By Tom Oberbauer
Back in January of 1978, I hiked up onto Corte Madera Mountain with a friend, Tom Scott (now with UC Berkeley and UC Riverside), who had been studying Golden Eagles in San Diego County. Bald Eagles were wintering at Corte Madera Lake. After postponing the hike due to rain, that was a good rain season, we drove out to Corte Madera Lake, which was accessible because Tom Scott had a key, and we hiked up the north side of Corte Madera Mountain on a little used trail. The trail climbed through a woodland of mostly coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), but also Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri), as well as Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi). It was foggy going up and the view was obscured.
Recently, the new Santa Fe Valley Trail, connecting the San Dieguito River Park’s Del Dios Gorge Trail with the Lusardi Creek Preserve, was opened to the public. The beginning of the trail took us through fields of Menzies’ Goldenbush (Isocoma menziesii var. menziesii).
After yet another week of waiting for the temps to go down watching our Monarch production and limiting our walks to local parks, I was worried that I might completely miss the monsoonal “spring” in the desert. So, I went on a quick drive along S-2
By Justin Daniel, Vice President, Rare Plants Co-chair
With vaccinations allowing more contact outdoors and a workload a year behind, it's been a busy time a few of us to help some of our fantastic environmental conservancy organizations around San Diego County by assisting them in their rare plant surveys. The following are glimpses into some of the recent surveys. Come along for the ride and reach out to support our partners, too!
By Tom Oberbauer
…The next week, I drove up and hiked to the location I visited in December and sure enough, the display of Platystemon californica (above) was pretty amazing. Sheets of color extended across the slopes leading into the center of the meadow. I spent some time attempting to photograph and create video of the breeze gently shaking the small flowers. From this location, the view of the meadow ranges across its full length, extending more than three miles in the distance to the south. Laguna Lake also contained a good level of water reflecting the blue sky, apparently left over from the previous two good rainfall seasons. I attempted to capture the view of the flowers with the lake and end of the meadow in the distance. The breeze and the movement of the flowers in this manner always reminds me of when I was a child and my family visited Estes Park in Colorado and we observed alpine wildflowers…
Banner photo: Phacelias, Poppies, and a few Collared Lupines, Lee Gordon
By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
I have a list of items that will be occupying my time this spring, and here I will simply go through them in order.
Fire Recovery and Preparedness Guide
There have been three updates. One is that, as the state office is writing a statewide manual separate from my effort, it seems that some of our thoughts about how to update the original manual are converging, and this is probably a good thing. I’ll be happy if they solve some of the issues I’ve encountered so that I can copy more than I create.
The second issue is that FEMA recently published an interesting report about all the ways it has failed to create a civilian culture of emergency preparedness in the U.S. (reported in: http://www.govtech.com/em/preparedness/Report-Weve-Failed-Miserably-at-Preparedness.html). This is the same issue I commented on last month with my critique of the Ready Set Go booklet that San Diego County uses. Some of FEMA’s recommendations are to realize that there’s a lot of diversity in people’s circumstances, that many of them actually already know something about preparing for emergencies, and that there’s a need to listen to these people, rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all program from the top down. That’s one reason I’m still working on a local fire recovery book, even if there’s a statewide version. We need things that fit us. Feel free to pitch in if you’ve got some good homebrewed strategies for fire recovery or evacuation.
Craig Denson is a chapter volunteer with our annual Native Plant Sale and pursues California native botany through courses, his own field explorations, and his garden. His garden, 'Coastal Sage Scrub Revivified' will be on this year's Garden Tour as an FYI (Front Yard Inspiration). When you visit the garden you can see an evolving effort there, with an attempt to emulate 3 zones of local coastal sage scrub: (1) a drier, more open area with dudleyas, bulbs, and annuals occurring in openings in coastal sage scrub; (2) a grassy meadow-like area in front of that with annuals and some perennials; and (3) some denser perennials and shrubs.
