Garden of La Mancha

Making Marks

2008-09-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

First there was a weeping beech. Not only is the bark smooth and white (which makes carvings more legible that they would be on say, a black walnut), but the architecture of the tree creates seclusion—a place where one’s not as likely to be caught being a vandal.

To everyone that journeys under its canopy, the tree becomes their place, makes them feel a sense of discovery, that maybe they’re privy to this spot. And it's satisfying finding a curious shaded spot off the beat path after wandering on the sunny, public grounds of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It's a nice contrast.

It’s also interesting to see what people (individuals, couples, maybe even groups) carve when no one else is watching. And what do they carve?

Their identities. Some cool designs. The tree has been changed. Cuts are generally unhealthy for a tree. Weakens growth, exposes inner tissues to pathogens…and yet, in my opinion, the bark has become very beautiful. The most beautiful marks are the ones filled in with scar tissue, where the marks have had time to influence the tree’s growth—to become part of the tree. I didn’t feel the need to contribute (perhaps I’m more of a critic than a participant and besides, I like my trees healthy), but I bet the first cut was all it took to get the ball rolling. I wonder when it hit that threshold: when it became a community art project.

Same with this abandoned pumphouse in Manayunk. Brick, lumber, spray paint, human hands, and decay has created a rich texture.

Layers upon layers. Sublime.

(Don't worry, I was not alone. This was on a field trip with a class.)

We humans like to make a mark.

It's contagious.

Beachcombing

2008-07-10T19:49:00.000-07:00

I spent the Fourth of July with my family at Big Lagoon and Trinidad. There are lots of cool things on the beach for the garden: rocks, driftwood, bleachglass, and what have you. (When I was a kid my mom paid me five bucks to haul a "stepping-stone" down the sand spit of Big Lagoon.) But on the 4th I made a real find.

A Dudleya farinosa (!) about the size of my hand, washed up or delivered by dog. (The rosette's a few inches across.) Surely this is guilt-free wild plant collection. For you non-Californians, Dudleyas are echevaria-like succulents that grow on our coast (and inland, and in Mexico). Wikipedia has a nice photo of a healthy specimen. The plant I found, while lacking roots, is still firm and should be as easy to propagate as a sedum.

One may recall that big silver Dudleyas were on my fountain planting wishlist, but on second thought, I think it would get too much water there.

And in related news, the Triteleia bulbs have surprised me by putting out rapid growth: flower buds and one bloom. It's a little late for the 4th of July, but the color combination turned out to be red, silver (or white, if you will), and blue, instead of red, purple and silver. Some changes may be necessary for next year. Still, I can't complain.

Iris Rootborer

2008-07-06T20:58:00.000-07:00

Last year I noticed a few of the irises yellowing and that even green leaves loosely fell off the plants. While I was proud, to pinpoint the problem (below, fairly obvious), I was sad to have to destroy the afflicted plants. This year it seems that the rest of the doug irises in the coastal prairie are succumbing and I don't know what to do.

Ugly/Beautiful

2008-06-30T11:41:00.001-07:00

Here's a quick article from philly.com about an eccentric man and his garden. Skimpy on the gardening, but we share some thoughts:

"Ugly can sometimes be beautiful, but merely pretty can never be beautiful," he says. "Things that are really beautiful keep you coming back because they're not just attractive, they're compelling."

Green Daylily

2008-06-24T20:36:00.000-07:00

Check out Frances's green daylily. While I normally despise daylilies (sorry Frances, if you're reading this, it's just me...I prefer Lilium), there is something about green (and black actually) flowers that make them candidates for a dream garden.

Phormium

2008-06-24T20:07:00.001-07:00

I have a landscaper friend who had to leave town for a couple of months, so I've been doing the gardening for a few of her clients on the weekends. It's been fun.

Anyway, I want to remember this:

Forget landscape tape--that nasty oily tape that one has to buy, that may never biodegrade, and that usually stands out in a garden despite being green. The Phormium tenax growing in the pot over there has a few browning leaves it won't miss. Cut them off, shred them into a few strips. There. They work wonderfully.

Food, fiber, firewood, building material, medicine...what are the resources around you?

June Bloom Day

2008-06-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

The prairie is at peak bloom. The lupines are nearly finished, but the Armeria maritima, yarrow, and others have taken off.

Mimulus aurantiacus. What I've learned this season is that while my winter pruning helped keep them bushy (though one did not survive the harsh cutting back--ok because of seedlings), the ones left unpruned bloomed several weeks earlier. It's a trade off.

There are a few random wildflowers. I didn't sow a mix this year, so these were probably spawned from last year's crop. Collinsia heterophylla.

I planted about seven Aquilegia formosa last year. The full sun and poor soil are keeping them pretty short with only a couple flowers per plant, but as the meadow fills in I hope more an more will appear. I've noticed a few seedlings already.

Sisyrinchium californicum
Ok, some more clover shots. Trifolium wormskioldii in front of a golden mystery sedge.

The fountain has Lotus 'Amazon Sunset' and lemon variegated thyme blooming (society garlic blooms come from a pot on the back porch). The Triteleia laxa 'Queen Fabiola bulbs have not produced blooms (or even buds yet), but they were planted extremely late for bulbs.

Today I bought a pygmy white waterlily, Nymphaea 'Candida,' to give to my dad for Father's Day (kind of a self-serving gift...but he did want one!).

Ah, this is what the bulbs in the fountain should look like when they bloom. This Triteleia has been here a few years, in a bed behind the fountain.

Water parsley is blooming in the middle of Juncus patens.

Eleocharis macrostachys, a snippet propagule, is blooming. This will eventually go in the bog.

Mimulus guttatus is blooming all around the bog.

Ok, I've got wrap this up. Fuchsia procumben is growing under a potted hydrangea. The blooms are small, not much longer than a thumbnail, but have you seen a more colorful flower? Check out the blue pollen.

Obsessions

2008-06-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

Just a self-indulgent look at two plants.

Euphorbia bupleurifolia, the pineapple or pine cone euphorbia. My favorite plant.
I love its bizarre form and how the leaves and flowers seem to shoot out the top. It's from the southern cape region of South Africa, and is apparently endangered. I bought mine at an Arcata Farmer's Market (in CA) five (?) years ago for $10, and haven't seen it for sale anywhere else or I would buy a few more. I'd like to at least acquire one female plant, since mine is male, and supposedly it's relatively easy to raise from seed. Has anyone out there seen these for sale?

I'm mentioning the plant now because there has been a new development: a little side branch is appearing.

I will miss its old simple form, but am curious to see what it will look like. (To see an incredibly cool specimen of this species click here.)

The second plant I have obsessed over before. Trifolium wormskioldii, the Springbank clover. This is how the story goes. I saw some flowerless clover growing near the shore of Big Lagoon on a canoe trip. I took a piece because the leaves had a "native" look--they didn't look like red or white clover. I put the piece in a pot waited a year and had a pot full of the stuff. Transplanted some into the garden. Last year it bloomed and it's identity was confirmed.

Turns out it was an important vegetable for the native peoples of the northwest. I propagated it more and more (piece of cake--just pull off piece with nodes and insert in soil). It's spread beautifully. Last year there were maybe 5 flowers, this year there are dozens.

(Sorry the picture's so dark.) The propagation continues as we have a lot of wet clay that needs cover, and I have to say, it's my favorite plant in the garden right now. I hope to introduce this plant to our local chapter of the California Native Plant Society. It'd be good for sales. Tips I will humbly offer: put it in a sunny, moist place and cut it to the ground in winter if you want to maintain a tidier patch. C'est tout.

Arcata Community Forest

2008-05-24T18:02:00.000-07:00

The Hike
I used to go several times a week on this same trail when I was attending Humboldt State University. I've been living nearby off and on for the last couple of years, but when I am staying in the area I go at least once a week. It's not the most impressive redwood forest, since it's a second-growth managed forest, but there are wonderful corners here and there where you can feel lost.

( I have been lost several times in this forest..this is how I originally found the trail.)

Katie is home for the summer and so is our mom's poodle, Annie.

The Color
May is a good time for a hike. I've been impatient, but the Clintonia andrewsiana are finally beginning to bloom. When the flowers dissappear, they'll be replaced by spectacular blue egg-shaped berries. I have Clintonia seedlings growing in a flat at Bayside, but it will be several years before they look like this.

The diversity of flower color in douglas iris is intriguing. My favorites are the pale blue ones, but they also come in deep red-purple, and intermediate shades.

Mimulus dentatus is one of those plants I discovered, propagated, and identified. There's now a nice patch growing in thre creek near the Bayside House. It's similar to M. guttatus the common yellow monkeyflower, but is more graceful and delicate. The leaves are thinner and softer with serrated edges, and the flowers are more trumpet shaped. It also blooms much earlier.

Rubus parviflorus is spineless with big soft maple-like leaves, large flowers, and edible berries. The Northcoast Journal published a nice article about this plant. (I think the berries are like a mild rasperry.)

The Greenery

Streptopus amplexifolius var. americanus, the twisted stalk. It's form is very architectural.

And underneath, where the flowers hange, the plant is glaucus blue.

Blechnum splicant, the common deer fern, is uncommonly cool.

The spore producing leaves are more skeletal, and they'll turn dark and dry when they go into production

while the vegetative leaves begin as lime zigzags and darken into a more subtle green.

Fully back from it's winter rest, is the five-fingered fern, Adiantum pedatum.

The black wiry stems and leaf ribs were, and perhaps are, the main source of black basketry material for the native peoples of the area.

The fresh growth of conifers stand out in the darkness. Here are the new needles of the coastal redwood, Sequoia sempervirens.

The immature berry of Rubus spectabilis, the salmon berry.

Flowers of the piggyback plant, Tolmiea menzesii, common houseplant elsewhere, a native forest dweller locally.

It's cousin, Mitre's wort, Mitella caulescens, which I simply can't stop looking at.

The bright suspended stars of Trientalis borealis.

Petasites frigidis next to sword fern, Polystichum munitum, and redwood sorrel, Oxalis oreganum.

Polystichum munitum.

Sunlight

Time to emerge from the shadows.

Same time next week okay?

Coastal Prairie and More

2008-05-18T14:40:00.001-07:00

Coastal Prairie

If only the whole prairie looked this full. Sure we have some nice Lupinus polyphyllus, and CA poppies (solid orange, as well as the yellower coastal variety, below)

and some Iris douglasiana, Juncus balticus, J. patens, Deschampsia caespitosa,

yarrow, Aremeria maritma (below), and more,

but most of it's bare. The camera lies, or at least exaggerates. What gives me hope are the smaller plants coming in. The Mimulus aurantiacus should be much larger this summer, and there are more Clarkias and grasses appearing. One day it will be a dense green mound smattered with wildflowers.

Propagation

Sometimes I take little pieces of plants from my hikes with me (too tiny to weigh on my conscience, and never a whole plant) and stick them in pots. Wait a winter and most of them usually take root and grow. There are actually a few different species in this little ceramic, but what you see is some unknown (to me) species of claytonia blooming. It's a wispy thing, but I like it. I hope it produces seed.

Other Cool Plants in Bloom

On the shady side of the house, the Vancouveria hexandra are blooming in front of some doug irises. I'm fond of its leaves, which look to me like pale green puzzle pieces.

We also have our prized specimen of Rhododendron occidentalis, our native azalea. (Which, by the way grows at the edge of the Big Lagoon Bog, but they weren't blooming yet.)

And lastly, these pictures are from a few weeks ago, but this mystery Carex on the property deserves to be in a post.

Can you think of another plant with pure black and white flowers?

Bog of Big Lagoon

2008-05-17T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned this bog before, so let's finally have a tour. This is the bog of Big Lagoon. It's a mucky inaccessible place, especially after the winter floods, but that's how it has been so well preserved.

I walk very carefully when I visit, not because of the muck (which is unavoidable), but because I don't want to step on too many plants. After all, there are a few endangered species in the mix. Luckily once I got in there I found a good elk trail and stuck to it.

This place is diverse. Big time. I found this great checklist online that's helping me identify things. Click on the checklist link for a full species survey of the area.

