Tag Archives: California Native Plants

California Native Plants

Quail Hollow & the Gene Pool

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Few things can compare to walking on a scenic woodland trail lined with wildflowers.  Now that it’s officially spring I recently took a hike in Quail Hollow Ranch County Park to see what I could find. One of the unique aspects of this park is the number of rare plant and animals that make this valley their home. It didn’t take long to find the threatened Silver-leafed manzanita although it wasn’t blooming yet. The sandhill ecosystem where it grows among ponderosa pine is found in Santa Cruz county and no where else in the world.

Once upon a time, this land was under water, part of an ancient ocean, which uplifted to form the Santa Cruz Mountains about three million years ago. According to the Santa Cruz Department of Parks, the silt, sand and mud that had been deposited in that shallow sea later turned into the shale, sandstone and mudstone that make up Quail Hollow today. The diversity of this special place is mirrored in the patchwork of 15 habitats that are located in this small, secluded valley. Mixed evergreen forest, redwoods, grasslands, and a pond with surrounding riparian ecosystem mix with hot, dry chaparral and sandhill environments. The sandy soils here have eroded from the Santa Margarita sandstone and serve as an aquifer for the San Lorenzo Valley.

Hiking the trails among the blooming mimulus ,large-leafed lupine, Western Hound’s Tongue, manzanita and ceanothus made me think about the impact of our own gardens on the populations of native plants like those here.
Are we contaminating the native gene pool if we plant a mimulus, for instance, from southern California or a hybrid in our own garden?

The genes of all native plants have been sorted out over a very, very long time scale and they’re finely tuned to their environment. When you introduce an exotic gene – exotic meaning not of this place- it could be from a neighboring county, we don’t know the long term effect they’re going to have. If you live next to a wild population of a certain plant, like ceanothus, you should try to plant locally collected and propagated plants and seed. They are harder to find but local growers do collect seed and identify the source. On the other hand, ceanothus is a fire-dependent species and does not regenerate from seed except in the presence of fire or some other disturbance. If in doubt you could substitute a drought tolerant Mediterranean shrub that wouldn’t interbreed with local native plants.

It is probably not a problem for the home owner who lives in a neighborhood and wants to plant a couple of those cool, new sticky monkey flower hybrids in his own garden. If they do interbreed with the native population, in time whatever genetic pollution there is will probably die out. The home gardener is not planting fields of one type of plant that will interfere with the wild population.

There are many philosophies about planting California natives. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to this subject.  One thing for sure, we all want to preserve our wild areas like Quail Hollow.
 

allergy-free gardening, California Native Plants

Allergy-Free Gardening

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Mea culpa. It was brought to my attention by a reader who suffers from pollen allergies that blooming . Acacias are largely pollinated by insects and have heavy pollen that doesn’t tend to become airborne.  It’s the non-showy, quiet ones you have to watch out for. Warm temperatures earlier in the year are already creating havoc for those who have to deal with seasonal allergies.

About 25-30 popular landscape plants are responsible for the majority of plant-related allergies in California.   During the height of the pollen season- from late February to June- there are often thousands of pollen grains in every cubic meter of air.  One can breathe hundreds of them with every breath.  Though pollens can travel many miles, the majority tend to stay in the general area of their origin.

Redwoods, oaks, alders, ashes and other wind pollinated trees like olives, birch, box elder, cypress, elm, juniper, maple, fruitless mulberry, pine, walnut, willow and privet are the major source of spring pollen. Most  native plants are good in the sneezeless landscape but if you have bad allergies or asthma it best to avoid wind-pollinated ceanothus, elderberry and coffeeberry. 

You may not be able to avoid these culprits growing on other’s property but you can get the most out of your own backyard by creating a sneezeless landscape.  Replacing existing plants may be impractical but planning future plantings with these things in mind will save you a lot of headaches down the road and let you enjoy the sunshine outside in your garden.