We asked Craig some questions about how he got started with native gardening and what he has discovered in the process.
By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
It’s lovely to be still writing this in the rain, but a hot, dry summer could lead to a fiery fall. Hopefully, that will not happen.
Still, I am spearheading an effort to create a San Diego Fire Recovery and Preparation Guide. It is based, in large part, on the CNPS Fire Recovery Guide that was produced after the 2017 Wine Country fires. While that document is freely available in pdf now, we do need a more local version for our area.
To that end, I’m looking for pictures that people are willing to share in our version of this book. You will get credit, and you would only be giving permission for use of that picture in this one publication. Sorry, we can’t pay for images. If you are interested, contact me at conservation@cnpssd.org.
Dennis Mudd is a self-taught native plant enthusiast who founded Calscape in 2010 with the goal of enabling small scale nature restoration efforts in California. The site is primarily focused on showing homeowners which plants are likely native to any location in the state, and helping them figure out ones they want, where to buy them and how to grow them. Mudd donated Calscape to the California Native Plant Society in 2014, and is currently leading development of the site in partnership with CNPS and the Jepson eFlora group at UC Berkeley. The site is now approaching one million unique users per year.
His native garden in Poway won San Diego Home and Garden’s Garden of the Year Award in 2012. It will be featured on the CNPS-San Diego Garden Tour this year.
Calscape can be accessed at www.calscape.org
For me, it started with mountain biking through the natural areas of San Diego. The more time I spent in nature, the more I wanted to recreate it in my own garden.
I enjoyed my own nature-restored garden so much that I decided to create Calscape to help more people do the same thing. I hoped that Calscape would help many more people create little patches of nature throughout the developed part of the state. If enough people restore nature in their gardens, we can mitigate and even reverse localized extinctions being driven by development.
PC: Dennis Mudd
I was astounded by the amount of bird life that my garden attracted; I've counted over 50 species in the last few years. The number of butterflies is also amazing. If you like birds and butterflies, you should plant a native garden.
My vision hasn't changed that much over time, but I learned a lot along the way and gradually learned the importance of planting natives that are endemic to where I live. I found that cultivars and even plants that were native to the coast or farther north in California often died in the hot Poway summers, and they didn't really feel like the nearby nature I saw anyway. My nature restoration efforts really only started to work successfully after I switched to all endemics.
PC: Torrey Neel
First, grow plants that are endemic to where you live. Then make sure you are planting them in a site with the sun exposure, soil drainage, and moisture conditions in which they occur in nature. People can get the information they need to figure out which plants belong at their geographic location and in their specific site conditions at Calscape.
Restore nature one garden at a time! I don't think there is any garden as beautiful as nature.
Questions written by Joseph Sochor
At the DesertUSA website: desertusa.com/wildflo/wildupdates.html you can find updates on the wildflower blooms at various desert areas, such as Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Death Valley National Park (NP), Joshua Tree NP and Mojave Desert NP, and even the deserts of other southwestern states. Anza-Borrego Desert SP also has its own website for wildflower updates that tells you exactly where the best wildflower displays are in the park: abdnha.org/pages/03flora/reports/current.htm or you can call 760-767-4684 for an update.
Here are some recent desert wildflower photos by CNPS-SD members.
THE TIME TO GO IS NOW!
By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
To continue the theme of last month’s news update, here’s where we are as of the middle of January when I wrote this.
County Climate Action Plan
At Christmas, an appellate court judge threw out the County Climate Action Plan version 3.0. Several days later, the County appealed, on a 3-2 split decision (Supervisors Jacob and Fletcher dissenting). The appeal will go to the California Supreme Court. If this follows the previous five rulings or so, the County will lose, but this will take months to play out.
My concern is whether the County decides to pass the other batched developments from last year in the interim. They all to my knowledge depend on the CAP, so if the County approves them, they would be struck down if the judge rules against the CAP. Possibly there would be penalties for the County to presume about judicial rulings. While approving these developments now seems silly to me, there’s a certain streak of doubling down in at least two of the Supervisors, so I don’t know if they’ll go for it or not. Depending on what the County does, we may have to step up our efforts to oppose Lilac Hills Ranch and Otay Ranch Village 14.
