Iris Rootborer

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.

Coastal Prairie and More

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?

Hidden Road to Patrick's Point

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.

CA Native Clovers

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.

Gardening in the Rain

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.

Frank Lake's Dissertation

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.

Humboldt Botanical Gardens

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.

Rushes

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.