This is the Macloskey's violet, Viola macloskeyi

And nestled underneath those lovelies are Drosera rotundifolia (!). Tiny.

Much more subtle are these little spike rushes, Eleocharis pachycarpa.

The elk trail lead me back into the old spruce forest. There I saw an A-frame fort, coming along nicely.

And, the most "exotic" of native wildflowers, the elusive Calypso orchid, Calypso bulbosa. I do have a secret patch of these, but this one was all alone and nowhere near the patch.

It's named after Calypso, the beautiful blind enchantress from the Odyssey. She was secretive, and so is this little dragon of a flower; their blooms are unpredictable. While this lone plant in the dark forest had a bloom, my secret patch had none.

Forest Finds

2008-05-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry this blog has been so sluggish lately. My internet access, time and energy has been limited and my camera batteries have been dead for some time (and my charger's at the cabin). Lame, I know. These pictures I took with my sister's camera (except the fern above, which was taken by Katie, herself) in the Arcata Community Forest.

The forests are green and fresh right now. While trilliums are fading, ferns (like Blechnum splicant photographed by my sister, above) are still unfurling, clintonias are nearing bloom, and many of the more obscure wildflowers have fully arrived.

This is twisted stalk, Streptopus amplexifolius var. americanus. Rare around here.

Mitella caulescens (I have this as a houseplant and it's forming flowers!)

Rubus spectabilis whose pink petals have fallen. It's now forming a berry.

Mitella ovalis is already producing it's strange seed in splash cups (appropriately adapted to rain dispersal).
Most of the Petasites frigidis has gone to seed. They're like compound dandelions, but the centers are a dark gold color. Very beautiful in the sunlight.

Fountain Update

2008-04-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

Everything's growing well in the fountain and the Lotus 'Amazon Sunset' has begun blooming.

In the back, the Triteleia 'Queen Fabiola' bulbs have sent up their long slender leaves. And the Epilobium is still behaving itself.

Algae grows below, but not at lethal levels.

There were tons of frog egg masses...

...but now they're mostly tadpoles. There also are a few dragonfly nymphs, so they had better watch their backs.

The banana slugs have returned for the growing season. I've noticed significant damage on some of the lily seedlings, especially the Lilium rubescens for some reason. I've moved most of the liy pots onto overturned pots in the fountain. Since I live in Eureka, I can't check on them as much as I'd like.

It's not pretty, but what could be better than a moat?

Bear Valley

2008-04-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

From Philadelphia, my father and I flew into Sacramento to spend a couple days with my brother and his family in Woodland. There, we also met up with my mom, and one of my sisters visiting from Idaho. We decided to go for a drive through Bear Valley in Colusa County. You can read a blurp about Bear Valley from the American Land Conservancy here. I tried to do a little roadside botanizing, but as patient as my family is, I had to make it quick.

Purple was in good supply. There were brodiaeas (they were everywhere, I don't know why I don't have a picture), lupines, vetches, and even a few penstemons and delphiniums.

I really like this dandelion relative, but I don't know the name. (My botany skills are limited the further east I go.)

Here's some Castilleja with purple Vicia and somekind of yellow boragenaceous plant.

There were a few corrals at the beginning of the road that were filled with tidytips (Layia platyglossa).

Birds-eye gillia was sparse but beautiful.

Some Zigadenus. I told my family that this was death camas, the plant that was sometimes mistaken for camas, the edible bulb of native american and pioneer fame.

There was a sward of them.

Here's a poor picture of a lone yellow Calochortus, for any Calochortus aficianados out there (mmw).

And last on the tour, is a personal favorite: cream cups (Platystemon californicus).

Alas, from this time forth, every California wildflower is bittersweet.

I'm not dead

2008-04-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

But I am jumping off a cliff into the depths of Philadelphia to “hunker down” in the dark wood paneled halls to master my understanding of landscape. The campus is gothic and the program (and city) seems the type that will burn any weakness out of me. I will be white-hot when I finally emerge.

Already I'm planning my summer escapes back to California--maybe Santa Barbara or San Francisco--to fortify my horticulture and to reconnect with its plants and land.

I'm glad I have this summer to transition from one extreme (living alone at Big Lagoon) to the crowds and screaming subways. It's nuts.

Quick Garden Update

2008-03-23T16:04:00.000-07:00

The lily and Clintonia seedlings seemed to be doing just fine, but I have noticed that some of the leaf tips have been nibbled. Oh, and the Lilium washingtonianum spp. purpuratum have germinated. Mimulus lewisii, Mimulus cardinalis, Mimulus guttatus, Mimulus dentatus, and the shrubby Mimulus aurantiacus are all beginning active growth mode. The mature Lilium pardilinum bulbs have sent up their star-like leaf rosettes. I've transplanted Lupinus polyphyllus seedlings into the coastal prairie. The Aquilegia formosa have new bushy growth and some of last years Clarkias, despite being annuals, seem ready for another season.

Fork in the road: there is the possiblity of me moving to Philadelphia for three years to study landscape architecture. I've never been to the East coast and have never lived in a big city. But it's a possibility.

Sunlight

2008-03-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

March Bloom Day

2008-03-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

The sky is clear, but the earth's cold and wet. A walk through the Bayside forest reveals:

Clusters of Trillium ovatum

Carpets of tiny Viola sempervirens

the robust Petasites frigidus var. palmatus

and the lone Ribes roezlii(?)

Closer to the house, we have Heuchera micrantha

And a spring mix of Euphorbia "red wings" and tulips.

Other flowers not pictured: Ribes sanguineum, Lysichiton americanus, Claytonia sibirica, Vaccinium ovatum, Armeria maritima, one tiny little Madia sp., rosemary (year-round bloomer apparently), and Narcissus.

Lily Germination

2008-03-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

Remember the Lily Lady? Well, both gallon-containers of L. rubescens are sprouting! (The bunny ears above are two of many seedling.) Nothing's happening with the L. washintonianum spp. purpuratum (yet). Both gallon-containers of L. pardilinum have also sprouted. The Clintonia andrewsiana seed from the forest (mentioned in the Lily Lady post) sprouted a couple of weeks ago. Exciting!

I'm glad I filled the pots to the brim last fall (not worrying about a reservoir), as the Lily Lady suggested, because the soil has settled down almost an inch in the pots and they wouldn't be getting enough sunlight if they were much lower. The pots were outside in partial shade (behind the fountain) all winter long, except for the Clintonia (pictured below), which was in a flat in our forest (which has now been moved by the fountain) . I never watered the seeds. There was no pretreatment (except for the Clintonia, whose seeds were washed and soaked in warm water for 24 hours before sowing). There was no greenhouse or growlight involved. I used a seed starting mix.

Now if I can just keep them all alive--which really means protecting them from slugs (how do I do that?), not fussing over them too much, and letting them go dormant, and transplanting them at the right times-- for four or so years, I may have some flowering plants. Advice is always welcome.

Signs of Spring

2008-03-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

(Wild Prunus blossoms and Lysichiton americanus.)

The Winter of Unemployment is over. I am leaving my island of Big Lagoon and moving to Eureka, where I've accepted a job helping the Director/Curator of an art museum. I'm pretty excited. I have to see how much time I can spare, but since I'll be in Eureka, I hope to volunteer at the Humboldt Botanical Gardens. I also hope to find an affordable apartment with at least a sunny balcony for experimenting with seed propagation. Grad schools are still in the mix and I should be hearing from them starting at the end of this month. Time to wake up.

Container Planted

2008-03-04T17:31:00.000-08:00

You know, this may be the first container planting I've designed (well except for some mostly-failed attempts at bonsai landscapes), and I like it. It's green and silvery and hosts an unusual mix of plants: cultivars, natives, herbs. (Sorry, it's difficult to see, it's getting late.)

The Astelia 'Silver Spear' is in the middle while silver veriegated lemon thyme and Lotus 'Amazon Sunset' covers the front. I remembered the miscellaneous succulents that needed a new home, so I stuck them in ( they compliment the "terra cotta" nicely). There's a little green culinary sage stuck in the side too.

Here's a view of the back from the living room. It's a bit sparser, because I needed room for the dozen (?) Triteleia 'Queen Fabiola' bulbs and room for the Epilobium canum to spread.

We'll see how it goes this season.

Clash

2008-03-03T15:45:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I went to a local nursery with my mother: Bad idea!

When something manages to catch my eye, I decide either it’s too expensive, I need to know more about it, there must be a native that has a similar effect, or that I simply need to think about it. She, on the other hand, likes anything with color, especially what matches her "house colors." And unlike me, she hardly blinks at the thought of spending. Our missions were supposed to be separate: I'm planting the fountain, she's planting the window boxes.

After an hour and half of debating ceramic pots and primroses, I find a plant that takes me off guard. It’s bold and all silver and green. Astelia chathamica“Silver spear.” Mm hmm, the name conjures up endangered Hawaiian silverswords and dark forest myths.

I make sure it can live where it’s going to be planted: in a dry fountain with full sun. Here on the coast, it can do just that. Eventually it may out grow it’s space, but this is a plant I would be happy to divide into two, one for my garden some day…

My mom wasn’t going to let me leave without getting flowers to put in the fountain. I’d already planned on putting Epilobium canum (which I already have) in there for some fall color (and to keep it contained). I was willing to try a crimson lotus cultivar 'Amazon Sunset' because they were unusual to me and my mom liked them. I also broke down and bought some Triteleia “Queen Fabiola” bulbs, even though they’re cultivars (of native T. laxa). See, I can compromise.

So that's what's going in the fountain: Astelia in the middle; triteleia, lotus, epilobium on the edges--with variegated lemon thyme as a green filler. But they're not going to be evenly distributed along the rim. It's going to have a clunky jungle look. Eventually I'd like some big silver dudleys here and there.

Risky color combo for sure. I think red, silver, and purple look good together, but they have to be the right shades, you know? Will the Triteleia be dark enough? Will the lotus be too orange? And then there's the outside paint color and the plants in the bed behind it. I'm getting nauseous thinking of the possibilities.

Since the container will be draining into the bottom pool, I also need to make sure to keep the soil on the lean side, so we don't get lethal algal blooms below. Last year there were many many tadpoles.

In the pool we’re going to put (in pots) pygmy white (?) water lilies in the front (need to order), cattails in the back (already have), and hopefully, someday, some native Sagittaria or Alisma on the sides.

With enough green in the mix any colors can look good together, right?

Tsurai

2008-02-27T13:18:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a book called The Four Ages of Tsurai, which is a compilation of the European accounts (including one by botanist Archibald Menzies) of the small Yurok village of Tsurai, which was just below the modern town of Trinidad, where I go for internet and library books.

"Olega’ “where they come.” A place near the end of the present wharf which got its name because objects continually drift ashore there."

Trinidad Head is a great place to see plant diversity.

Ribes sanguineum.

The flowers, as you can see, are very beautiful. They're one of the most popular CA natives in cultivation.

I don't know what this litte plant is. Shame.

This is the old lighthouse (but it still lights the way).

Equally exciting is what I can't see.

"Ko’ixkulole’gwo m, “perforated stone where it is covered.” The spot is a cave just below the lighthouse. People took aromatic angelica root (wo’lpei) into the cave and put it into a pool of water in a recess of the cavern. The water would whirl when this was done. If this root (used in many religious and ceremonial connections) was employed by the person in some undertaking,
it would turn out well."

And here's where you get the root, Angelica (lucida?). I wanted to introduce this plant to our property because it's flowers attract pollinators. I had no idea it also attracted luck.

Salal (Gaultheria shallon) is a common plant along the coast. The berries are good in muffins, and have an interesting crunch to them.

This is the silk tassel shrub (Garrya eliptica). The catkins are very showy this time of year and give the whole plant a "mossy bayou" look.

Trinidad Head may be the best place to find Mimulus aurantiacus in this area. I saw it in gardens before I noticed it in the wild. Here's a tiny plant growing on a rock.

Fringecup (Tellima grandiflora) is a common ground cover in the shade, yet we don't have any in Bayside. (Even stranger is our very sparse amount of Oxalis oreganum, the most common redwood forest plant anywhere else.)

