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Her garden also has slender salamanders, a very sedentary species that may provide some food for the snakes. An interesting thing about these salamanders is that they can feed predators without losing their lives because they have highly detachable tails which grow back. She says she has very few slugs or snails, and wonders if the snakes might be eating them. (Slugs, earthworms, and land-dwelling salamanders are the first three items listed in the garter snake\'s diet in Reptiles and Amphibians of the San Francisco Bay Region by Robert C. Stebbins.)

Her delightful garden consists almost entirely of species native to California, with a few trees predating the recent plantings - a fairly large redwood, a deodar cedar, a European birch, and another I don\'t recall, perhaps another redwood. She plans to remove the deodar and the birch as their native replacements mature.

Plants present in her garden that I recall that are listed as native in A Flora of San Francisco, California by John Thomas Howell, Peter H. Raven, and Peter Rubtzoff include western sword fern, western chain fern, red fescue, foothill sedge, Ithuriel\'s spear, Douglas iris, Pacific wax myrtle, California pipe vine, western columbine, meadowrue, California poppy, Pacific stonecrop, pink flowering currant, toyon, hollyleaf cherry, a wild rose, checkerbloom, huckleberry, seep-spring monkeyflower, twinberry, yarrow, and coyote brush. There are probably others I don\'t recall or that weren\'t evident, since a meadow is central to the design.

Natives from elsewhere in California employed in the garden included Santa Lucia fir, California nutmeg, Catalina perfume, yellow currant (grown as an espalier), redbud, Ceanothus \'Dark Star,\' bush anemone, wild grape, mock orange, Santa Cruz Island buckwheat, island alumroot, wild ginger, mountain garland (Clarkia unguiculata), Calystegia sp., and Eriogonum grande var. rubescens. A former denizen of the garden which was removed was the large spiny rush, Juncus acutus. This is an attractive species (native to southern California but increasingly used elsewhere), but beware working around it. She wasn\'t careful enough, and it injured her eye, subsequently to be banished from the garden! So if you have to weed around one, use protective goggles! There are rushes native to San Francisco that are smaller, and thus in better scale with most gardens, that do not pose such a hazard. (Since originally writing this I found that there is an early record of Juncus acutus from San Francisco, a disjunct occurrence, since none has been found between San Francisco and southern California.)

The garden reflects five plant communities, with a meadow planting central to it all. It was designed and installed by Alrie Middlebrook of Middlebrook Gardens, San Jose, who is working on a book with Glenn Keator about garden design with California natives. Inspired in part by trips to England, Alrie is using some of our natives as the English do in small gardens, as espaliers.

One reason garter snakes thrive in the garden is because the owner leaves little piles of debris (prunings and such) under or behind the shrubbery. Rocks are also part of the design. The yard is actually rather small, and the meadow is cut by hand rather than power tools, which also helps to spare the snakes. One of my worst moments working was killing a large gopher snake with a Bachtold weed mower. It didn\'t get out of the way. I was delighted to work for a garden owner who loves her snakes!

For those interested in reptiles and amphibians in the landscape, there is some discussion in Landscaping for Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest by Russell Link. I was delighted to find he includes plans for herptile hibernation mounds, a good use for waste chunks of concrete. Beware, though. In the first edition the captions for the mild winter and cold winter designs were switched, an unfortunate error.

Reptiles and amphibians benefit from having an abundance of native plants that support insects, leaf litter and coarse woody debris on the ground, rock piles or wood piles or brush piles, and ground-level water. Paving that consists of individual stones set in sand is beneficial also; oak salamanders are found in burrows under the sand-placed pavers outside my sister\'s back door in Cupertino. Another sister on the Peninsula has a large, untidy wood pile-boards jutting out in various directions, lots of chinks-in her neglected urban backyard, surrounded by weeds that are rarely cut. Despite numerous cats roaming about, western fence lizards thrive in the pile, because it is an impregnable fortress for them. Cover, I think, is a major limiting factor for herptiles in urban areas. Low-growing shrubs and areas of groundcovers or low perennials allow them to move around more safely, while also producing food for them.

A few weeks ago I was pruning some low-growing manzanitas in another native garden in Cupertino that also included Carmel creeper ceanothus and redwood trees. I saw two fence lizards and an alligator lizard while I was there. The southern alligator lizard crawled straight up the trunk of a redwood, mature enough to have deep furrows in the bark. It was a typical suburban neighborhood, but not far from open spaces with native vegetation, a creek line, and some remnant oak woodland.'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'School Gardens'; article.authors = 'Colasurdo,Christine'; article.content = 'child planting

For the past eight years, with neither a degree in botany nor in education, I have found myself volunteering with public school kids in the Sunset district so that they could learn about gardening and native plants. While the students have been learning about seaside daisies and sandy soil, I\'ve been learning (sometimes the hard way!) how to create a school garden with no money and a few borrowed tools. You might say it\'s the School of Hard Rocks.