By Fred Roberts, CNPS-SD Rare Plant Botanist
As a member of the San Diego Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, you would be totally forgiven if you never realized that the chapter actually includes Imperial County. This is fairly obvious on state maps showing chapter boundaries. However, the inclusion of Imperial County in our chapter is otherwise relatively obscure. Imperial County doesn’t often come up at meetings. You will generally not find Imperial County mentioned in our chapter newsletter. On the website, I noted Imperial County mentioned on the Mission Statement page but nowhere else. You seldom hear people refer to our chapter as the “San Diego and Imperial Counties chapter of CNPS”. There is some effort to improve on this in 2019.
This isn’t really a surprise. There are no major institutions like the San Diego Natural History Museum in Imperial County. SDSU has only a satellite campus near Calexico. I am not even sure how many chapter members actually have addresses there. Most of us see it from the I-8 and then it might seem to be just hot, barren desert and hundreds of thousands of acres of agriculture. And, of course, there is the Salton Sea and Colorado River.
That desert can be a very interesting place, at least in the cooler parts of the year and whenever rain falls (which it sometimes doesn’t). There are the rugged and poorly explored Chocolate Mountains, much of which is not open to the public, dominating the east along with the Palo Verde and Cargo Muchacho Mountains. The Algodones Dunes, the largest dune system in North America, runs a southeast diagonal from the Salton Sea down into Sonora. West of the Imperial Valley is dominated by the Western Mesa and Yuha Desert, which gives way to the eastern fringes of the Peninsular Ranges at the Fish Creek, Coyote, and Jacumba Mountains. The county borders Mexico, leaving the possibility of Baja California plants, not yet known in the United States, being found here.
By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
Looking back, the January 2018 column was titled “Can San Diego Grow Up,” a thought piece on the problem of densification versus sprawl in San Diego County. One year later, sprawl is winning, although that might not be true by the time you read this column, due to a possible court ruling on the County Climate Action Plan (CAP) on December 21, 2018.
So going forward, what conservation issues will be important in 2019?
Diane and Miranda speak on January 26 at the CNPS-San Diego Winter Workshop in Balboa Park.
Can you briefly explain permaculture for a person who may have heard the term before but does not understand what it means?
Permaculture is the overall name given to methods of land use based on nature. Above all, it focuses on building soil through non-chemical means.
How are native plants integral to permaculture?
Native plants create the habitat that is integral to integrated pest management, wildlife corridors, and so much more. Permaculturalists study natural habitat and use that knowledge back in designed landscapes for better production. The restoration of native habitat in denuded areas stops erosion, sinks water into the landscape, builds soil and revives the food chain.
California Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma californica) Photo by Becky Matsubara
For you, in what ways are native plants and wildlife habitat connected?
DIANE: Native plants provide the best possible food and shelter for our greatly endangered native insects, as well as local birds and other animals. In any area, but most importantly in an area as biologically diverse as San Diego, planting natives is essential. Plants form a community that we are only just understanding, one which communicates on many levels and that affects all plants in the area. I find the methods of communication fascinating.
MIRANDA: With a background in conservation and ecology, I know that all parts of an ecosystem -- biotic and abiotic -- contribute to the character, interactions, and success of the system. Our view of our environment is only segments in a path that has a long history and a continuous progression. When we look at a landscape, we're looking at a certain formation of geology with a certain degree and kind of degradation and aggradation; this supports certain kinds of plants along with all the animal species that have evolved to tolerate that climate, terrain, and floral habitat. Native plants and native fauna (animals, fungi and bacteria) are innately connected as the result of hundreds and thousands of years of struggling for survival and persistence within that landscape and amongst or against each other. They're making allies and vying with competitors and enemies, enduring disruptive weather events and invasions -- as interconnected as people in neighborhoods and their homes, roads, shopping and supply centers. Current relationships are not fully understood (or even all uncovered!) yet remain dynamic: there is wonderfully so much to discover, even as it unfolds!
