferred. Slow (eve glacial) to initially establish and spread. Could go along fence in back. Still can't find any in the trade.

Aster chilensis (Coast aster) - SB. County north. Will stabilize hills.


The following California meadow plant list are some of those mentioned by by Bornstein, et. al. in their excellent book. I've winnowed down their list to these, which I think are all possibilities for my front yard meadow due to common naturally occurring range, water, sun and soil requirements. Also, many of these are short or, if not, then I'm thinking of using them in more limited ways. Last year I made the mistake of planting many annuals that grew to 3 or 4 feet: Too tall. *= I have this in my garden already.

Meadow perennial plants

• *Achillea millefolium (yarrow) - I have a white flowering selection. Could be "Calistoga". Pink flowers are available. Mine get pinkish occasionally.
  
• Carex pansa (meadow sedge) - use in meadow or bank stabilization
• *Erigeron (seaside daisy) "Cape Sebastian" or "W.R." (Wayne Roderick) selections. Don't know what selection I have. Took a year to establish.
• *Festuca rubra molate - red fescue grass
• Fragraria chiloensis (beach strawberry) have some in N side yard doing well.
  
• Grindelia stricta var. platyphylla (spreading gum plant) - yellow flowers in summer
• Juncus patens (wire grass) - all cultivars. Avoid other juncus species as they seem to need more water. I have a Juncus mexicanus, which is not doing so very well.
• Ranunculus californicus (California buttercup) - winter to spring blooms. V. low water
• Sidalcea malviflora (checkerbloom) - 6-24" depending upon cultivar. Spring bloom. Mowable. Have two in meadow. Planted late in winter, so perhaps not completely established at this point (May 08)
  
• *Sisyrinchium (blue eyed grass) - Got it. Trying to get it to naturalize in my yard. Will be successful next year due to success in transplanting it around the yard.
  

Meadow annual plants

• Linathus parviflorus (stardust) - 3-8" tall, multicolored flowers.
• Goldfields might have been a choice too, but not listed in the Bornstien book. They bloomed briefly last year at until spring's end.

Interesting fact: Lupinus microcarpus (and other Lupins) fix nitrogen in the soil. They are in the pea family.

My California meadow - almost like a turf lawn, if viewed from a distance

I'm focussed on how to upgrade my front yard meadow. It's shown below in a recent photo - groundcover in foreground is turf grass and on the far side of the sidewalk is mostly yarrow. It's looking good after recent rains.

In the past year I've had remarks from passers by that they either loved or hated the wildflowers, so when planning changes I have been sensitized to neighbors' impressions; I don't want to fight a battle with my City and / or neighbors* over "weed" laws, so the phrase "almost like a turf lawn, if viewed from a distance" isn't really the backhanded compliment that it seems. In fact, for now it's almost a design criterion / defensive posture. (See comments below for amplification.)


Closeup of yarrow (Achillea millefolium).


I've found and learned some nuggets of information about meadow design that I want to consolidate in this blog post. Of course, even if I had read all these sources last year when I was overseeding the meadow, I doubt that I would have paid that much attention. Generally, you have to do things several times in order to get them right. This is attempt number 2, so I have at least one more attempt before I get really irritated with myself.

My reference sources are various and include my direct observation as well as knowledge gleaned from books such as the excellent California Native Plants for the Garden book by Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O'Brien, and various web resources. The California Native Grass Association has a pdf publication that provides a wealth of guidance and clarification, particularly if you plan to base your garden meadow on a natural grassland plant community. I use some of their info here, but am not planning to follow the guidelines for an orthodox grassland since this is about 300 square feet in a suburban front yard. Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden has a brief writeup on the meadow near their front entrance. Yerba Buena nursery (N. Ca) has a great photo essay week by week for their meadow from prior years. Finally, last year's Payne Foundation garden tour was a bit of an inspiration.

There are two grassland communities that can be used a models for garden meadows: coastal prairie and foothill grassland. To the degree that the grasslands influence my plans, I'll be focussed on the coastal prairie.

If incorporating grasses, allow the grasses to establish themselves first otherwise they will be overwhelmed by wildflowers. This is what I observed in my garden and what I read in Bornstein. I have a few strands of festuca poking up, but nowhere near what I expected given my seed mixture.

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) is a perfectly good foundation for a meadow. Bornstein et. al mention something like a "simple combination of dune sedge and yarow" as one possible meadow foundation mix. I'll assume that "simple" in that context is a compliment in the less it more category, and I'll add the sedge this fall having concluded that it's a good idea.

Don't try to establish a meadow on sandy soil. Clay or loam is preferred. I have clay soil for the most part, so no concerns there.

Don't try to interplant cool season and warm season grasses. It's usually a mess rather than the all-season treat that you'd think.

