Hair-owing Garden Tales

I don't consider my yard a battlefield. I'm not one of these Chevy-Chase-in-Caddyshack types locked in an ever-escalating war with moles--or with gophers, or rabbits or snails or slugs, or even deer. (I was at war with ivy once, but peace has reigned now for several seasons.) Many local gardeners I know do seem to consider deer a mortal enemy, but I've always had a pretty peaceable--even affectionate--attitude toward our hooved brothers and sisters. And I confess I like to only half-jokingly say that it's my good deer karma that protects my plants from being devoured, despite the fact that the yard--nestled, as it is, in a valley surrounded by open hills--is basically a kind of on-ramp to a major Cervine Superhighway.

This spring, however, I'm afraid the deer have indeed been snipping off the flowering stalks of my Heucheras and Potentillas.  (Heuchera maxima and Potentilla glandulosa.)  Granted, it's not a huge deal--the deer so far seem to be just clipping off the flower stalks, and leaving the bulk of the plants pretty well untouched. But still...it's springtime, and I was looking forward to the annual spring flower display. Now I'm imagining some cheery deer kitchen with a vase full of flowers on the table and the man deer reading the paper while the lady deer makes a cup of tea...

Here's the picked-over Heuchera. Leaves good, flower stalks clipped.

And the Potentilla, below.  This is a highly local plant, grown from seed found in a park just a mile from the house, and it flourishes in the yard--but I'd still like it to get to have more than one teeny tiny flower!

The good news with the Heuchs is that they produce flower stalks for quite a long time, so if the deer decide they are tired of the tasty buds, then I could get a good show of flowers yet. I was thinking of maybe trying a little gentle dissuasion on the deer. I've heard that placing human hair on a plant can be a good, if slightly icky-looking, deer deterrent. I can collect a pretty good supply of said material every time I shower, plus, the hair might serve a dual purpose in the garden.

Philanthropic feline.

My mum, who has always been a good friend to birds, places the hair from her brush out on tree branches in the spring, because she read that birds like to use hair to make their nests. Many people, myself included, are surprised to learn that birds have next to no sense of smell, so they don't notice if potential nesting material originated on a creature they consider dangerous. To this end, I have enlisted my cat, Celeste, to make daily coat donations to the bird community. After brushing her, I take out the wad of fur and stick it on a branch.  It seems to disappear quickly enough, and I hope at least some of it finds its way into cozy bird nests and not into the neighbors' swimming pool filters. (I would solicit donations from both cats, but Neo won't allow brushing--apparently he has some sort of embargo on bird-related aid, though he is gentlemanly enough to help Celeste with her coat.)

Perfect starter home for young couple with clutch.

My best-case scenario is if a sweet little feathered couple accepts the hair and fur offerings and takes up residence in the little house pictured here, which is right outside my home office. I can think of no better distraction from taxes and bill-paying than watching a couple of wrens or chickadees build a deluxe, fur-lined home for their family.

All Hail Tough Natives

Some great, unusual (for the Bay Area) weather last night.  I don't know if hail is harmful to most people's plants, but the natives sure take it in stride.  It was fun to have some lightning and thunder and white stuff on the ground.  (The cats thought differently.)


(The photos make it look like I went to town with the perlite, but it's hail.)

I don't do much, or anything, in the way of babying any of my plants, including seedlings and cuttings, because I sort of figure if they require codling then I don't have the time and energy for them, so everything is quite exposed.  These Clarkia concinna seedlings seem to have forgotten all about the pelting.

I don't have any plants that minded being briefly put on ice, either. The actual air temp was well above freezing, but even when it does freeze around here--down to 22 degrees one time--none of plants have ever minded. I don't really understand why my natives are so tough, as many originate right along the coastline, where it doesn't freeze, and yet they take whatever my slightly inland weather throws at them.

More on Mystery Lupine

A comment from Lisa and Robb on my last, long-ago post has prompted me to get off my keister and post an update. I've been allowing myself to fall back on the excuse of being distracted and busy. I haven't actually spent a lot of time in the yard this winter, but it is carrying on quite well without me--which is exactly what I wanted it to do. I do check in with the plants, but I've done very little serious work. Spent a day each of planting and weeding in January. It gives me unspeakable joy--and I'm not really exaggerating there--to see the plants take on a life of their own, spreading a little or a lot, and growing in expected and unexpected ways.

So, in sum, a pretty hands-off winter for this gardener, but by way of update on the strange lupine from my pre-Christmas post:  it isn't presently blooming, but I'd say it's healthier than ever.  As I'd mentioned, I can't think of what it would be other than Lupinus succulentus, because that was introduced in the yard in the form of a wildflower seed packet years ago. I'm not one to whip out a Jepson Manual (I don't even have one) and key out plants, but the lupine fits the general description of L. succulentus, except for its persistence through the seasons, so I think it is simply The Annual that Wouldn't Die.