Besides incorporating native plants into a landscape, what is another design consideration for creating wildlife habitat?
A water feature, preferably using rainwater or chemical-free water, is the single most important part of a habitat garden. Birds can hear the sound of dripping water from as far as miles away.
Honey Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) seed pods. Photo by Don A.W. Carlson
Tell us about your Finch Frolic Garden in Fallbrook.
Finch Frolic Garden Permaculture is a 1.68-acre food forest begun in 2011. Incorporated throughout the food producing plants and the medicinal, timber and ornamental plants, are a wide variety of natives. Most belong to the local chaparral community, and some, such as the edible-bean producing mesquite, are not, but are a bridge between native and food producer.
From the time you learned permaculture and began teaching it to others, what might have changed in the philosophy?
The philosophy of permaculture has been the same since the term was coined in the late 1970s by Bill Mollison. Its three ethics are care for the earth, care for people, and return of surplus. Permaculture isn't sustainable or organic: it's better. It's regenerative, and uses recycling, repurposing, water harvesting, soil building and good design.
Questions written by Joseph Sochor
Clayton speaks on January 26 at the CNPS-San Diego Winter Workshop in Balboa Park.
Clayton, after your decades of experience as a landscaper designer and horticultural director why did you decide to become involved in promoting habitat gardens?
My career in horticulture has always been based in science and ecology first. Early in my botanical studies I kept asking, "Why aren't these plants being grown in gardens? They are beautiful, should be easy since they are adapted to local conditions, and attract wildlife." Habitat was always the underlying reason I was involved in natives-focused horticulture. But plants and animals are not usually considered together in horticultural design, not in a rigorous way. Having a strong grounding in local plant ecology within my horticultural work was always leading me back to the creatures. Habitat is ecology.
Tell us about the project you are developing to build an online network of people gardening in their homes and in public spaces to build more habitat for wildlife.
San Diego is a very large urban region, and also a biodiversity hotspot with tremendous biodiversity under threat. From mile-to-mile our local habitats change dramatically. This means that every home garden has the potential to conserve a special aspect of our local ecosystems. But for this to happen homeowners need the knowledge and resources, and community support, to make the right gardening choices. I am launching a blog and online community where people can learn how to create effective, localized, habitat gardens, share experiences with friends, learn how to become citizen scientists, and eventually support others starting that journey. I will introduce the blog in my presentation
Papilio rutulus on Eriodictyon crassifolium. Photo: Bob Parks
Can you name some of the ways in which gardening with native plants creates habitat for wildlife?
To support local fauna, you must use the plant species to which they are best adapted. Some plants native to other regions will have habitat value, but generally speaking, local animals are best adapted to local plants. This is particularly true of the invertebrates, who themselves are the base of the food web supporting larger animals. For this reason, locally native plants are always the backbone of effective habitat gardens.
Three California native plants that are great to put in your yard to attract and nurture wildlife?
Different San Diego plants support different creatures, and few plants have tolerance of every garden condition. That said, using an early, mid-season, and late bloomer would be a good starter set for pollinator support throughout the year. Let's say Ramona Lilac (Ceanothus tomentosus), California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum), and Palmer's Goldenbush (Ericameria palmeri). There are many such combinations, and plant choices should be tailored to your garden conditions and local habitat opportunities.
Ericameria palmeri. Photo: John Rusk, flickr.com/photos/john_d_rusk/37817907816
In designing sustainable habitat gardens, what would you say is the first sustainability feature that you consider?
Your very local (within a few miles) plant and biotic communities should be your first consideration. Starting there brings many unexpected, and creative gardening opportunities. It does not limit your options.