Flowers, when used in abundance, seem most attractively placed when in massed drifts, not scattered across the landscape. Scattered flowers are attractive too, and possibly more appropriate for my smaller space. My first attempt at a meadow was random (and overly dense) seed placement. It was OK, but it didn't allow for the smaller plants to shine since they were overwhelmed by the taller ones and it had no staying power since the only perennials were low growing and crowded out by the taller flowers.

Seeds won't sprout through bark mulch, so don't use it on the meadow if starting from seed.

Seeding rates (referring to initial seeding of bunchgrasses) : "The desired number of single or combined species of seeds per square foot should be approximately 30 seeds total. This allows for seedling mortality, ensures that the plants are separated from each other, and minimizes the chances for competition between species." (CNGA paper)

Suggested plants from the CNGA paper:

Carex pansa (Pacific dune sedge)**
Danthonia californica (California Oatgrass) signature bunchgrass of the coastal prairie. Can be maintained as low evergreen "turf"
Festuca rubra (red fescue) coastal prairie meadow
Agrostis diegoensis (thingrass) coastal prairie meadow
Deschampsia holciformis (tufted hairgrass) coastal prairie meadow

Nassella pulchra (purple needlegrass) coastal prairie in central and N. Ca where foothill grassland flora co-mingles with coastal grassland
Koeleria macrantha (junegrass) coastal prairie in central and N. Ca
F. idahoensis roemeri (Idaho fescue) coastal prairie in central and N. Ca

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** Some words about Carex: There seems to be significant disagreement between practitioners about nomenclature among the Carex genus. At San Marcos Growers they cite " Carex praegracilis (California Field Sedge)" and then note "We received this sedge from John Greenlee as Carex pansa but later was keyed to the very closely related Carex praegracilis. We listed it as Carex praegracilis with the common name of California Field Sedge in our 2001 and 2002 catalogs but unfortunately the plant had become popularized in the California horticultural trade under the name Carex pansa and we reluctantly began listing this plant as such. In an article in the summer 2006 issue of Pacific Horticulture titled "A Sedge By Another Name" the authors urge growers to correctly identify this sedge as Carex praegracilis and to use the common name Clustered Field Sedge instead of Meadow Sedge, which may be confused with an eastern U.S. species. We have decided to return to listing it as Carex praegracilis - California Field Sedge with the designation [C. pansa, Hort.] to indicate that is has been previously listed incorrectly by this name."

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*Some neighbors are even stirred to violence in the face of plant disputes. Take the case of 65 year old Anita Spriggs of Anaheim, who shot 64 year old neighbor Gary Hall in the shoulder while in the course of trimming their shared fence hedge.

source:
Shrubbery dispute leads Anaheim woman, 65, to shoot neighbor, police say
By Dave Mckibben, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
11:11 AM PDT, October 1, 2007

Camping at El Dorado Park

We went camping at El Dorado Park in Long Beach this weekend. Although I was fearful that we'd get rained out, we didn't have a single drop of rain. We tried fishing, with no luck. However, my son's friend caught five fish so we know they were out there. El Dorado park is quite large - about 103 acres. We camped on the grassy side of Spring Street. On the other side is a largish natural park - the emphasis is on California native plants.

The California live oaks were absolutely full of acorns and the squirrels were busy knocking them all down. I picked up a few of the less gnawed ones to play with. It was fun to cut one open and taste it with the Scouts (bleck!) and imagine the learning process that the native Indians went through to evolve their use of acorns as a food staple.

I have some left over. Last year it was ridiculously easy to sprout Engleman? Oaks by just putting the acorns in pots with a little potting soil. People in northern California have a very involved routine for sprouting acorns that I tried previously, with very little success: the acorns molded and sprouted in the fridge following these directions. None sprouted after planting. I think that with our different weather and oak selection that a casually planted seed might be all that's needed for oak tree success.

Rain!

0.49" overnight
0.78" in the morning

I didn't record the last rain of the 2006 season in a convenient place (meaning one that I could ever subsequently find) but the LA Times reports that it was 0.05" on April 22. That capped off a season that was just under 1.5", as measured in my backyard.

This weekend's rain was nearly the sum total of last year's entire rainy season! We're well into the fourth quartile of rain for the month of September (third quartile ends at 0.095"), based on rainfall data from 1944 to 2005. In fact, we're well above the 3rd quartile of rain for October as well (0.382").

This was a fitting start to fall, my favorite time of year. The whole yard has perked up and the meadow is looking particularly nice.

Natural garden design

I've been ruminating on the design changes that my front yard needs in order to be more of a year round pleaser.

I came across Flower to the People in the LA Times home improvement blog, Pardon Our Dust, today. They have a nice series of pictures of their work (which, sadly, I could only get to open correctly in Internet Explorer). Some of the design elements they use may be apropos.

I have a feeling of urgency about modifications to the garden right now: October through January or February is the time to plant California native plants, which need the winter rains and cool growing temperatures of winter and spring to get a good start on the summer.