There are many beautiful old Ceanothus thyrsiflorus trees here. (They really should be called trees, in Trinidad at least.) They remind me of African accacia trees because of their form and the many little thorn-like branches.

Much of the head is covered in deciduous thickets. Thimbleberry, Twinberry, Blackberry, Gooseberry, and...poison oak.

It seems the Tsurai had a name and story for every rock along the coast. I wonder if today's fishermen have named all the rocks (I bet they have).

Joseph Cambell says, "People claim the land by creating sacred sites, by mythologizing the animals and plants—they invest the land with spiritual powers. It becomes like a temple, place for meditation."

History, hikes, and gardening are great ways to build your temple.

Through intermarriage with whites, disease, and migration to reservations, Tsurai faded away and was completely abandoned by 1914. California has a violent history, especially in respects to the orginal inhabitants. (The Wiyots, the Yuroks southern neighbors who inhabitted Bayside, were massacred nearly to extinction.) But the town of Tsurai faded quietly away.

I haven't confirmed this, but according to the book, the site of Tsurai is grown over, but is marked by a great pepperwood tree (Umbellularia californica).

"If aromatic angelica root was burned beneath its branches and a person prayed for rain, the rain would come in two days...Children were warned to stay away from this tree lest bad luck befall them. If an infant died, the mother...hung the cradle in its branches."

The world is composed of sacred sites.

Buds in the Forest

2008-02-17T13:57:00.000-08:00

Buds and flowers are appearing in the forest. Male catkins are emerging on the california hazelnut (Corylus cornuta var. californica), above. And, more excitingly, so are the bright red styles of female slowers.

Yep, hazel is monoecious (separate male and female flowers on the same individual plant). Last fall I blogged about hazelnut here.

Western coltsfoot (Petasites palmatus) is also emerging. The inflorescences look like little wrapped bouquets, don't they? Each of these rosy buds will stretch away from the stalk forming an umbel-like spike. Then they'll each open as a white "daisy."

Western coltsfoot next to my foot, for scale. The leaves can grow at least twice as large as the leaf shown.

Ribes sangineum is nearly flowering. I never noticed that there were floral bracts just as pink as the flowers.

And some of the willows (Salix spp.) are forming their silky catkins.

There are other things blooming in the forest. The Vaccinium ovatum has been at it for a while, and so has Claytonia sibirica.

well said

2008-02-17T13:51:00.002-08:00

"At daybreak, if the weather is fine, I go into the garden. This time of day is very special to me. I look at the sky. It's very clear and I see the stars and have this special feeling--of my insignificance in the cosmos. The realization of what we Buddhists call impermanence. It's very relaxing. Sometimes I don't think at all and just enjoy the dawn and listen to the birds."

The Dalai Lama from A Policy of Kindness p. 48.

Hidden Road to Patrick's Point

2008-02-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

Go alone. Bring a knife. Put food in your pocket (and a cell phone). This is where the hidden road at Big Lagoon begins. Yes, you have to cross a perilous "bridge" where the road has eroded into the ravine on both sides.

Then the road dives into spruce and redwood forest.

See, it's a highway, forgotten.

Many, many paces later the road dissappears completely. Don't think about bears or mountain lions.

You see a trail that sharply veers to the right. Follow this through the redwoods.

After many, many paces, and after climbing over trees fallen by winter storms, you'll emerge on a road. If you look closely through the trees you'll see a Yurok house through the spruce and alders. Find the path into Sumeg Village.

You see no one there. Crawl through the circular door of a house and enjoy the extremely dark and quiet moment.

You emerge from the earth and walk around the village admiring the structures, like this sweat house.

You find a narrow mossy path to a native plant garden. You wonder when it was last tended; it's the wildest garden you've seen in a long time. But would you really want to change anything?

Then the forest opens and you see a vast coastal prairie: douglas iris, salal, native blackberry, yarrow, and pacific reed grasses.

You step onto the Rim Trail because you've never been there.

And discover a meadow of sedges just around the corner.

And notice first flowers of spring: salmonberry barely unfurling their petals.

You wander aimlessly. It's imperative to lose yourself for a while.Tthen you can find the trail back home. Here it is: the beach below the sandy cliffs.

You watch as a few dark figures pick through the rocks looking for agates. You ask the ones you pass if they're having any luck. Just small ones. Then you jog home to give your lungs a stretch.

Not a bad place to live, really.

TED Talks

2008-02-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of TEDtalks? There are some amazing people and ideas here, and it's all free. The website says:

"TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. Almost 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted."

The speakers are amazingly intelligent and diverse. Gardeners might be interested in Michael Pollan, biologist/technologist Janine Benyus, and photographer Frans Lanting. But be sure to try a few random people. Videos can be found here on their website and at least some of them are on YouTube.

This video of nature photographer Frans Lanting incorporates many things that fascinate me: trilobites, silverswords, euphorbias, the stilt-legged fox from the Pampas, the work of musician Phillip Glass, and the unity of life.

I also enjoyed:

Theo Jansen: Kinetic sculpure "Beach Creatures."

David Gallo: Ocean animals. Amazing.

Calamagrostis nutkaensis

2008-02-09T14:25:00.000-08:00

I walked along this road many, many times, but am almost always discovering something new. Last week these grasses surprised me. I had dismissed them as velvet grass (a nonnative invasive, which is also in the area), but noticed that they were too bunchy and attractive to be that. They were Pacific Reed grass (Calamagrostis nutkaensis).

Then I headed back into the forest.

Big Lagoon Politcal Update

2008-02-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

This just in:

"BIG LAGOON -- The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs recently sent a letter to local agencies asking their take on the Big Lagoon rancheria's application to bring a five-acre parcel of land at the intersection of state Highway 101 and Big Lagoon Park Road into trust for tribal housing."

"According to the rancheria's application, three homes are planned for the property purchased in 2004. It is located about one-fourth of a mile outside the rancheria's trust lands."

”We're not interested in taking land into trust with restrictions,” Moorehead said. “We're looking at this as an alternative in case we build a casino.”

(full story from Eureka-Times Standard)

More development at Big Lagoon (especially a casino!) makes me nervous...

Casino on Big Lagoon?

2008-02-04T19:43:00.001-08:00

There is a Rancheria adjacent to Big Lagoon, composed of a small group of Yurok and Tolowa tribe members, that has seriously considered building a casino on its shores for some time.

I remember a few years ago a friend and I canoed to that part of the shore and saw the foundation for a large buidling, that had been abandoned, and that had been grown over with blackberry and jubata grass. Well, the foundation was for the casino. According to my dad, the foundation has been around since at least 1996. But nothing has happened so far, and this video explains why.

But the latest word is that the US Department of the Interior is NOT going to let them build in Barstow.

Concerns about impacts on water quality, endangered species and scenery from a
casino on serene Big Lagoon had state environmental agencies and conservation
groups supporting the Barstow compact. With that upended, and the tribe pushing
harder for a casino on their reservation, a battle is likely over who approves
the project. The California Coastal Commission has vowed to sue, claiming that
states which adopt federally approved coastal programs have the right to review
federal projects, like an Indian casino.

(Full story from the Eureka Times Standard.)

A casino and its tourists would be a serious ecological, aesthetic, and personal tragedy. I worry about the Rancheria, but this is not (morally and culturally) the right answer to their problems. I feel it in my bones. While the lagoon is not in immediate danger, I must keep up with story and prepare my war cry.

Dark Forest Meditation

2008-02-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

Susan from Garden Rant said that the Secret Garden was “simply too other-worldly for us to relate to.” But this is exactly the kind of garden I do relate to. And it seems that Piet Oudolf has been making mystical gardens like this for sometime.

What is it about the other-worldly, “dark Forest” gardens that appeals to me, anyway?

At the library, I stumbled upon a book called “The Power of Myth,” which is based on an interview between Bill Moyers and the late scholar of comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell. (I highly recommend it—it seriously reopened my heart to religion.)

I think there are a couple of “dark forest” things going on in my mind.

1. Anima mundi….the animated world, the world full of soul and souls. What do you think about this? Too pagan or romantic for your tastes?

I thought I had uprooted (or at least suspended) my belief in things like God four or five years ago. But to my surprise, beneath my former religion was the simple idea of anima mundi. I don’t even know where I picked this up (and I just found the term for the idea), but I believe it. Sure it’s a romantic idea, that the jay is our brother, that the same spirit runs through all of us, and that we can “Paint with All the Colors of the Wind.” But to me, it means that we are all part of the mystery of life. It means respect and reverence toward the people, animals, plants, and things around us.

2. The Hunter. Something interesting I learned in the Campbell book was that in the land of Canaan the people were farmers and they worshipped a goddess. The Children of Israel were hunters and shepherds and they worshipped the male god, Yahweh, who, according to Campbell, was a war god. It’s not surprising then that the Children of Israel ransacked Canaan, and not the other way around. I’m not a religious scholar. Let me just move onto my point: The farmer and the cowman should be friends. Everything needs a balance of yin and yang, of animal and plant, of masculine and feminine. I think the “dark forest” element in the garden is important to me because it makes the garden more animated, more manly, and, like Ellen said, more visceral.

But there will be no animal sacrifices in the garden.

3. History. I like moss, lichens, patina, ware, rust, and signs of past life, like this chimney on a trail in Petersburg, Alaska (Here with my brother, Peter the Tourist, last summer).

4. Nostalgia. When I was in middle school I was obsessed with the Prydain chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. It was, you know, about a boy who wants crazy adventures, gets caught up in them, wanders the land trying to find himself, finds his ancestry and inner strength, and becomes king. Campbell would have called this the classic hero myth, right up there with The Odysseus, Luke Skywalker, and King Arthur.

My neighbor's planter reminds me of The Black Cauldron. It could use some plants.

Snow in Bayside

2008-02-01T13:08:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday it snowed in Bayside! In the seven or so years we've been in the area, it has never snowed. The bulbs coming up will be alright, right?

Expression

2008-01-27T12:59:00.000-08:00

Inch for inch, Japanese dry gardens pack a lot of power. But I'm glad that it's contained to a small courtyard because (inch for inch) it's not the greatest space for biodiversity or productivity.

And if it sprawled out, it would lose its magic and become a golf course.

I like a healthy balance of modernism and postmodernism. I like beauty and the sublime, but there is more to life than aesthetics. There are other things to express, and there are means for expression other than color, form and texture. I don't have to limit myself to expressing one thing either (as cool as that focus is in the dry garden).

Here are some of the things I’m trying to express in Bayside:

1. The value and coolness of local biodiversity. Leave a brush pile for the shrews. Encourage the Scrophularia. Call it performance art.

2. The dark forest myth. (It’s not clear why exactly, but this really resonates with me. The surrounding landscape and those fantasy novels I read as a kid are probably responsible.) This, at least in part, is leaving the creepy side of nature intact and the idea of artifacts.

3. Stewardship. Our need of the land, and the land’s need for us. I became a gardener a few years ago to make everything in Bayside look “natural.” I now like the idea of coppices, crops, and compost piles within the wilder landscape. I am especially drawn to traditional land management techniques like burning and coppicing. Sometimes I use a stick to dig my planting holes, no joke. This is partly responsible.

What I’m really trying to express is my idea of paradise. For me, paradise is not just “pretty.” It’s ferociously beautiful, diverse and productive. And I get to live in it.

Quick Garden Update

2008-01-27T12:54:00.000-08:00

The last time I worked in the Bayside garden was a week ago (I’m still at Big Lagoon). I noticed that some of the Penstemon heterophyllus cuttings have rooted. The lily seeds have not germinated yet (and neither have the Clintonia andrewsiana seeds). Triteleia laxa has sent up leaves, as have the daffodils and tulips in the herb garden, but the Lilium pardilinum has not. A bunch of Lupinus polyphyllus volunteers have popped up in the herb garden. I’ll move them to the Coastal Prairie when they’re a bit larger.

Garden Lightening

2008-01-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

(not my picture.)

I have never been to a real Japanese dry garden, but when I first understood that the gravel was the sea and that the rocks were islands I wanted to tell someone. Suddenly, this small space was an entire world, and me a tiny thing. Electric.