You’ve mentioned to me a book that you are working on. What is the focus of it and how will it differ from what else is out there?
Rather than focusing on just a few animals, such as a handful of butterflies, or generalizing about habitat components that are basic and universal, my book will focus on the San Diego region, its unique resources, challenges, and opportunities. Our micro-climates, soil diversity, topographical variety, and high biodiversity make effective habitat gardening both exciting and complex. My book will break down the critical aspects of all that complexity into a protocol that can be followed by home gardeners, as well as professionals, to generate vibrant habitats with significant conservation value, that still offer home gardeners beauty and personal expression in their landscapes
Clayton Tschudy is a botanist and has practiced sustainable landscape design for over 20 years throughout California. Through his company CJT Ecologics, he specializes in water conservation, restoration, and habitat garden designs. He consults with numerous organizations including the City of San Diego, Friends of Balboa Park, City of Chula Vista, the Port of San Diego, San Diego Canyonlands, Tree San Diego, the Irvine Company, GafCon, and others. Mr. Tschudy was the Director of Horticulture for the Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College from 2013 through 2017. Currently he is the Chair of the Wildlife Advisory Group, consulting on natural resource management for the Chula Vista Bayfront for the Port of San Diego and the City of Chula Vista.
Questions written by Joseph Sochor
by Erik Jonsson, writing in August 15, 1989
I remember the first time I came in contact with CNPS. It was at Silverwood. (I was in the Audubon Society that time and went to Silverwood a lot to show Frank Gander plants that I had pressed and did not know what they were. I must have been a terrible nuisance for him.) Anyhow, there was this bunch of people all interested in plants like me and looking like the kind of nice people I like, so I decided that I had better join and take part in the fun.
The field trips interested me most. AII those plants and shrubs that I had been trying in vain to figure out what they were and here I got the Latin names all served like on a silver platter! Somehow I became Field Trip Chairman. I don’t remember now how it happened. I guess they must have been desperate to find a victim and I was too stupid to say NO as usual.
We had lots of memorable field trips at that time. One of efforts my first was to the top of Fortuna Mountain just after a fire. Quite a hike. Lots of flowers. That is when somebody, I think it was Fred Sproul, found a whole bunch of Chocolate Lilies, Fritillaria biflora. Quite a treat!
By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
Until a few minutes ago (this would be a month ago, for you), I thought I was writing the last appeal for dealing with Otay Ranch Village 14, Lilac Hills Village Ranch, Warner Springs, ad nauseum. Fortunately, the County decided to not to go ahead with the last grand General Plan Amendment. Yay(!)(?), but that might be a while.
Anyway, since I spent a few days up in the Santa Monica Mountains with my mom, ready to help her evacuate if necessary (it wasn’t), I’ve got a few thoughts about this little problem we have with electrical utilities.
The problem we’ve got is that electrical utility companies like PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) seem to be responsible for some big fires. SDG&E, as we know, is still trying to get its ratepayers to cover some of the costs of the 2007 Cedar Fire, which it has been held responsible for. Southern California Edison’s (SCE) equipment may have sparked both the Woolsey Fire and the Thomas Fire, while PG&E is implicated as the cause of the Camp Fire, as well as 16 of the 18 fires that hit the Wine Country last fall. Note that, aside from the Cedar Fire, this is all speculation based on news reporting around the incidents. There are official reports and lawsuits still pending, and they’ll settle questions of official responsibility sometime in the future.
Compiled by Mike Gonzales, Founding Member, San Diego Pollinator Alliance and Former Chairperson, CNPS-San Diego Garden Committee
Can restoring our yards into native urban gardens, albeit very difficult to do given the nature of urban yards, help San Diego’s endemic plants survive and thrive?