Also, it now has a lovely large family!  Here's a seedling that volunteered in a cell pack of assorted cuttings.

And here's one that volunteered in a patio pot.

I think it'll look nice in a pot, too.  In addition, when I had to cut the big mama plant back from the footpath, I took about 10 cuttings of it, a couple of which keeled, three of which are still unrooted, and five of which struck roots and have already been planted out.  I put  the cuttings in cell packs, and I don't think it's customary to plant out  into the yard straight from cell packs, but I've always heard that lupines don't like having their roots messed with, so I opted to skip the intermediate step of potting up to a 4".  Here's one of the unrooted cell pack cuttings still at home after his siblings have headed off to college.

The cuttings that rooted took about two months.  Which is another weird thing about the lupine being an annual, because I don't think of cuttings as a thing you do with annuals.  Do gardeners out there reproduce annual species via cuttings?   Maybe it only works if they are weird, immortal annuals like this one...

I do think the plant is lovely.   Here it is in my little former-lawn area where it volunteered--it's that bushy thing behind the grasses.

The comment on my previous post mentioned lupines being tricky to grow, and except in the case of this one, I agree.  My L. arboreus on the patio keeled (too hot), and my L. albifrons on the hill keeled (reason unknown).

And last year I did try one other, Lupinus latifolius ssp. parishii, but all four specimens got eaten--by snails, I think.  I desperately wanted that plant, because it is a shade-tolerant lupine.  L. latifolius, which is local to the area but sparse, is apparently not found in the nursery trade, so I went with the subspecies. (If any local nurserypersons are reading, please propagate some L. latifolius!)

Lisa and Robb, I'm pretty confident my giant lupine and its family will bloom again, so if you want, I can collect some seeds; when they're ready I could let you know and you could send an address to send them. Free, of course!


In closing, here's a picture of the boss-man supervising me as I took the photos today. By the look on his face, I don't think he's impressed with my work.

Lupinus mysterious

I was just outside visiting my lovely, thriving, mildly blooming Lupine in the back yard. Which is a little weird because I'm pretty sure it's a spring-blooming annual species, and today is, uh, the second day of winter. The plant volunteered some time last year and was quite large by spring--I was delighted when it stayed green and lush and kept producing flowers right through summer. But it's still going strong, unfazed by short days, rain and a few freezes.  I believe it to be Lupinus succulentus, because as far as I can remember, that's the only kind of Lupine I've ever introduced to the yard except for a Lupinus albifrons that didn't live long enough to bloom, and a Lupinus arboreus I had in a wine barrel for a while until it cooked--but it had yellow flowers, and the big lovely lupine in my yard now has the familiar purple. I've had Lupinus succulentus show up from time to time, due to its inclusion in a wild flower seed mix I sowed a few years ago, when I was first starting native gardening, so I think the current Lupine is one of the grandchildren. I just don't know why it's still living--thriving, no less--at this stage of the year. But I'm not complaining! I'm quite curious to see how long it persists.

Aster's Last Stand

Recently my sweetie went outside to get some rosemary for his kitchen endeavors, and he came back in trailing some feathery substance that proceeded to alight on the floor everywhere he walked.

He'd brushed against my huge 'Purple Haze' Aster chilensis, which is admittedly encroaching on the footpath, and the feathery substance was seeds. In terms of house cleaning enthusiasm, mine doesn't even register, so I found the seed intrusion to be quite a pain-in-the-aster, so to speak, and it nudged me to reach the decision to take the plant out. I'm not a big remover of plants that I've selected, because I have a sentimental streak 20 miles wide, but I've been ambivalent about this one all summer, due to the unexpected way it grew.  About this time last year it was getting a bit ragged looking, and I thought if I cut it way down it would grow back nice and fresh, but the cut-down part actually never did grow back. Instead, a ring of aster grew up around the perimeter of the old clump. Aster spreads by rhizomes (vigorously) so it just moved outward and came up to surround the old part.  It made for kind of an odd feature--a kind of aster vortex that swallowed up the cat a few times.

So what the heck, time to move on.  Another motivation to oust it is that way back in the early summer, I was possessed by a moment of summer fever and purchased a very non-native dwarf lime tree. I normally don't buy non-natives, but if it's something tasty that can go in my tummy, I sometimes make an exception, and I have a little pot of mint as well, so Mojito fairies must have been dancing in my head.

 But then I realized I didn't really have a very sunny spot for the lime, so it stayed in its 5 gallon nursery pot all season. Now I guess it will move in where the aster moves out.  It should be a good spot, because it's next to my outrageously heavy St. Francis birdbath that I manage to heave over daily in the summer in order to maintain a reputable towhee and finch spa, and that daily water-dump should suit that pesky non-native fruit. Now I just hope the little tree doesn't freeze during the winter.  It's always something was these fussy not-hardy-Californians!