Thank you, books and photographs.

I wonder if anyone has since used a garden space to such a powerful effect. Are there other powerful (not just beautiful) gardens out there? If so, what are their effects?

Pictures from Trinidad's historic lighthouse, from this morning...

Collecting Pollen

2008-01-25T09:48:00.000-08:00

(not my picture.)

A few years ago in a contemporary art class, I became aware of Wolfgang Laib, a German artist who spends whole days collecting pollen, usually from dandelions. He brings the pollen into museums and puts it in piles on the floor. How unusual.

True, there is something monastic about the look of these piles and his other work that appeals to me. Maybe because I draw with chalky pastels I can appreciate the glow of a simple pile of yellow pigment, but I suspect that there is more magic here.

So I’m thinking…

(not my SEM image.)

His piles are actually more than pigment. The mechanics of each grain of pollen is incredible, having emerged from millions of years of evolution. I’m reminded that “simple” pollen, like all life, is much more complex and awesome than the Mona Lisas we usually find in the museum.

After graduation I took an internship at an arboretum in Flagstaff, AZ. I did a variety of work there, and sometimes I spent hours in the wild grasses behind the arboretum collecting their seeds in bags for the collection. I’d just pull them off between my finger and thumb, as I walked by.

There is something so down-to-earth (humble, wholesome, patient) and meditative about tasks like these, and I imagine this is much like collecting pollen. Maybe this is some of the magic he is expressing, the kind of magic that’s easy to lose and forget about these days.

(not my photo.)

While bees feed on pollen (and feed pollen to their young), Laib exhibits and sells pollen to make a living. Maybe the acknowledgement that our lives depend on simple things like plants, air, and soil, and that we tap into these basic sources just like the common bee, is part of the magic.

Luckily we can experience these kinds of magic in the garden. No, not because gardens are full pollen (though I guess it could be). Gardens are places in which we can admire and interact with other life, where we can get back down to earth, and where we can directly tap into the systems that keep us alive (maybe by eating huckleberries from the bush).

Is Laib’s pollen collecting minimalist gardening?

Myrica californica

2008-01-19T12:22:00.000-08:00

If I had a small yard on the north coast and was allowed only one native tree, it would be the Pacific wax myrtle, Myrica californica.

It’s a small, fast-growing evergeen with shiny bright foliage. And is incredibly versatile. I’ve seen it grown as a specimen tree, as a shrub, and cut as a hedge. It likes partial-shade or full sun, and the ample moisture it receives here on the coast.

As a landscape tree at a Big Lagoon cabin.

Cut (and shaped by the wind) as part of a mixed hedge. The brightest green is Myrica californica.

In the wild especially, I’ve seen many old trees that twist about like Chinese dragons. In fact we have a couple of such trees growing in the Bayside family redwood forest. The wax myrtle, along with the shore pine and the willows, is also a common species of the dune forest.

If your tree, like the one below, was pummeled by falling Sitka spruces in a coastal storm and is holding onto anything for support, I recommend chopping it down. They’ll shoot back with a vengeance.

Besides its beauty and utility, the Pacific Wax Myrtle is great for wildlife. It is commonly recommended as one of the best plants for birds in my area. (Pines and willows definitely make the list too). Birds love the tiny purplish fruits.

Sadly, unlike other Myrica species, the fruit of Myrica californica reportedly does not yield enough wax to make candles. And while we’re on the subject of burning, I’m not sure how well it burns as firewood either. We cut down part of one by the cabin last year, and I just split the wood, so we’ll find out.

And I suppose for those who need flowers, I should mention that the wax myrtle’s are tiny and inconspicuous.

But if you want a reliable year-round spot of bright green in your coastal garden, decorated with birds instead of bright flowers and berries, give the wax myrtle a try.

Creatures Great and Small

2008-01-17T10:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a beautiful clear day. In the morning I walked by the lagoon and beach and saw a man trying to fly.

I spent the rest of my morning and most of my afternoon splitting wood. I found five or so pseudoscorpions while pulling away some wet bark. I’ve only seen them in pictures, so I was very excited. You can see from the picture how incredibly tiny one is compared to my thumb.

They are close relatives to scorpions, they lack tails. More info.

January Bloom Day

2008-01-15T16:08:00.000-08:00

I know I'm supposed to be in exhile, but I had to come home to say goodbye to my grandma, who was staying with my parents for the holidays. I thought since I'm here at least for a few more hours, I would start out the year right by contributing to Bloom Day. (After all, this is a garden blog and I think I should have some garden-related postings.)

As you can see above, some Clarkia amoena are still blooming. Hello-to-spring, I guess. I've mentioned before that I'm fond of Euphorbias. Well below is a garden variety called 'Red Wings' that someone else planted in the herb garden. We don't use it as an herb however; it's very toxic. One herb that is blooming quite a bit right now is the creeping rosemary (not pictured).

Inside, this orchid's still blooming strong.

This one's very close. You can see that the flowers are forming on a new shoot coming from the old flowering shoot (which I decided not to cut off, luckily). It's the same situation with the pink orchide above. But maybe if I had cut them off an entirely new shoot would have appeared. Who knows.

There's also a red Schlumbergera that's just finishing its blooms, but I don't care for it much. But I am excited to see many flowers on the Vaccinium ovatum growing wildly outside. Means lots of huckleberries this summer.

More Pictures from Home

2008-01-14T12:30:00.000-08:00

This is the bog where sundews grow. I don't think they're awake right now. I don't know because I forgot my rubber boots.

Back into the dark woods I photographed here. The deer is a fallen branch.

False lily of the valley berries.
Alders.

One of the lagoon's beaches.

Those bunch grasses are Deschampsia caespitosa, the same species we grow in the coastal prairie garden.

The lagoon.

A boat on the beach. But no one's around.

Some kind of dead Juncus right on the edge.

The ocean's on the other side of that horizon.

Home at Big Lagoon

2008-01-11T13:31:00.000-08:00

I've applied to three graduate programs (in landscape architecture) and am applying to one in horticulture.

I’m staying at Big Lagoon for a while in a cabin with a woodstove. I’ll travel into Trinidad to use the Beach Comber Café’s wireless internet to post on what’s happening here and to search and apply for jobs. Trinidad is also where I’ll shop for groceries and access the (tiny) branch of the county library.

When I’m not in Trinidad, I’ll be wandering along the old trails around Big Lagoon, taking notes for a writing project I’ve been working on for some time, and picking up shells and whatnot to practice drawing. I’m taking these projects, and my life right now, two or three feet at a time. So if nothing comes of this self-exhile or Walden experience, then oh well. We’ll just have to see what happens.

Sure is beautiful.

well said

2008-01-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."

E.B. White

New Year!

2008-01-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

I'm back in Humboldt County. Still no job, school, or place to live. My life has never been so up in the air. This year I'm determined to strengthen myself. To root out anything in the way of my happiness and be bolder (and more decisive) than ever. Happy New Years, everyone.

UC Botanical Garden at Berkeley

2007-12-15T19:42:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, I took a trip over to Berkeley for the first time to check out their botanical garden. My brother and his kids came too. There's Peter Jon providing some sense of scale.

The garden is beautiful and I can't remember ever being more tempted to grow some of the exotic plants of the world. Euphorbia, though often ugly and always poisonous, is a genus that I've considered collecting. Already I have the succulent E. bupleurifolia, E. horrida horrida, and the common E. milii. In the succulent greenhouse there were a few that caught my eye.

Here's the top of the euphorbia above, with some interesting crested Pachipodium behind it.

E. woodii is one of the weirder ones I've seen. E. greenwayi, below, has beautiful patterns on its stems.

When I think of Ericas, I think of the British moor variety. I've never seen one as interesting as this one in the South African collection. It's E. sessiliflora.

In the tropical greenhouse I saw Amorphophallus titanum, the plant with the world's largest unbranched inflorescence (not flower because it's actually made up of many many flowers). You can see the huge spadix, which sports tons of orange/red fruit.

This plant deserves mention because it is the most colorfully-fruited sedge I've ever seen. It's Carex baccans.

And while we're in the sedge family, I should point out this giant Ghania sp. from New Zealand.

Here's the CA native, Coreopsis gigantea, out of its summer dormancy, with some silver Dudleya spp.

The CA garden was nice too. There were beds of native bulbs, an alpine area, and many other wonders. Not only were the collections nice, but it was apparent that the plants are well cared for. I reccomend a visit.

Planting for Insect Diversity

2007-12-12T20:00:00.000-08:00

Over at Garden Rant, Doug Tallamy comments on native versus non-native plants in the garden for the sake of insects. Most valuable bit: a tree or shrub hosts WAY more insect species than any herbaceous perrenials does. As we all know, when you host insects, you host almost everything else (including birds). So plant those native shrubs and trees! For me, promoting local biodiversity is one of the main reasons to garden. Here's the link.

I haven't done any surveys, but Scrophularia californica (above) has to be one of the best herbaceous perrenials for attracting insects. It bears hundreds of tiny nectar-rich blooms nearly the whole year round and the bees, bee-like flies, and hover flies know it.

Native Garden Notes from Chuck B.

2007-12-02T15:38:00.000-08:00

Chuck B. from Whoreticulture tells of his experiences with NorCal native plant species as a comment to a post at Garden Rant. Here's the link.

New Trails

2007-11-25T22:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I worked on a new segment of the trail with my dad. Eventually, the trail will be a great loop through the property. We keep it simple, with dirt, logs, and leaf-litter mulch.

While we were clearing the ground for the stairs above, I found this weird burly root. I don't know what it is.

My top 2 guesses:

1. Part of a redwood root system, since the trail was below a large redwood

2. Part of a root belonging to Marah oreganus, the Wild Cucumber, also called Coastal Manroot, because it's supposed to have a massive tuber. It also happens to be dormant this time of year and we do have tons of them on the property, so it's possible.

I put it in a pot, so we'll see what comes up.

There are many rewards for traveling down the new segment of the trail, including

mushrooms red as tomatos,

old alders in a skunk cabbage bog (cabbages dormant),

and cool Polypodium scouleri growing on an old stump.

I won't be working on this trail again for some time. Today I followed my brother and his family back down to Woodland, to find my next step. The cab of my truck is loaded with the bare necessities and I'm on the quest to find a cool place to live and work while I think about graduate school or whatever's coming next. (It's going to be tough to garden without some land.) This week I'll be exploring Sacramento, San Francisco, Davis, and Woodland. If nothing feels right, I may head south. I'm going to wing it for a while.

CA Native Clovers

2007-11-20T20:46:00.001-08:00

Thought about clovers today. If the native Trifolium wormskioldii (Springbank clover) is so cool, what about the other native clovers around here? I haven't noticed any other native clovers in the area, but according to Jepson there are 30 species native to CA (and several subspecies) and possibly 13 of those species are native locally (and are candidates for introduction to the "coastal prairie"). Unlike T. wormskioldii, most of the clovers are annuals, which makes introduction a bit more challenging.

Here are some potentials:

1. T. fucatum (annual) Bull Clover. This is my top choice for introduction because it's beautiful and distintive (see picture above, from CalPhotos). Also, seeds are available from Larner Seeds. Haven't ordered anything yet.

2. T. macraei (annual) Chilean Clover

3, T. microdon (annual) Thimble Clover

4. T. variegatum (annual) White-tipped clover. This one is unbelievable beautiful, based on photos from Calphotos.

5. T. eriocephalum (Perrenial)

If you would like to spend a good chunk of time perusing CA clover diversity, go to the CalPhotos website and type "trifolium" in the scientific name query box. Coupled with the Jepson Manual, CalPhotos is turning out to be a great tool for identifying natives, or just brainstorming what might be interesting to try in a garden.

Darlingtonia Rescue

2007-11-17T18:00:00.001-08:00

Any northern California bog garden wouldn't be complete without that peculiar plant, the Cobra Lily or Darlingtonia californica. Last year I bought and planted one in my bog, on a slight mound so that the crown wouldn't rot. It seemed to have done well, with some new leaves and even a flower this spring, but I found out today that all was NOT well. While weeding around the bog, I noticed white moldy stuff on some of the inner leaves, so I thinned them out to increase air flow. The whole plant rocked back and forth and, sure enough, with the lightest of tugs, I picked up the entire clump. The root system had just been sitting on the mound. Hardly any roots!

