Water Issues

Don Wood, who has been interested in water topics for years, recently sent this link:

Cadiz Water Project suit filed


Native plants and water issues are connected - backwards and forwards, so any information about what our water authorities are planning is of interest to those who wish to protect native plants and garden with them.

First: often people get introduced to native plant gardening because of the water-savings potential. It's about the money. Tracking what will happen with future rates means we can track a certain amount of the attention to native horticulture: when people feel rates are going higher at a rate that skips above inflation, then notice goes up.

Even if the inquisitiveness is not purely monetary, then the overall conservation message resonates. We have a strong affinity for a way of gardening that is in line with the natural resources, so we care about water use, in general.

And there are some powerful forces at work: desalinization (a battle about how projects are financially structured s well as about the science), endangered species and the Delta, sourcing water from new places, converting agriculture to domestic use.

For these and other reasons, we'll bring you more information about water as we see, investigate and learn about water in Southern California.

Plant Info Pages - lots of good stuff

When Carolyn Martus’s Plant Sale committee puts together signs for the Fall Plant Sale, they use a one-page informational sign per plant. 

You've seen these: the row of plants sits in front of a metal stand with  a printed page attached. The page has a photo and a description. See the sample below. 

It even indicates whether the plant is in the rare plant list. 

Did you know you can download these? Go to this page, then click on the plant you want to learn more about. The format is a handy PDF. 

I think a three-ring binder of these, kept at your potting bench, would be a fun way to start on your cataloging efforts. There’s plenty of white space for your own notes, and the type size is quite large, so you can read it with ease. 

And, if you are a photographer, and see a plant that has no photo, please feel free to take a shot and submit it for consideration to plantsale@cnpssd.org - see your work published!

South Bay Botanical Garden

Clayton Tschudy and I will be teaching a Master Class at the South Bay Botanic Garden - that's at Southwestern College, in Chula Vista. The class is November 10th.

The class is a combination of lecture and hands-on. We'll actually be in the garden, pruning, showing how to propagate and pointing out the many species that are thriving in this great South Bay resource.

Please join us. Email me at susankrzywicki@mac.com to get more details.

Barb Hebel took the above picture as part of the April San Diego Native Plant Garden Tour. 

More Events

Jeremy Sison, John Corning and the crew at Surfrider Foundation will be running the Hands On Workshop at a local home in Ocean Beach area this Saturday. It is 9 AM to noon. We will be demonstrating, on a real-live garden, what the Ocean Friendly Gardens principles mean in action:

• Conservation - here is where we use Claifornia native plants!
• Retention - how to build bioswales
• Permeability - find out how to make driveway cuts

If you'd like to join us, email susan@surfridersd.org

Moving Along...

The San Diego CNPS Chapter just completed the Fall Plant Sale and everyone should have all their goodies in ground by now. I know I don't, but I'm hoping all of you will...

Other upcoming events: RECON nursery is having a plant sale on November 17th at their site in South Bay.

Mike Evans at Tree Of Life Nursery, is speaking on November 10 about Manzanitas.

Clayton Tschudy and I are giving a class at the Casitas Municipal Water District tomorrow - it is already sold out, but we hope to do more soon.

Susan Krzywicki

Greg Rubin teaching Native Landscape Class at Mira Costa!

Greg Rubin of California's Own Native Landscape Design will be teaching a non-credit course at Mira Costa college over 3 Monday nights in May.  He will be substituting for Julie Schneider, who is taking a leave of absence. The class will cover design fundamentals, native ecology and its application to the home landscape, plant selection, irrigation, maintenance, installation and include a Saturday field trip to a large scale native landscape and a local native nursery.  Each class will run 2.5 hours.  

 

 

Course name:    "Gardening and Landscaping with California Native Plants"

Course number:    370003

When:                5/9, 5/16, and 5/23 6pm - 8:30 pm

Where:             Oceanside Campus, Mira Costa College, Room 7001

Fee:                   $57

Supplies:           A $5 materials fee will be collected in class.  Please bring paper and pencil with eraser.

How to sign up:    You can call 760-795-6820 to register or sign up on line at http://miracosta.augusoft.net. Go to "Arts" then "Gardening and Floral"

"Save the Majestic Eucalyptus" ..... ??

Another example of how a little information can be a dangerous thing.  Comparing environmentalists to Minutemen and the hunt for invasives to the anti-immigration movement, anthropologist Hugh Raffles' recent New York Times' op-ed piece glorifies eucalyptus and encourages pity for the poor beleaguered iceplant that is only trying to hold up our hillsides:

"Today, a species’s immigration status often makes it a target for eradication, no matter its effect on the environment. Eucalyptus trees, charged with everything from suffocating birds with their resin to elevating fire risk with their peeling bark, are the targets of large-scale felling.
Yet eucalyptuses are not only majestic trees popular with picnickers, they are one of the few sources of nectar available to northern Californian bees in winter and a vital destination for migrating monarch butterflies.
Or take ice plant, a much-vilified Old World succulent that spreads its thick, candy-colored carpet along the California coast. Concerned that it is crowding out native wildflowers, legions of environmental volunteers rip it from the sandy soil and pile it in slowly moldering heaps along the cliffs.
Yet ice plant, introduced to the West Coast at the beginning of the 20th century to stabilize railroad tracks, is an attractive plant that can also deter erosion of the sandstone bluffs on which it grows."

Note the abundance of Iceplant on this failed bluff in Leucadia.

Comparing racism with invasive species may seem like a catchy article subject but in actuality it is insulting and misinformed.  Invasive plants pose a very real threat to both our native flora and fauna, countless acres of freshwater nesting habitat have been destroyed by the steady spread of Pampas Grass, Fairbanks Ranch may as well be located in Australia, and anyone who still thinks Iceplant is good for slopes needs to take a closer look at our coastal bluffs.  To compare the hard work of people trying to preserve what little remaining habitat we have in Southern California with xenophobic anti-immigration groups shows how very little Mr. Raffles knows about the subject he is apparently so passionate about.

Read his full article here.  and please comment or contact Mr. Raffles directly to share with him our first hand experiences of how invasive plants are actually quite a threat to our remaining native areas.