Flower type is a good way to judge plants.  The best looking flowers usually cause allergy sufferers the fewest problems.  Plants with bright, showy flowers are usually pollinated by insects, rather than by the wind.    These flowers produce less pollen and  their pollen is larger and  heavier and sticks to the insect rather than becoming airborne and lead to sneezing, a runny nose and watery eyes. 

Some trees that are good for anti-allergy gardens are apple, cherry, dogwood, magnolia, pear and plum. Shrubs like azaleas, boxwood, lilac, Rose-of-Sharon, hydrangea and viburnum are also not likely to cause problems. Good flower choices include  alyssum, begonia, clematis, columbine, bulbs like crocus, daffodil, hyacinth.  Also dahlia, daisy, geranium, hosta, impatiens, iris, lily, pansy, petunias, phlox, roses, salvia, snapdragon, sunflower , verbena and zinnia.  Lawns of perennial rye grass, blue grass and tall fescue blends are usually OK as they will not flower unless allowed to grow to 12" or higher.  Bermuda grass, on the other hand, can pollinate when the lawn is very short, sometimes as quickly as a few days after mowing.

Hopefully, this cooling trend will not cause problems for allergy sufferers. Symptoms may become worse if the body reacts to the disappearance of the pollen following its initial appearance only to have to have more of it later in the spring. According to Dr. Stanley Fineman, an allergist with the Atlanta Allergy and Asthma Clinic, "You become sensitized to it, so when you’re…re-exposed, you can get an even more violent allergic reaction."

Here’s to a sneezeless spring for you allergy sufferers.
 

California Native Plants, erosion control, wildflowers

Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve

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Recently I went to the moon. At least it seemed like it. Walking through a portion of the 600 acres of burned out  vegetation from the , I couldn’t help but think of it as a moonscape. The misty fog was lifting after a night of rain and milky sun warmed us as we walked through the burned out trees. It was surreal and made even more so by nature’s valiant effort to regrow and fill the void left by the fire. At ground level the earth was bursting with life. Every inch of sandy soil was growing or sprouting something alive. You could almost hear it if you listened closely.

The fire destroyed 3 homes and severely damaged another. About 60% of the Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve burned. It’s amazing to see the recovery already taking place. The bracken ferns came first, followed by the endangered Bonny Doon manzanita some of which have sprouted from their bases while 6" tall starts from seed are everywhere. The burned gnarled trunks rendered the landscape otherworldly and magical. Pockets of manzanitas that were spared by the fire were in full bloom dripping with clusters of delicate, white urn-shaped flowers. This manzanita is endemic to the Santa Cruz sandhills and does not occur anywhere else on the planet. Did you know that manzanita leaves are still used in Russia in the tanning industry due to their high tannic acid content?

Golden chinquapin sprouted from the bottom of their mother tree and around the base are scattered the burr-like spiny bracts that contained a sweet tasting nut. California broom, so unlike the invasive Scotch broom, blanket the ground. They are one of the first plants to colonize an area after a fire and their quick growth can aid in erosion control as well as soil enrichment, through their relationship with the nitrogen producing bacteria, Rhizobium, in their roots.

Large stands of Bush poppies were growing in between the huge manzanita trunks. Bush poppies are common in sandy or rocky soils, often in burned out areas. These plants were taller than I’ve seen elsewhere in this area reaching 4-5 ft  Come spring they are going to be spectacular when they bloom in April-July but they also flower a bit in all seasons.

Silver-leafed lupine were doing their part to help the soil both by stabilizing with their deep roots and building up the nitrogen supply with the bacteria in its root nodules. Warty-Leaved ceanothus grew in large patches and were getting ready to bloom with their deep purple flowers.

Yerba santa were plentiful being an opportunist in the area and finding lots of open areas. They easily sprout from  from the roots after the fire as well as seeding themselves.

This area is a fire ecology and will come back just fine. It’s an extraordinary maritime chaparral habitat with a dense concentration of unique endemics that have emerged here in response to tens of thousands of years of periodic fires.