I looked more closely at the white moldy stuff. Wasn't sure what that was, but I did find tons of scale.

There's something so repulsing about scale. I dabbed a bit of Ecover dishwashing soap onto an old toothbrush and brushed/washed away what I could.

Then replanted it, all shiny and new, a little deeper. Hopefully that will help it settle in for good. We'll see.

The bog is a bit sparse. I'm still figuring out what to grow with the Darlingtionia. I have some yellow eyed grass, but it's not doing much. If I find a good sward of moss I may lay that down. Smaller plants like bog violets and lady's tresses and maybe a few sundews might be nice, but I don't know how to obtain any local ones, at least not ethically. I may try to collect seed one of these days.

But there's more...

Of course I cut open some of the leaves to see what they had caught.

Lot's of rotting bugs in there. I could recognize beetles, a fly, and even a larva of somekind (Below). The anterior end of the larva fell off as I was opening up the leaf. Nice.

Despite the hassels, it's a cool plant. Eventually, it may be as tall as my knee, may fill the entire bog, and may bloom and seed itself. One can only hope.

Gardening in the Rain

2007-11-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

Being unemployed has been really great for the garden. I've done a good fall cleanup and moved some plants around.

Coastal Prairie
I tooks out some weeds, planted large groups of yellow eyed grass along the water course, planted some iris seed, took out a few plants that were in the wrong spot, and tried to think like garden designer, not just a restorationist.

I took a clump of this chartreuse mystery sedge and divided it into five pieces to make a kind of carpet here by the patio. As you can see below, the chartreuse highlights the chartreuse of the calyx of the sticky monkeyflowers nearby. Subtle design, I know, but when you're limitting yourself to natives, and generally to the plants that appear naturally in your yard (the free ones), you take what you get. I'll know the cleverness of the design, if no one else notices. Besides, it's a fun experiment. I may want to add some native bulbs like Triteleia laxa among the sedges, if the area needs some punch.

I cut back lots of the perrenials, including two Penstemon heterophyllous. Just for fun, I cut the material into segments and stuck them in the soil of the prairie here and there, to see if any will be rooted by next spring. Most of the cuttings had two nodes, one leafless and stuck in the ground, the other one left with leaves, unlike the cutting photographed below. I also stuck some in pots. Did the same thing with some mugwort.

Herbs and Water Way

Pictured below, is the path along the south side of the house, which is at the bottom of a solid clay slope (plants are having a real tough time growing there). On the left side we have part of the herb garden and on the right we have the water way that connects to the water course of the coastal prairie. (If you were to walk down the path, you'd see the bog right around the bend.) The herbs are in heavily amended soil (for drainage) and get good light. I cut the lavender back HARD, hand-mowed the thyme carpet, and cleaned up any dead material. On the water way, I removed a bunch of yellow eyed grass, consolidated plants into patches, and hand-mowed the springbank clover carpet, to encourage it to grow lower and thicker, and used the cut pieces to extend the carpet. Eventually I want it to cover the mud you see between the stones and path.

A closer look reveals why I chose springbank clover for this area. Besides being a native and having attractive flowers, I knew this plant could handle the seasonal flooding. I see it growing right along the shores of Big Lagoon.

It also spreads nicely, is edible, has historical significance (was a major food source for local native peoples), and is bright green. And who else gardens with clover?

On the rocks above the clover carpet, all kinds of plants are growing, including a Lilium pardilinum, planted a couple years ago. This week I was bold, and pulled that plant up. The bulbs are amazing.

I divided the bulb into three clumps and rubbed off some of the bulb scales to plant throughout the rocks, especially near the bog. And planted pieces of Mimulus lewisii as companions. My hope is to get more Boykinia elata in there too (right now I only have one).

Forest
As for the forest, I've just been admiring it. The hazel is turning yellow, more mushrooms are popping up, and the big leaf maple has lost its leaves.

Tagged

2007-11-15T17:27:00.000-08:00

Lisa, my sister in law, tagged me. You know, I'm supposed to make six things about myself public and then pass it on to others.

1. I like combining india ink and pastel to make strange pictures that are sometimes downright ugly, but will someday be consistently wonderful. Above, is a detail of such a picture.

2. I have a very poor sense of smell (anosmic) and I'm not old (early 20s) and I haven't been a drug user. My smell comes and goes. I can't stand the smell of smarties (the candy), they make me nauseous.

3. I found part of a triceratops skull one summer and am fascinated by fossils and natural history. I like trilobites.

4. I'm a little O.C. when it comes to food that's bad for me. I hardly ever eat butter, refined sugar, or salt, and it's been a long long time since I've had fast food or soda. I can taste food, very well I think, so don't try to blame it on my lack of smell. I just know it's bad for me, and I've slowly trained myself to dislike unhealthy foods, at least on some level. Several years ago I trained myself to like celery. He can be taught!

5. My siblings and I were raised on Disney movies and we can sing along to all of the classics. Movie quotes are an important component of our conversations when we're all together.

6. My proudest acheivement was, on my own, getting in the habit of cooking beans (with half an onion and a bay leaf) on a woodstove when I lived in Arizona. I long to have my own woodstove and I am quickly turning into an old man.

November Bloom Day

2007-11-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

There are several plants still blooming in the garden: Clarkia amoena (above), yarrow, sticky monkeyflowers (going strong), CA poppy, hedge nettle, pearly everlasting, and even one or two golden eyed grasses. For herbs, we have a few lavender flowers left and several blooms on the society garlic. Nasturtiums in pots are still going crazy, and we also have some dwarf salvia blooming. Inside are the flowers I mentioned in the last post, though the Schlumbergia is pretty much done now. What can I say? We have mild weather here, and tons of rain. Happy Bloomday.

House Plants

2007-11-13T10:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, this orchid bloomed. Some kind of Phalaenopsis.

This Schlumbergia, which has been in the family for years, began blooming a week or so ago. These photos are from when it was blooming full force. Yesterday I noticed that Lisa at Miller Time has the same cultivar.

I'm proud of this little arrangement with the variegated spider plant. One of my sisters made the black bowl.

My Selenocereus chrysocardium has never bloomed, but it's still one of my top 3 favorite houseplants. It's a tropical cactus, as is the Schlumbergia.

This is a trio of wild plants, all in the Saxifragaceae. I took only snippets of these rhizomatous species and eventually they'll go in a shady place in the garden so don't try to make me feel bad. The two larger ones are species of Mitella, or Mitre's Wort from the Arcata Community Forest. They have snowflake-like flowers.

Ok, so this one will not make it to the garden because it's from Arizona. It's the alpine Heuchera rubescens, I believe. And I do feel a bit guilty about this one.

There are many native shade plants where I live and several of them have great potential as houseplants. I know, why have them in your house when you could have all those exciting exotics?

A couple of months ago I sowed seed from Clintonia andrewsiana, an orchid-esque plant native to the redwoods. My hope is that, once germinated, I can grow them as a group of houseplants. This will save them from the slugs, but will also help me really get to know these plants. Eventually I can use these plants to start a colony in our backyard forest. But there's another good reason for me to grow natives indoors: I really like them. They are unusual and truly beautiful.

Potawot Health Village Revisited

2007-11-08T17:44:00.000-08:00

I told you I'd be back at the Potowat Health Village to show you the inside. Here's a quick look at some of the outside first.

Red leaves (Acer glabrum?) and blue green leaves and white berries (Symphoricarpos spp.) make a great combination.

Here's a nice trio: Vine Maple, Giant Chain fern, and that short cultivar of redtwig dogwood.

Beach strawberry (Fragaria chiloensis) is used as a ground cover extensively. A while back I saw them mowing it down, which I'm sure helps keep it dense and low. The larger leaved plant is Garrya eliptica.

There's a creek that runs around most of the building complex, and you can see that it also runs under the complex (it emerges in the courtyard wellness garden).

So I've stepped inside and made a left, through a tall, dark, entry and into this small hallway. Through the window, you can see the wellness garden. (Remember, the garden is completely enveloped by the building.) The banners and canoe remind me of my viking heritage.

Here's a closer view of the garden through the window, and through a young wax myrtle.

So I've stepped outside into the garden and there's the rest of the creek. As far as I can tell, these are all native plants (except for the weeds).

A closer look reveals a diversity of creekside plants, including Darlingtonia, sedges, strawberries, and monkeyflowers.

They have very large, hefty pots along the patio/path areas. I've always liked river rock up against curving concrete. And the irises tucked in here and there are nice. I can see someone's been working on the garden recently. There are less weeds and more mulch.

Here's another view. I think the standing dead trees are brilliant.

Close up of Equistum hymale and strawberry and a bit of water parsley.

Now I'm back inside, on the other side of the building.

Inside there are many paintings, photographs, and traditional crafts displayed, like these baskets. This place has a completely different feel than other hospitals/health clinics I've been too.

And everywhere in the building there is a view of the garden. Feeling better already.

P.S. This was a stop on my job hunt. No, they aren't hiring a gardener. But don't worry, there are prospects elsewhere.

Big Lagoon

2007-11-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

Big Lagoon was my family's inspiration for moving to Humboldt County. I always begin my visits on Huckleberry Lane. The huckleberries were cut back pretty hard earlier this year (to give the cabins a better view of the ocean), but they seem to be doing fine. They look a little boxed in, though.

Then I walk along the street to the lagoon parking lot and onto the dock to see how high the water is.

It's high. And definetly too high for some of the silverweed (yellow) and grasses along the shoreline.

This photo is of a photo on an interpretive sign. Big Lagoon was extremely rich in wildlife. It was good to the Yurok. (There's a rancheria on one side of the lagoon.) I saw a man with a bicycle fishing in the lagoon, but he wasn't catching anything. Birds are everywhere. Especially cormorants.

If you turn left away from the lagoon, you see this sandspit, which divides the lagoon from the ocean. I thought about the ocean, but honestly, I tend to prefer the forest, which is in the opposite direction.

So that's where I head. One of the first plants to command attention is this, false lily of the valley. These berries are still young, with gold specks. I saw many older berries too, which are deep red and translucent.

The forest at Big Lagoon is much different than the one at home. The woods are DARK. It's a Sitka spruce forest that is way too crowded and many of the trees are dying or dead. Still, it's one of my favorite places. It is so quiet and eerie.

And the forest floor is spongy and deep green.

Ah, there's one of my favorite ferns, Polypodium scouleri. They normally grow up in trees, but this may have fallen with part of a tree. It's a good size plant, if I'd wanted I probably could have barely lifted it off the ground. I've often thought that this species might make a nice houseplant, grown in bark like many orchids are.

Speaking of orchids, here are two little Rattlesnake Plantains growing under an orange mushroom.
My camera is good at lightening things up, but remember, it's dark in here.

I can't help but admire the mushrooms. On my way into the forest I saw a couple Boletes edulis and some Wine Agarics. When I saw this one, I was amazed. Evenually I tried lifting it so I could see the underside and realized it was a rusty bottle cap. But I left it there because it's still a wonder to behold.

So was this, the underside of a real mushroom.

And this too. A tiny landscape within a tall forest.

This looks like a nice family.
These mushrooms reminded me of soccer. Some were as large as my hand.

The forest wasn't always so dark, apparently. There are many other trees dead and decaying under the spruces. This, I'm confident to say, was a wax myrtle.

This mushroom had the look, feel, and size of a gumboot chitin. Amazing.

Here's a slimy couple.

Daisy in the pasture.

Sun with radiating twigs.

Perhaps the most beautiful mushrooms were the species below. They were everywhere. They had this ultraviolet look to them and there's something so cool about the fringe around the cap.

I almost always check on my secret patch of Calypso orchids when I'm at Big Lagoon, but they were dormant.

But I did find this objet trouve nearby. It was a lamp.