Believe me, I understand the part about not being easy! I’ve been stumbling around my front and back yards for 20+ years sluggishly transforming iceplant-covered slopes into some semblance of a native urban garden, or at least semi-native at this point. I thought Wayne Tyson was joking when he posted on the CNPS-SD listserv that, “it's as easy as duplicating the conditions [or functionally mimicking them] under which indigenous ecosystems function.” Well, maybe it was just tongue-in-cheek as he followed up with, “That can be difficult, but it's not impossible, especially the mimicking part [due to] the site conditions that one has to begin with, but it can be done.”
This post epitomizes the macrocosm of my ongoing quest-to create something that hopefully might be considered a decent foundation for, as Wayne puts it, “preserving indigenous germplasm while not sacrificing beauty or utility, and further minimizing the use of imported water and nutrients from other places.” I know, this certainly sounds like a lofty goal, but I’ve been having fun at it – thanks to all the wonderful information streaming across the list-serve from very knowledgeable people whose advice I deeply respect.
Ok, so if you don’t mind too much I’d like to take a slight detour here, as I feel I should at least try to understand what Wayne means when he refers to the term ‘germplasm’. I’m guessing it may have something to do with what both Wayne and Greg Rubin refer to as “the mycorrhizal net (i.e., the natural soil-crust community of algae, mosses, and other cryptobiotic/cryptogamic soil-crust plant communities[1] which are fireproof, erosion-protectors, and infiltration-facilitators).Symbiotic benefits of a mycorrhizal net include disease resistance, pest resistance, and increased availability of moisture. Absence of a mycorrhizal net (and many other microbial constituents of the indigenous microbiome) is a contributor to weed growth, as most weeds are not obligately mycorrhizal; in fact, their presence may inhibit their formation.”
Lucy and Greg have co-authored two books on California native gardening: "The California Native Landscape: The Homeowner’s Guide to Restoring its Balance and Beauty" and "The California Drought-Defying Garden". They graciously accepted our invite to speak on the care and maintenance of a California native garden at our Native Gardening Workshop this past September 8. We asked them a few questions at the time in advance of their presentation.
In your own California native garden what has been the most fascinating or surprising thing that has happened over the years?
LUCY: I have loved watching the plants grow and develop to their maturity. One of the most surprising things was watching the supposedly tame Leymus condensatus 'Canyon Prince' run rampant and become aggressive. The original 'Canyon Prince' has been compromised and while it is still a beautiful plant, it limits where I will plant it.
GREG: I have been doing much of my Argentine ant treatment research and development in my own ½-acre yard, always striving for more directed and organic approaches. It has proven quite epiphanous and incredibly satisfying to bring plants like Ceanothus, Fremontodendron, Dendromecon, Arctostaphylos, and Lavatera back from the brink of death, and to realize how adaptable and resilient these plants can be in the absence of ant infestation. Many of the plants slapped with the moniker of being "short-lived" and difficult are precisely the plants ants seem to target most!
On average, how often would one need to prune their native garden for optimal growth?
LUCY: It depends on what plants you have in your garden. Colorful perennials along the edges of the garden will need to be dead-headed regularly for appearance and to extend their bloom cycle or will need to be trimmed back at the end of their bloom cycle. Grasses need a haircut every year or two. Most of your landscape should be evergreen perennial plants which will need little pruning if they are planted to their mature size.
GREG: Hopefully you've chosen plants optimally sized for your spaces, otherwise there may be frequent pruning in order to keep them in-bounds. Short of that, the main reasons for pruning are for shape, to remove dead growth, and dead heading. On a plant by plant basis, this is rarely over once or twice a year. Perennials that bloom continuously (like seaside daisies) may require dead heading every month or two, which in turn stimulates more flowering.
When you go out to look at your gardens, what is the thing you check most frequently?
GREG: I look for struggling plants. If they have certain weeds growing right around the base (and nowhere else) that is a strong indicator of possible ant infestation. Then I check around and look for ants, as well as soil looseness, which is often associated with ant nests. Finally, if I've ruled out ants, I use my soil moisture indicator to see if the plant is too wet or dry. It is about 12" long so I can check moisture at the roots.
LUCY: I check for weeds always.