I'll have to think of some pretty, lower-growing natives to underplant the lime with.  Also, I don't mean to paint the aster in a bad light. It was a lovely plant when it was blooming:

When I get out ol' Spod (Swinging Pick of Doom) and chop out all those rhizomes, I'll transplant them up on the still rather bare Hill of Doom, a sunny and out-of-hose-reach little slope I haven't really done much with yet. If I have blooming asters up there next spring, it'll be awesome--I'll report back if I do!

Rain, Rain Come and Stay, Go Away Another Day

This morning my news feed (i.e. newspaper over sleepy cup of coffee) had an article on whether our girl La Niῆa will bring wetter or drier conditions to the Bay Area. Conclusion: no one knows!  Which is a bit encouraging to me, actually, because I was under the impression that it meant drier for sure. But apparently we're right sort of on the cutoff between the wet and dry regions. The article says the last time we had La Niῆa was 2007-08. Oh icky, that's the year I scattered my first packet of wildflower seeds during a rain storm on the first weekend of March--and that was the last rain we ever got that year.

I'm crossing my fingers for another wet year--two in a row would be astounding, akin to say, winning the World Series or something--and that's what it seems to be shaping up as. My last post may be moot, because the weather gods may just keep all my seedlings alive. I adore this time of year so much. Yesterday I went running and it started pouring; as I was slogging up a hill with a stream of water running alongside the curb, my portable music thingy selected the "Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In Medley." (Yep, I have that in my music library and I'm not embarrassed, either!) As I was seeing that stream of rainwater while hearing the earnest strains of "let the sunshine in" it struck me as perfect rather than ironic. That rainwater was the sunniest, happiest thing I could think of.  I've long loved my old buddy Helios, but this is the time of year for cup of hot chocolate in hand, cat on lap, and raindrops on roof. My post-ivy reconstruction is now two years in, and the plants are pretty well established, so I'm not too worried about their survival, but boy did they love last year. Also, I have some gaps and areas in need of a redo, so I will be planting newcomers in the next few weeks, and it would be awwwwwesome for them to just get good and established. Then I'll quit worrying and shut up about the weather already!

Nature or Nurture?

Now that we've had some lovely early season rain, the next generation of annuals has sprouted, and I again have to ask myself whether to intervene with the hose if we hit a rainless stretch, or do I let nature take its course?  Colorful annuals make a big impact in my yard in the spring, accounting for probably like 80% of its showiness factor, but annuals are a little tricky in that once the tender shoots appear, they need the ground to stay wet long enough to get good long roots down, and our pesky weather often just isn't on that same page with them. Both of the last two years we've had nice, refreshing October rain, followed by a devilishly dry November and not much improvement in December. Both times I opted to set out sprinklers a few times, because it saddened me to see the boisterous (and admittedly massive) seedling swaths turned back into dust.

Nevin Smith, in his marvelous book, "Native Treasures," addresses this annual conundrum in the aptly-named chapter "The Trouble with Annuals". He writes that while annual seeds need moisture to germinate, some "have additional mechanisms for preventing disastrous false starts. Often a certain minimum period of continuous moisture is necessary to activate them. Seeds of many species also require a certain number of cool or even frosty nights." (p. 255.)  These are amazing adaptations, but I don't believe they are claimed by the particular annuals that inhabit my yard. It hasn't gotten terribly cool in my neighborhood, and the green carpets of seedlings appeared after the very first measurable rainfall.

Smith adds, "It is not uncommon for vast numbers of young seedlings to wither and die in an extended midwinter drought. Such is the nature of life in California."

Hence my dilemma. Nature can be merciless, but a garden affords the opportunity to inject a little nurture.  Yet, I'm not the type of gardener who thinks gardening has much to do with control. When I first set out to plant an all-native garden, I looked at it as sort of a botanical nation-building endeavor.  I did violently overthrow the ivy regime, and I installed quite a number of handpicked key players in the new native community, but the goal is for the plants to eventually have self-governance. I'll maintain a peacekeeping presence to deal with the threat of weed invasions and ivy insurgents, and I'll do some necessary housekeeping, but in terms of what thrives and what dies, what self-propagates and what fades away, I like for that to be out of my hands. I've wound the clock, now it's time to let it tick.

So all this argues for keeping the hose neatly coiled up by the faucet and letting the seedlings' fate run its course. I know I will find that hard, once I see them starting to keel. But actually, if they wither, it may be for the best; the last two years I've really had too many annuals--massive stands that choked out still-small perennials.  Also, this year, the cheeky annuals are trespassing in places where they're not supposed to be, such as in my gravel-and-stone path. I guess the lesson there is to buy high-quality landscape fabric, not the cheapo permeable plastic so-called weed barrier at the home-improvement superstore.  One might look at these seedlings and suspect them of being weeds, but I've seen these cotyledon rascals before, and I know them to be none other than G. capitatum, AKA globe gilia.

If this first flush of seedlings dies, perhaps later in the year a more manageably-sized crop with take its place. It could well be that nature is a better gardener than I.