BIG NEWS:

I may be leaving Humboldt County for a while. I quit my job last Friday (let's just say the business was nuts) and went down to look at UC Davis (in Yolo County). I'm going to be applying for the master's program in horticulture. My brother and his family live in Woodland nearby. I'm looking for a job around here and down there. Davis was nice, but it's a completely different environment (it's in the hot, dry valley). But I'm incredibly excited about the idea of going down there. The facilities look amazing, the people I met were friendly and passionate about what they're doing, and there has always been something about oak trees that has fascinated me.

My parents will still be here, so I'd live close enough to still visit and tend our forest and coastal prairie from time to time.

Well, we'll see what happens.

Frank Lake's Dissertation

2007-10-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

With a recommendation from Bob Zynbach and help from mmw, I've managed to find and read a disseration by Frank Lake, who wrote it for Oregon State University, and who is Karok. You can find the dissertation here. It's a very long document and I admit that I scanned over parts (especially the methods section), but I found several ideas and details making it worth the read.

About fire:

The starting of fires was considered a spiritual act capable of
serious consequences. Prayer formulas and other beliefs were associated with
burning. Once lit, fires were often spoken to as to how they should behave
and conduct themselves to achieve desired resource objectives of the igniter (p.
99).

A picture of what much of northern California and Southern Oregon looked like:

Patches and fields were located along trails that typically ran adjacent to rivers
and streams, the coast, and along ridgelines, directly connecting communities, peaks,
campgrounds, waterfalls, springs, and other favored subsistence and ceremonial
locations. Fires were also used to clear and maintain trails; rejuvenate berry patches,
wild pea fields, root and bulb fields, and orchards; for hunting; for weed control; and
to cure large fields of tarweed (Madia elegans Lindley) and grass seeds ("Indian
oats"). Daily and seasonal trail clearing activities, combined with seasonal and
occasional brush clearing, hunting, seed curing, and sprout-inducing burns were nearly year-around activities.

There is an interesting series of photographs in the paper showing that many
meadows traditionally maintained by fire have been lost. One example is at Patrick's Point (between Trinidad and Big Lagoon). When Europeans took over the area, they kept the meadows open with fire and with their cattle. When it was made into a State Park and the ranchers were removed, the spruce and shrubs began moving in. Today I know that there is at least one meadow area that the state burns occasionally to encourage the native prairie
plants.

Indians used fire to clear brush and debris from riparian areas and marshes to
stimulate new grass, plant growth, and shrub and tree sprouts. Target
species were cottonwoods (Populus balsamifera spp. trichocarpa Torrey &
A. Gray), willows (Salix spp.), tules (Scirpus acutus Bigelow var. occidentalis
(S.Watson) Beetle), cattails (Typha latifolia L.), sedges (Carex spp.), and
grasses.

At work, I’ve been harvesting bareroot Scirpus microcarpus and water parsley plants. There is quite a bit of grass thatch below, making them difficult to pull up. I use a garden fork and my hands to pull the thatch away from the base of the plants, then use the fork lift the plants. Burning the thatch would save a great deal of time. If it were my nursery and my patches, I might do some experimenting.

I liked hearing about their trails.

Trails were about two feet wide, worn into bare mineral soil, and served as fire
lines in many cases for low intensity surface fires.

There are also many interviews with elder men and women from local tribes. I'm still reading through some of them. But I really should have taken better notes, I know I'm leaving out some important things.

P.S. I'm currently reading Tending the Wild by Kat Anderson.

Boletes edulis

2007-10-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

Found another edible. Boletes edulis. Actually, my coworker, Bill, found it. He followed me home to take some plant cuttings (mostly of Ribes sangineum) and to look at some of the mushrooms on the property. (We found many cool ones including a couple of huge black/purple ones.) We said goodbyes, he drove down the hill from our house, and then called me on the phone. He had found the largest patch of Boletes edulis that he had ever seen. In our yard! For more info about B. edulis check out wikipedia.

I've chopped them up (and cut away a few maggot-infested stems) and have them ready to sautee up tomorrow with a couple of wine agarics. I'll probably eat the mushrooms with pasta.

I promise to blog soon about something other than mushrooms. Probably Frank Lake's dissertation.

Fungi Arise!

2007-10-27T13:13:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of All Hallow's Eve, strange mushrooms are popping up in the yard. We have...

Eye balls

the Yellow-fanged Bolete

Pumpkins in the Patch (of thyme)

Bride of Frankenstein hair

Ghostly Hordes

And the Gilled Mutant Monstrosity

(diabolical laugh)

Happy Halloween....

First Edible Mushroom

2007-10-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

Momentous occasion!

My first edible: the wine-colored agaric. Right in my backyard. I brought one to work today and Bill confirmed it. The wine-colored agaric has a ring, pale rosy brown gills, fibrous stuff on its stalk, and dark streaks on the top of its cap; features you can see below.

(I cut off the stalk, as opposed to just pulling the mushroom up because of some advice I'd read.)

Bill recommends cutting the mushroom strait down the middle to see if bugs have worked their way up from the stalk into the cap. Um, yes. But you know I'm eating them anyway. They're my first edible mushrooms and the damage isn't that bad (and the bugs are pretty small). Don't look too closely, though.

So I chopped up the two caps, washed the pieces in warm water, and left them to soak for a while, hoping that any lingering bugs would exit.

Whoa! Look how red the water stained after soaking them for a half hour or so. I don't know if this is the reason it's the wine-colored agaric, but it sure could be.

After they were sauteed with a bit of butter, they shrunk down quite a bit, into these black slug-like things. But they tasted good. Like an over-cooked button mushroom, but with a deeper flavor.

When I'm not cooking for anyone else, I tend to go for the bare-root sort of meals. Poached eggs and toast it is. The drink in the cup is warmed up unpasteurized (illegal!) apple cider from an unnamed apple orchard. I'm probably not the first to realize this, but an easy way to make it into hot spiced cider is to add a tea bag. Mine's ginger.

The black specks on the eggs are bugs from the mushrooms.

No. It's pepper.

Et Viola. A very satisfying meal.

A note on the top prize (golden chanterelles): A few days ago I found some mushrooms that I thought might be them, but Bill said that they were false chanterelles. Their orange was too bright and their stalks were too skinny. But I'm still deteremined to find some on the property.

Hazel

2007-10-22T18:08:00.001-07:00

I fell in love with hazel the first time I stumbled upon it in our forest. That was a few years ago, so my plant eyes were just developing. My father and I were cutting a trail and I said to myself, hey this isn't just another alder. No offense, I like alders too.

The leaves of hazel are downy soft, especially in early spring, are more finely toothed than alder, and more ovular. I also really like their arrangement on the skinny flexible stems. Hazels also have very attractive catkins in spring. I think I've seen some female flowers too (they may have just been buds), but I haven't seen any nuts. Never.

In fall, it's especially apparent that our sweet little hazel tree is really a gargantuan thicket probably many hundred of years old. Here's a look at one of it's "stools":

I say "stool" because it is a term associated with coppicing, a woodland management strategy where you cut a shrub or tree to the ground every so often to encourage new vigorous sprouts from the base. Here, I have to put it in quotation marks. Or maybe it should have been a question mark because this may have infact been a thicket coppiced by the Wiyot people at one time. I couldn't find any evidence of burning, but I doubt ashes would still be around because the soil is a mass of compost and moss. How can I tell? And the stools(?) are covered in moss themselves so I just don't know. But because of our land's closeness to the Bay, I think it is very likely their people lived here at one time.

As you can see above, the thicket is pretty extensive and there are at least four or five main stools, and they may be connected (it's difficult to tell because it's a real jungle in there). Which brings me to expressing a quandry I've had since reading Before the Wilderness. I confess that I am a bit on the romantic side about old, mysterious, "dark forest" things, and yet over the last few months, especially after reading BTW, Wendell Berry, and Noel Perry, I'm becoming more and more swayed to the management side. The solution, I know, is to manage some of it and to hang onto some of the truly amazing old things in the forest. Should I do something with this thicket or just enjoy the jungle?.

Ethnobotanical Videos

2007-10-21T14:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a comment on a post, I've been searching for information about research up in Oregon and stumbled upon these native plant tour videos from 2004. Go to the link for more info.

Humboldt Botanical Gardens

2007-10-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, I heard that a botanical garden was being started in Humboldt County. So I went down to College of the Redwoods, who is leasing land nearby for the gardens, to check it out. They had large signs with a master plan of the gardens in front of a large cow pasture--the future site of the gardens. It wasn't much to look at, but the idea was exciting.

Well, I've been curious ever since about how the gardens are coming. And I have a secret desire to work there, but it's run by volunteers at the moment, I need money, and the driving distance, while not great, is enough to make me be careful about signing up to volunteer.

By chance, I heard the the HBG Foundation was giving a tour of the garden site Saturday (yesterday). It turns out that it was really only open to members, but they kindly let my friend and I tag along and even offered us food and drink. Seems like a nice group of people.

Here's a view of the HBGF meeting with snack table and new greenhouse:

We're walking..

Here's a main pathway leading to a sitting area overlooking the native plant garden.

Native plant garden (one of the few areas planted) with a drain running down the middle. I'm a little concerned that the plantings are too close, but I saw some cool plants down there...

Well, I've skipped over the Moss Family Temperate Woodland garden, which will be packed with rhododendrons (mixed feelings about this), and the Wildberries Riparian area, which is being funded mostly by the Coastal Conservancy to restore and preserve the native willows and such along the creek, to get to a little slice of land that could be most interesting. It's the gardens' coastal prairie. They've planted a bunch of bulbs and native grasses in this area and are trying to beat down the weedy annual grasses by careful mowing. I wonder if they've considered burning or even if it would help agains the weeds. Weedy grasses are tough to control in large areas like this, especially if you can't confidently tell them from the natives. While it's not on the masterplan, I think an area showing the use of native plants, besides purely ornamental, would be nice.

For more info on the gardens, check out this link.

Mushrooms

2007-10-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

Here in Humboldt County, when mushroom collecting is mentioned people giggle. Ah...what kind of mushrooms?

Edibles

I'm interested in mushrooms I can eat without hallucinating or going to the hospital, so let's set the record straight. So last night I attended the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society meeting with my coworker, Bill, who knows his mushrooms well, to have a look at table displays of various fungi.

These are oyster mushrooms. They grow on dead and dying alders. Could be in our yard...

These are Golden Chanterelles. They have ridges instead of gills. Bill found gallons of them around where he lives, and is making up a big batch of cream of mushroom soup (and he's bringing some into work). He tends to find them growing near spruce trees under evergreen huckleberry and sword ferns. Could be in our yard...

Below are "Lobster Mushrooms." The red color is actually a mold that grows on other mushrooms and I guess it makes them taste good. You just have to be sure that the host is an edible mushroom! Don't know where these grow.

Bill regularly collects about six species of mushrooms and the only one besides the ones above I can remember him collecting is the Chicken of the Forest (sorry, no picture). This is a bright orange frilly shelf fungi that grows on hemlock and doug firs. Only the tips of the frill are soft enough to eat.

Other tips from Bill: Wash wild (and edible, make sure they're edible) mushrooms well under warm water and cook before eating. Steer clear of mushrooms with white gills and rings.

Inedibles

Well, I know these are in our yard.

From left to right: Strobilurus trulisatus, Pholiota terrestris, and the last two are some species of Lepiota. The scientific names of these are sketchy because the handwriting on the labels were pretty bad. (I brought in the mushrooms and had them identified). The Photinia was growing in the coastal prairie. There are also tons of what Bill calls LBMs or Little Brown Mushrooms (not easy to identify).

Well, hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to scrounge around the forest to see what I find. Top prize: Golden Chanterelles!

Resources:
California Fungi

Before the Wilderness

2007-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned the book before, but now I'm actually reading it. "Before the Wilderness," compiled and edited by Thomas C. Blackburn and Kat Anderson, is a collection of scientific papers and essays about how native Californians managed the land and how their management altered California and promoted diversity.

While there is much to learn in the book about all parts of California, I've narrowed in on my part, namely, the redwood region, home of a few peoples including the Wiyot and Yurok.