What sorts of pests prevail in California native gardens?
GREG: Ants and the sucking insects they support may be the single greatest cause of native plant mortality in landscapes. Unfortunately, by the time you see aphids and scale in the branches, they have long infested the roots, far from the reaches of horticultural soap or alcohol. The big question is whether it is this simple desiccation/sugar appropriation that is the cause of collapse, or whether it is the pathogens that researchers have found to be spread by this activity. Either way, there is absolutely nothing good about Argentine ants!
LUCY: I agree with Greg, definitely the Argentine ant is the most destructive, aggressive and prevalent pest in California native gardens because it farms the sucking insects on the roots of the plants.
If you could have done or corrected one thing early on in your native garden, what would that be?
LUCY: Learn about natives earlier in my life and plant them then.
GREG: Use less plants! Many of my older gardens are a little over-planted, partly because I'm such a plant nut, and partly because much of the size data 15-20 years ago was on the small side.
What is a memorable response you have had from a reader of your books?
LUCY: One of my fellow Master Gardeners came up to me and apologized for the fact that their book was so full of notes and highlights--I loved it!
GREG: "Tashkent is NOT in the Ukraine, it is in Uzbekistan!" as I incorrectly described the derivation of Chitalpa tashkentensis as being developed in the Ukraine (especially embarrassing since much of my family on my father's side emigrated from the Ukraine!).
Aside from a geography lesson Frank Landis corrected my description of mustard being facultatively mycorrhizal. It is actually non-mycorrhizal, instead secreting cyanide compounds into the soil that destroy the symbiotic fungi that help support the native plant community. We were able to get that correction into the second printing.
Lucy A. Warren, a Virginia native, transplanted to California in early adulthood. With a Masters in Marketing, her first career in marketing research aided decision making with and for major corporations. Long fascinated with plants and horticulture, she is a former editor of California Garden magazine, wrote feature articles and a gardening column on edible plants for the San Diego Union Tribune, and many articles for other gardening publications. She collaborated on the University of California public information pamphlet on killer bees.
Ms. Warren has been assistant coordinator for the flower and garden show at the San Diego County Fair and the Spring Home/Garden Show. A 20+-year UCCE Master Gardener, she has served on many boards, including San Diego Horticultural Society and Pacific Horticulture Society. She joined the board of Friends of Balboa Park as Horticulture Chair and was integral in the preparation of the 2015 Panama-California Exposition Centennial with the Adopt A Plot program. She has appeared on numerous local television news segments and frequently makes presentations to garden clubs and other organizations. She is co-author of two books on California native plants with Greg Rubin: "The California Native Landscape: The Homeowner’s Guide to Restoring its Balance and Beauty" and "The California Drought-Defying Garden".
Greg Rubin was recently named the 2018 Horticulturist of the Year by the San Diego Horticultural Society. He is the president and founder of California’s Own Native Landscape Design, Inc., and is a licensed landscape contractor (C-27 No. 717147) who has been working with California native plants since 1985. By 1993, Greg fully transitioned out of his career as an aerospace engineer to devote himself to his successful and unusual landscaping business. His company has designed over 700 residential, commercial, and institutional native landscapes in Southern California. Specialties include year-round appeal, low maintenance, water efficiency, rich habitat, and fire-resistance. Greg has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, San Diego Union Tribune and Los Angeles Times, and magazines such as Sunset, San Diego Home and Garden, California Gardener and Kiplinger's. Media coverage includes appearances on all of San Diego's local news outlets, CNN & MSNBC. Greg regularly gives presentations and workshops on native plants to conferences, garden clubs and other organizations throughout Southern California.
Greg is co-author, with Lucy Warren, of "The California Native Landscape: The Homeowners’ Design Guide to Restoring its Beauty and Balance," published by Timber Press, 2013. This popular native horticultural literary work covers all aspects of native landscape design. He and Lucy now have a second book, "The Drought Defying California Garden", also published by Timber Press in 2016. His website is: www.calown.com.
