More Tree of Life Pix

Salvia clevelandii Arroyo Azul

Dudleya edulis

Aquliegia formosa

Kristen sent me photos from Laura Camp. These were so attractive...

New updates on Tree of Life Sale March 16

The day will be a special celebration for members. Members receive a 10% discount on plant purchases, and will receive a free plant or seed pack with any plant purchase. Renew your membership at the plant sale!

Special plant available on plant sale day only! Tree of Life is releasing a special crop of Delphinium cardinale – Scarlet Larkspur - in D-40 pots only for plant sale day. This special beauty of the chaparral, with 4' tall spikes of red flowers, is seldom available in the nursery trade, and has been growing for three years in the pots. The plants bloomed last year and will be expected to bloom again! They will be sold for $15 each, and $5 from each purchase will be contributed to CNPS. Limit 3 per person.

New York City has native plants?

Keith Malone passed along this information re: New York City's law to support their native plant heritage:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed into law on Monday three “green” bills, one intended to increase the city’s native biodiversity.

The biodiversity measure will actually decrease the city’s overall biodiversity in favor of nurturing native plants. It mandates that the parks department adopt a policy favoring plants native to New York over exotic plants, which can out-compete native species and drive animals dependent on them into extinction, on all city-owned property. Dozens of species of native grass, flower and tree are in decline throughout the city.

Botanical gardens and institutions that house plants for educational or scientific use will be exempt from the law.

One of the other laws similarly restricts the city’s planting policy. The parks department will have to start choosing more stormwater-tolerant plants for the city’s green spaces, in order to sponge up runoff and decrease flooding and pollution. Every year, the law states, more than 27 billion gallons of sewage and dirty rainwater are discharged into New York Harbor when sewers overflow during storms.

Finally, New Yorkers will have access to a renewable energy portal on the city’s Web site, states a law that goes into effect in November. The portal will encourage the public to install solar, wind and other renewable energy systems and will provide a cost-benefit analysis that factors in government incentives, the law says. It will also aim to teach people how to install them.

--

 photo credit: http://www.nyc.gov

Drought?

NOAA's latest map on expected drought conditions across the US shows that the Southern California coastline, as well as the Northern California region, is developing into a drought area, while much of the rest of the state and the west is in a persisting drought state.

This should continue through the spring. Of course, the weather can and will alter to suit its won complex needs.

I hadn't felt that conditions were this "drought-like" so this came as a bit of a surprise to me.

Does it feel like we are headed into more drought conditions?


Don Wood passed this link along, from KPBS.

TOLN plant Sale

The spring plant sale and membership day will be held on March 16 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at Tree of Life Nursery.

There will be speakers from the San Diego and Orange County CNPS chapters, including Connie Beck, Amy Huie, Rob Moore, and Greg Rubin, and me! (I'll be at the info booth, offering advice and membership info).

Topics and times to be announced soon. Check the CNPS San Diego website for updates.

CNPS members (able to join or renew at the CNPS booth at the nursery) will receive a 10% discount on plant purchases.

Volunteer at The Elephant Cage

At last night's Chapter Meeting, Fred Sproul told us about an upcoming volunteer opportunity. Camp Surf is looking for volunteers to help pull iceplant away from the sensitive dunes. They are working on this restoration project over the upcoming months and sure could use your help.

You'll see rare plants like Nemacladus and Chloropyron. Sounds like fun!

This is at the southern end of Silver Strand State Beach - near the area called the Elephant Cage. That's the old circular antenna array structure at the military base. If you'd like to help, call him at 619 423 5858.

Ceanothus inspires poetry - catch all the taxa puns?

Betsy Cory, long-time CNPS member was inspired by our recent post to write this:

O lovely Ceanothus, how your blooms inspire me,

In pristine white and glowing blue you bloom most gracefully.

But seventeen taxa, really!  That for me’s too great a strain.

I’m a gardener, not a botanist, and it taxes my brain

Call a taxi, hail a tugboat, bring a gurney out for me

For I must leave before suffering a nerve cataxtrophe.

One taxon I can handle, maybe two or even three.

But attacks-on my memory won’t help me learn much botany.

I’ll just look upon the landscape, at all the taxa I don’t know.

But of this I’m sure, all native plants are fantaxtic to grow! 

Betsy put some nice puns in there - did you find them all? Post comments with your count of how many....