Here are some of the things I'm finding noteworthy (most of it around p. 100):

Unlike most of CA, tribes of the redwoods relied more on salmon than on agriculture.

The redwood forest was (and still is, I might add) impenetrable in parts because of massive logs and thickets.. But the natives kept some areas open by burning. And maintained paths connecting these areas. They were also careful about not getting lost in the forest.

At least one record showed that these open prairies were incredibly valuable for food. Plants with edible seed, such as Wyethia longicaulis, were concentrated in these areas. (I remember seeing swards of Wyethia along the roadside while I was driving to Petrolia. I don’t know what species this was, but this makes me want to collect seed and add it to my coastal prairie). Another account says that these open areas were covered with shrubs, wild oats, edible bulb plants, and clover (springbank clover probably). The largest of these areas were .25 mile by about .75 mile long, and most were much smaller. These areas were frequented by elk and deer too. It’s cool because by maintaining these open patches, elk and deer were drawn to these patches for good forage. So the food came to them.

Jepson (CA botanist mostly responsible for the Jepson Manual) once said that “There is today more wooded area in Humboldt County than when the white man came over a half century since.” And that is the case because of fire supression.

"In almost every case aboriginal subsistence involved hunting and gathering in two or more vegetational belts." Edges are where you'll find the most diversity, and I guess the most humans.

Large scale burning, in contrast to patch burning, reduces the total amount of plant and animal production.

There were, on average, 3-5 people per square mile where I now live.

Some native people cut the caps off of mushrooms, leaving the “stems behind.” Anderson says that this leaves the mycelia intact, ensuring future production.

Soaproot is more abundant in areas where it is cultivated. Cultivation can be a valuable tool for conservation.

“There is a common feeling among elders that plants want to be used,” says Anderson.

“Karok and Wiyot burned to make hazel and willows grow better for manufacturing baskets.”

One way to burn an individual coppice stool is to cover it with leaves and set the pile on fire. I wonder if this helps keep out pathogens from eating at the stool. I know one technique of preserving wood posts is to lightly burn the ends.

Fire is good for huckleberry production (because the shrubs resprout with vigor?)

That's all for now. I recommend the book to anyone interested in native american culture, California, and land management.

Blog Action Day

2007-10-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

Well, this young blog certainly seems to be going in an environmental direction. It has been and will continue to be a place where I settle myself into the garden/farm/ecosystem complex. I'm in love with the idea of diversity and good stewardship. Where the land, sky and water, and everything in them, belong to us, and we, in turn, belong to them. Let's take care of each other.

Rushes

2007-10-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

Rushes are plants that most people call grasses, but they're in their own family (Juncaceae), so they're not true grasses (Poaceae). You could call them graminoids (grass-like plants). Most of them live in wetlands, but not all. Here are a few of the kinds growing in the garden.

Juncus balticus has fine wiry bright green culms and tiny dark brown flowers that give the garden a speckled look (which I happen to like very much). It grows well in clay and in the coastal prairie.

(in front of tufted hairgrass)

Juncus ensifolius, which has bright green iris-like foliage and black balls of flowers. I sometimes call it Poodle Rush after my mom's little black poodle. It's very ornamental, but can get a bit weedy looking toward the end of the season. It may need to be cut down to the ground each year (I did that laster year and it helped) and it's spreading may also need to be controlled (easy enough in the bog).

This bluish rush is called Juncus patens, or the California Grey Rush. This has a very dark appearance in the landscape and is very rigid and upright. It's flowers are in brown clusters with touches of red and orange.

Then there is Juncus effusus, the softstem rush. This one looks like a more rubust and upright J. balticus, and can get much taller (four feet max?). These bareroot clumps are just sitting in the fountain for the time being, so they're not much to look at.

As you can see in this cross sectional comparison, the culms of J. effusus are also much thicker than J. balticus.

One day I was reading in one of my favorite books, The Once and Future King by T.H. White and he mentioned a "rushlight." Looked it up on wikipedia and read this magazine excerpt and it turns out that old Brits used the pith of J. effusus (yes, it's also native to the British isles) as a wick for candles they called rushlights. Read the magazine excerpt for details. I'd like to try my hand at making rushlights, but I don't have a supply of household grease or bees wax. Not yet anyway.

The green tissue is easy to peel from the pith. The pith, by the way, feels and looks like a spaghetti noodle made of plastic packing foam.

Also in the yard are annual Toad Rushes that are weedy and hairy wood rushes (Luzula spp.) that are also in Juncaceae.

My hope is to encourage everyone to look a bit more closely at "grasses" because there's tons of diversity there. I haven't even gotten to the other graminoids such as the bulrushes, spike rushes, and sedges.

"Keeping it Living"

2007-10-07T19:04:00.000-07:00

Here is an excellent article, "Keeping it Living." that describes some of the native traditional horticultural practices of British Columbia.

Here's an excerpt about pruning:

"Pruning and coppicing of individual berry and
hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) bushes was also
practiced, both on the coast and in the interior:
another means of “keeping it living,” since this
process took advantage of meristematic tissues
at the bases and nodes of the stems of shrubs
that allow them to regenerate easily. The
breaking of the branches of berry bushes has
been little documented, but like other practices,
this may be in large part because people
had not been asked about such practices.
California First Peoples are known to coppice
their basketry plants to produce better, longer,
and straighter shoots (Anderson 1993). In the
interior, too, Plateau peoples talk about increasing
the productivity of their saskatoon
bushes (Amelanchier alnifolia), chokecherries
(Prunus virginiana), soapberries (Shepherdia
canadensis), and huckleberries (Vaccinium
spp.) by breaking the branches off during or
following the harvest. On the coast, this seems
to be a widely known but little publicized
practice. Chief Adam Dick, as soon as he was
asked, started to talk about it: “Especially that
gwadems [red huckleberry, Vaccinium
parvifolium], when they finished picking the
gwadems, you know, they pruned them. They
chopped the tops off. Salmonberries [Rubus
spectabilis] too. So, when the qwasem it’s
done, after you pick... after they get all
tl’axwey’ then we all break the tops off.” [“Oh,
and that makes them grow better?” NT] “Yes.
My grandma tell me that if you let it grow this
high [above your head], then it doesn’t produce
much berries. You know. But when you keep it
down and, she says, the water, it’s hard going
up there, I guess, when it’s too tall.”

Trifolium wormskioldii, the clover I introduced to my garden, turns out to be a species that was cultivated in fields alongside Pacific silverweed. Rhizomes from both plants were actively propagated, harvested, cooked, and eaten by peoples of British Columbia. (Yes, I would like to try preparing the rhizomes, but I need to let my plants grow for a while.)

The article also documents how plants were transplanted and traded by native peoples, raising interesting questions about the native/nonnative dichotomy AND helping to deepen the idea of sustainability, the idea of "keeping it living."

Native Horticulture

2007-09-30T12:30:00.000-07:00

Native californians have been gardening with california plants for thousands of years. Hmm, maybe I could tap into that knowledge to the benefit of the land and myself.

I've already mentioned coppicing, but how about cultivation practices that improve berry production, seed germination, mushroom production, and what else? (And reducing fire loads in our forests). Knowing when and how much to take. AND how to encourage native biodiversity. I really have everything to learn.

Kat Anderson's "Before the Wilderness" is a book about this idea on a larger, land management level. Haven't read it yet, but it's at my library and hopefully I can get to it this week.

This is one of the most radical and potentially beneficial gardening ideas I can think of. It would strengthen the human/nature relationship and put deeper meaning into a garden.

At least one of the gardeners at Gardener Rant (see link at far right) rants about the idea of the "yardeners," I'm guessing those that want a no maintenance yard, instead of a garden they are actively engaged with. Well, maybe the ornamental garden isn't that far ahead of a "yarden." Maybe the next step would be to pretend there is no fence around our garden and plug our garden into the larger landscape. Blend the line between cultivated and noncultivated a bit. Maybe this is a way that nonnatives, like recent human migrants, broccoli, and what not, can become native. I don't know, these are just the beginnings of thoughts.

Coastal Prairie

2007-09-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about fall is that the sun becomes just a bit lower, making the lighting (and backlighting) more dramatic. Ok, so the two following photos are taken late in the day, around five. Below are Clarkia amoena and Coastal Hairgrass (Deschampsia caespitosa).

This is a view of our "coastal prairie" in the front of the house, viewed from the stairway. Sorry the photo is so dark. I think it's coming together nicely, but needs some more green, so that it blends in better with the surrounding forest, and so the flowers are more noticable. I think I'll rely on the short soft mystery sedge and springbank clover for ground cover.

Below you can see the Coastal Hairgrass (Deschampsia caespitosa) that I coppiced, in front of one that I haven't. See all the bright green? That's what I'm going for. I'm excited about the materials I'm gathering from pruning the grasses and graminoids, because they'll make an excellent mulch for other areas. Cutting the grasses down will also expose the soil to more sunlight, easing wildflower germination this spring.

I'm going to wait till early spring before cutting some of the hairgrass back because their inflorescences are interesting, especially with that autumn light.

Pruning Tips from Las Pilitas

2007-09-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

I have never been to Las Pilitas, the native nursery down in Southern California, but I really like their website. Whoever is writing the text is doing a great job. It is extremely opiniated and no-nonsense. I can't personally attest to what they recommend, because I haven't tried out most of it, but when it's said so confidently it certainly makes me want give their methods a try. (And I'm aware that not all of the methods can be applied to Humboldt County, it is radically different than San Diego. On the other hand, some of their species are our species.) But what are their methods? Take a look at their pruning tips, for a start.

Lonicera involucrata involucrata

2007-09-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

I had to make this photo a giant so you can see the swollen nectaries at the base of these flowers. Must be for hummingbirds, butterflies, or both. Don't these flowers look like two femurs attached to a pelvis? It's called twinberry honeysuckle (Lonicera involucrata involucrata). Twinberry because the flowers will swell at the base to become two dark shiny berries, side by side. The fused bracts (or involucre--notice scientific name) that the flowers are sitting on will become deep red.

They are bizzare, but also beautiful at the right angle.

But like many interesting flowers, you've got to look closely to fully appreciate them. They are easy to overlook.

Yep, it's a Humboldt County native from the backyard.

Work Thoughts

2007-09-19T16:54:00.000-07:00

These are just some random, and somewhat obvious, thoughts I've had while working at the nursery. (Many thoughts have had to be cut. I'm trying to stay positive here.)

Skunk cabbage has a tuberish thing with long roots that are mostly unbranched, rubbery things that have rings like annelids, but more closely spaced. Reminds me of mandrake (isn't that the screaming plant in the first Harry Potter movie?).

Weed pots, especially weed out alders and willows before they become full size trees! The trees can be salvaged, but the root systems are bound and usually lopsided, while the intentional plant is nearly dead or dead.

Wind barriers are very important at a nurery with trees. Stakes are important too, but make sure you don't buy stakes that need support themselves. Oh and invent something that will keep treepots reliably upright. Unless you are going for bonsai materials, don't let young trees grow crooked. And nearly all trees should be single-trunked, if you ever want to sell them.

Soil sterilizer, I wish I had one. But is there not a low-tech alternative? My faith in the composting process isn't that strong. I have a compost pile that I completely neglect. Composting is a real weakness of mine!

Seed propagation. It surely must be the noblest form of propagation. Must become a seed master. I do not like wild collecting, especially on a large scale, especially for profit. I don't mind taking a snip here or a seed capsule there.

Wouldn't it be cool to have woven old-english stlye fences everywhere? With a hedge of wild roses and hazels behind it? And geese running around keeping the grass down? Old England meets native California culture and plants. This is the Garden of La Mancha.

Organization on the grounds and in the books is "importante" for a business. So are clean, sharp, tools. Yes tools. You know, I really would like a scythe. Why don't we use them anymore? I also would like a pruning knife. And a watering can with a rose attachment.

All by-products need to become products. When I coppice my grasses and rushes this year I'll have native straw for mulch. Some of the "weeds" (only the natives) can be potted up. Things must be reused. Close the loop!

Blooming

2007-09-18T14:57:00.001-07:00

I missed Bloom Day, but here are some of plants flowering in the yard right now.