By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
CNPS will be joining the litigation against the Newland Sierra Decision. We have grave problems with its treatment of native plants, problems with wildfire issues for both the plants (with increased ignitions), for existing residents and for new residents, all of whom will have trouble evacuating, and problems with the way they want to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by buying offsite carbon offsets somewhere else (as ifthere’s an infinite market of these things). We will bejoining a coalition of local businesses, institutions, residents, and environmental groups in this suit.
In late September, a judge overturned the County’slatest Climate Action Plan, ruling in favor of Sierra Club and the Golden Door, who had sued on the way that the County wanted to allow carbon offsets outside the County (does this sound familiar?). The plaintiffs wanted the judge to find the County in contempt of his ruling before it could approve Newland Sierra (thereby blocking it), but the judge refused, allowing the County to approve the project. in a hearing right before Christmas, the court will decide whether the County is in contempt of court in moving forward on Newland, Otay Ranch Village 14, Lilac Hills Ranch, and others. And undoubtedly the County will appeal. Exciting, no?
In the meantime, the County is moving ahead to approve Otay Ranch Village 14, Lilac Hills Ranch, and the rest in mid-December. To me, this smacks of chutzpahif not hubris, but we’ll see what happens. It’s possiblethat in December, the judge will forbid the County from approving any projects until they come out with a third Climate Action Plan that passes legal muster. AlthoughI’m sure the County will scramble to rewrite their Climate Action Plan, they’ll probably push it so that it’sgetting approved in spring, 2020, right around the time we get to vote on the Save Our San Diego initiative to take General Plan Amendments to the voters. As I said, it’s getting exciting here. Yay (?)(!)
How did you get started with California native seeds and bulbs?
The simple answer is that I heeded the call! In late 2015 there was a blurb in the CNPS-SD newsletter that predecessor Amy Huie was ready to pass on the torch for managing the seed and bulb sales. Without ever working with the group I decided to volunteer and step up to the challenge. This was easy to do as there was an amazing base of volunteers involved who helped me learn the ropes.
The background to this decision is that I have been involved in California native plants since the early 1990s, primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides being self-taught, I volunteered for years at a California native plant demonstration garden called Native Hill at Foothill College run by the CNPS-Santa Clara Valley chapter. Then when I found myself in homes with yards I could work in, I focused on natives & edibles. My interest in seeds stemmed primarily from by bank account. It was too expensive for me as a student to buy plants, but I could start hundreds of plants for a fraction of the cost and my love of germinating was born. My family left our home, with over 100 different native plants, to live in San Diego in 2012. The move was going to be temporary but when we decided we were going to stay in the area I decided to get involved in the San Diego chapter by doing the seed sales.
Park Champions and Park Staff Help with Preparing the Old Town Native Plant Landscape for Changes
Six Park Champions volunteered alongside Old Town State Park staffers Chad, Susan, and Matt, to rebuild and paint another section of the old wood picket fence around the historic McCoy House, while four other Champions helped CNPS member Kay Stewart remove overgrown black sage from the Native Landscape. The purpose of the landscape is to “re-create a usable, edible landscape-like the one used by the Native Americans who lived here before Europeans arrived.” The work was started in 2006 and at the time the species selection seemed fine. Sadly, large shrubs provided hiding places for people, so the landscape is being “remodeled” to eliminate them.
After some irrigation repairs are completed by Park staff, on November 17, at the next Park Champions volunteer work party, CNPS members Kay Stewart and Peter St. Clair will show volunteers how to sow wildflower seeds. Seeds of locally common species of annuals will be scattered in bare spots to result in short-term beautification. Kay and Peter are also planning to replant using plants that will not reach more than 2’ in height and have ethnobotanical value. They hope that funding to replant the Landscape with an estimated 300 plants, at a cost of $2,000 to $3,000, will be found. If so, planting parties in December and/or January will be scheduled.