Springbank Clover

Annuals: white phlox (can't remember the name at the moment) with pink Clarkia amoena

Mimulus aurantiacus with culms of Deschampsia caespitosa

Hedge Nettle (Stachys sp.), a volunteer.
Sisyrinchium bellum. I have to hold up the flowers because they flop over, sadly.

The Righteous Garden

2007-09-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

This gardener fights for the right and struggles to find out what "right" means. It's not easy, but this is my quest. And there are somethings I'm able to grasp as being right and good.

These include: Gratitude, Diversity, and Hope. The idea of diversity pops up over and over again in my life and has led me to some conclusions about life that can, of course, be applied to the garden.

Things to Apply to Your Garden.

Native Plant gardeners are often accused of being self-righteous and sometimes xenophobic. And maybe some of us are, and maybe part of me is. But I'm cautious of falling into these categories, and that says something. I can't speak for all native plant gardeners, so I'll speak only for myself.

Like I've said, I believe in diversity. In culture and in ecology. It's good to have as many angles as possible so that we can carve out truths. (I choose to believe in truths, call me a modernist. I choose to believe in diversity, call me a postmodernist). And a wide range of ideas keeps our culture running smoothly and gives us options. But beyond all the practical reasons for salvaging and creating diversity, the need, beyond these reasons I want diversity. It keeps life interesting.

The Garden of La Mancha prioritizes thus:

1. Food--the best way to be happy and responsible is to provide for oneself as much as possible. Heirloom varieties are preferable for agricultural diversity's sake.

2. Natives--the best way to keep the local biodiversity going.

3. Beauty--is that well-tended garden with wild corners. Beauty will be expressed as much as possible with edible and native plants. Non-native, non-food producing ornamentals, will be chosen with great care and must be absolutely irresistable to be included in the garden.

4. The garden should never be static. There will always be new projects and experiments. So plants will come and go. It will be an ecosystem with successions within successions and some disturbances.

Perhaps the heirarchy is more like a food pyrimad, with edibles on the bottom, natives in the middle, and eye-candy on top. (Too much variegated and colorful foliage, and too many gawdy flowers gross me out). Of course, if you have a lot of land, you may want to let more of it grow wild.

To me, the thoughts that a plant is useful or native adds beauty to it. It's similar to how heavy whole wheat bread tastes better to me becuase of the thought that it is good for me. This is why a native plant with a few holes in the leaves is more beautiful, than the invasive gawdy non-native plant down the street.

Never invasive non-natives.

More Lilies

2007-09-15T21:31:00.000-07:00

The other day at work I grabbed a couple of the ripe seed pods from some of our native L. pardilinum spp. pitkinense plants. The Lily lady (see previous post) had told me that they would be hybrids between the ssp. pitkinense and ssp. pardilinum because our spp. pitkinense were all clones (grown from bulb scales) and they can only be pollinated by a genetically-different individuals. They were next to ssp. pardilinum, so it's fairly safe to assume...

Anyway, I've always admired Lilium pardilinum for the red turban flowers. There was one flowering in our garden ths spring (the only lilium on the property). Very beautiful. Tomorrow I'll pot up these seeds and cap my lily acquisitions.

This Lilum pardilinum photo is from the Lily Society website.

Lilies

2007-09-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

A lady came into work today asking about a native lily and it turns out she is a lily afficianado. She grows them and sells the seeds and bulbs online. Here is her website. You should look at her online gallery of all the lilies native to the pacific northwest (the pics on this page are from the gallery). Amazing and very diverse. Besides buying over a dozen lilies from me, she told me a bit about how to grow them and gave me two free packets of native lily seed! It just happens to be the time to plant lily seeds and that these can go directly outdoors in pots (no greenhouse required) and will sprout this spring. Very kind. It's good too, because I've been trying to get into seed propagation. I've never sown seeds with confidence. But a few weeks ago I planted some Clintonia andrewsiana (Bead Lily, it would make a great houseplant) seed I collected from the forest, and now I have seed for...

Lilium rubescens (above) and Lilum washingtonianum spp. purpuratum (below)

I planted the seeds right when I got home. Two 1-gallon pots for each species (densly planted). They'll sprout in the spring (did I sound confident?), then a couple of years later they'll be large enough to flower.

Rhododendron neoglandulosum

2007-09-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

This is my new plant, the native bog-loving shrub, Labrador Tea (Rhododendron neoglandulosum, formerly Ledum glandulosum). It will grow to about 3 feet tall, 3 feet across and will have small white rhododendron flowers. I first saw this species in the wild a couple of years ago in a bog near Crescent City growing with sedges, Darlingtonia californica, and western azaleas. I'm keeping it in a pot until it gets bigger.

Coppicing

2007-09-11T20:45:00.001-07:00

I see many leggy, ugly, misshapen shrubs. I want to cut it all back and let it sprout. Many people wonder if they can cut off diseased or mostly dead parts of plants, and I tell them yes. The plants will love it. The native plants too. Of course wildlife does like dead branches and things, but for the plant's sake and for the sake of a nice looking garden, pruning is desirable.

Coppicing is the harshest form of pruning. It's cutting the whole plant down to a couple of inches above the soil line, even if the plant looks fairly healthy. It's not for all plants, but it can be useful.

It can rejuvenate an older shrub by forcing it to send out new vigorous shoots. (I've heard many times that coppicing can also extend the life of a shrub/forb/grass.)

Coppicing some trees and shrubs creates a crop of straight sticks for use in basketry, wickerwork, or for other crafts.

It also can be used get a regular supply of conveniently-sized firewood. A regular coppicing cycle (say, coppicing some, not just any, tree species every seven or so years) can produce "five or even ten times as much burnable wood per acre per year as if you wait for mature trees." And the logs can be thin so that they won't need to be split. (This info comes from an essay in Field Days by Roger Swain. I haven't read it, but I've read about it from Last Person Rural by Noel Perrin.)

Coppicing is a tradition found in cultures all over the world including England (chestnut, willow, and hazelnut coppices especially) and the Pacific Northwest (the Yurok coppice many shrubs for basket materials and Philadelphus lewisii for arrow shafts).

So how can I use coppicing to my advantage?

Firewood
I need to find out which native species would be able to handle coppicing AND would be good for burning. Madrone is one of the best woods for burning around here, but I'm not sure it would resprout vigorously enough (plus we only have one on the lot and it's not doing so well). On the otherhand, redwood sprouts like crazy, but I don't think its that great for burning.

Garden Uses

These are species that have brightly colors stems or that are traditionally used.

Cornus sericea
Corylus cornuta

Salix spp.

(The invasive nonnative Cotoneaster is excellent for crafts and coppicing. It's bark is mottled gray and white when old, and the plants, despite every effort, always bounce back...Below is a trellis I made of it for my mother on mother's day. I'm really not crafty, for the record, though I would like to make my own fences and trellis one day.)

For Appearances
I borrowed a book from work today called California Native Plants for the Garden
By Carol Bornstein, David Fross, and Bart O’Brien. I was very pleased with it because it actually has species-specific pruning advice. I can't recall any other native plant book that does. Anyway here's a quick and dirty list I've compiled of the native plants they say you can coppice, supplemented with other species I've heard you can coppice:

Forbs:
California sunflower
Indian mallow
California fuchsia
Penstemons (they cut them down every late fall at The Arboretum at Flagstaff)
Ferns (really helps ragged-looking sword fern)
Mimulus aurantiacus (personal experience)

Graminoids (grasses, sedges, and rushes):

All of them can and should be cut down at the end of the growing season, according to John Greenlee's Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses.

Shrubs:
Garrya
Snowberry (every several years)
Western redbud
Cercis betuloides
Cornus sericea
Toyon
Myrica
Philadelphus lewisii (every five years or so)
Ribes sanguineum
Corylus cornuta
Coyote Brush
Salal

(According to Bornstein et al, shrubs that should not be coppiced include manzanitas and ceanothi.)

One plant that probably should be cut back twice a year is the tall herbaceous perrenial, Scrophularia californica (above). It looks horrible except in early spring, but the bees LOVE the flowers. Other insects love this speceis too, telling by all the holes in the leaves. It's really for the wildlife, but I'm going to experiment. I coppiced it last year and it was much bushier. Then it got ugly. Now it's putting on another round of growth and flowers atop it's ugliness. If I had cut it down after it's first wave of flowers it might be looking a whole lot better now.

Anyway, this late fall/winter (when coppicing should be done), I'm going to rejuvenate some of the plants on the lot. The Deschampsia caespitosa definetely has too much thatch. The coyote brushes could be less leggy. Many of the Mimulus aurantiacus plants could be bushier. (Last winter I cut back some of them and atleast one of them REALLY took off (above). Its form is really nice. This picture is from a couple of months ago).

Not all of the plants that can be coppiced, should be coppiced, of course. But if it offendeth thee, cut it off!

Stairs in the Forest

2007-09-06T18:30:00.000-07:00

My father, brother, and I built these steps in my parent's redwood forest fives years or so ago. The redwood logs supporting the steps are falling apart and beautiful woodland plants have filled in.

Like this mystery woodland sedge (Carex sp.). It is arguably my favorite species on the property.

And here it is with a carpet of Piggybag Plant (Tolmei menziesii) and candyflower (Claytonia sibirica).

The stairway is shaded with red alder, cascara sagrada, redwoods, spruce, and a lone black cottonwood growing in the ravine below the stairs. The understory consists of elderberry, salmonberry, red huckleberry, and thimbleberry (leaf pictured below), among many, many other species.

Potawot Health Village

2007-09-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I visited the Potawot Health Village in Arcata. I love going here because the building and landscape are beautiful and the plants are all native. Minus the weeds, of course. "Potawot" is the Wiyot name for the Mad River, which runs nearby. The building is a health clinic for the native tribes of the Pacific Northwest.

Acer circumnatum with Fragaria chiloensis ground cover.

Patio area with containers of Deschampsia caespitosa and Sisyrinchium californica. Informal hedge of Loncera involucrata, Rosa californica, and Myrica californica. I love the creek systems they have running in the landscape and the dead trees that they've erected (buried? Reebarred? I'd like to know how they did it).

Megan trying some berries of Sambucus mexicana. They were too tart. The rosehips and currants weren't that great either (dry/bland and bland/seedy, respectively). The black huckleberries, however, were excellent. With the taste of muffins still fresh on my tongue and dreams of huckleberry jam, I think I'd like to grow 30 or so huckleberry plants from seed and have a proper huckleberry patch in the yard one day (it would take many years to have plants large enough to bear fruit). I'd better get reading.

At the far end of the health village, there is an impressive community vegetable/fruit garden with an orchard (couldn't capture the expanse in this photo).

Even the parking strips have native shrubs and trees growing in them. The Symphoricarpos shrubs are cut like boxwood hedges. I'm not sure I like the way they are pruned or not.

There are also interpretive panels along the trails surrounding the building. Tule's scientific name has been changed to Scheonoplectis acutus FYI. And some of the plant signs don't have scientific names, but I have no other complaints. The signs are nicely done.

Since we visited on Labor Day, the main building was closed. I thought it would be. Sometime I'll have to blog about the inside. It's amazing! And it even has an all-native courtyard garden...

Take a look at this (United Indian Services) and this (Architecture and more). Oh, and one about the plants.

Huckleberry Muffins

2007-09-03T19:49:00.001-07:00

IMG_2690
Originally uploaded by Michael Lindquist

2007-09-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

The empty seed pods of Lupinus polyphyllus

Ghost Orchids of Humboldt County

2007-09-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across an article about ghost orchids (click on the link for info and a beautiful photo). It made me begin to think about those mysterious plants, to me anyway, that reside right here in Humboldt County.

Taxus brevifolia (never seen one in the wild, though I know people who have seen it).
Calypso bulbosa (seen it a few times. Beautiful little orchids. There is/was a whole colony at Big Lagoon, but they seem to have disappeared--seasonal thing? hope so.)
Euonymus occidentalis (Seen only one growing wild up the street, but the neighbors recently cut back the whole area, euonymus and all)