In 1996, I began volunteering at Lawton Alternative School, a K-8 school located two blocks from my house. Lawton\'s schoolyard, which is a former sand dune like most of the Sunset, was full of weeds, so I fantasized about creating a native plant garden there. I submitted a proposal to Lawton\'s principal, who forwarded it to Carol Lanigan, the school\'s tutor and its newly appointed gardening coordinator. The native plant garden would become one of several projects created that year by the students.

The plot assigned was a narrow, south-facing strip near the auditorium, about 40 feet long with a 30-degree slope. The school lacked money, but fortunately some nearby nurseries, both private and public, donated plants. By the end of autumn we had pots of beach primrose, blue-eyed grass, Douglas iris, California fuchsia, California lilac, coast silk tassel, coyote bush, red currant, seaside daisy, and sticky monkeyflower to add to some transplants from my own backyard.

Two classrooms enrolled in the project, but it was John Gough\'s fifth-graders who continued with the project for five years. We planted the garden in January 1997 with the winter rains. Although spirits ran high, I was surprised to see how hesitant some children were to get their hands in the earth and concluded that this was their first gardening experience. After the garden was planted, each student "adopted" a plant and identified it with a wooden stake.

The students kept a plant journal to track growth, blooms, insects, etc. They also learned their plant\'s Latin name and other details. Some excitedly recorded their plant\'s prodigious spring growth, making me wonder if they had ever before watched nature so closely.

A native garden is a great project for San Francisco schools because the plants grow and bloom during the mild winter, under the watchful eye of the students, then die back and estivate during the summer, when the students are absent. In contrast, vegetable gardens are difficult in Sunset neighborhood schools because there is never adequate heat in the summer, and no one is around to water intensively during July, when fruits and vegetables ripen.

Unfortunately, Lawton lost its gardening coordinator in 1998. Then, in 2002,when my son was ready to enter kindergarten, we were denied access to Lawton. So Lawton\'s native-plant garden has withered over the past year, while my attention has been focused where my son was finally admitted, Sunset Elementary, in the outer Sunset. There, I have spearheaded a large garden project with donated ornamental shrubs, both native and non-native. Unlike Lawton\'s garden, Sunset\'s garden was planted by volunteers school-wide, with teachers, parents, students, and even the principal volunteering on several Saturdays to help out. Thanks to a generous grant from the San Francisco Green Schoolyard Alliance, (http://www.sfneighborhoodparks.org/events/growing.html) next year at Sunset we will have funds to create more gardens, including two native plant gardens that will grace the front and side entrances to the school.

A garden is a work in progress. That is doubly true of a school garden, because it\'s never "owned" by one gardener. Principals come and go, students graduate, districts lose funds. Keeping the garden alive and well-tended in such an environment is a challenge, even with hardy native species. Ask me next summer how our garden grows!

Many thanks to Esta Kornfield, Barbara Pitschel, Pete Holloran, Jake Sigg, Greg Gaar, and David Graves, who are sources of inspiration and knowledge for me.

QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE YOU PLANT A SCHOOL GARDEN

1. Is the school principal enthusiastic about the project?
2 Are there teachers willing to use the garden as a learning tool?
3. Who will take care of the project if you leave?
4. Is there a water source?
5. Can you rally parent support through the PTA?
6. Do you have a long term plan for sustaining it?
7. Is it a good site (protected from wind, vandals, etc.)?
8. Can you raise funds to support it?

[Chapter member Christine Colasurdo is a professional writer. Her work can be seen in Bay Nature and California Wild. Christine grew up in the shadow of Mt. St. Helens, and is the author of Return to Spirit Lake: Journey through a Lost Landscape (Sasquatch Books 1997). She presented a program on that subject for the Yerba Buena Chapter in 1999.-Editor]

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Wildlife Habitat Piles in the Garden'; article.authors = 'Heath,Mark'; article.content = '

garter snakeThe native plant gardener\'s journey often starts with a great vision of ecological fulfillment. The vision suggests a garden saturated with succulent wild plants and busy wildlife, mirroring many perfect wild places from your past. This future garden has been well thought out to attract great hordes of songbirds and butterflies, whose song and color will brighten each morning throughout the year. Of course, all this grandeur will take some time. You cannot reach this ecological climax overnight. All new gardens must begin with pint-sized container plants, some tosses of seed, mulch, and lots of bare dirt.

This last year after moving into my new apartment on sunny Bernal Hill, I was very excited at the prospect of creating a garden of native coastal scrub plants on a hill of dirt in my backyard. All winter long I loaded the backyard with common native plants like California sagebrush (Artemisia californica), lizard tail (Eriophyllum staechadifolium), sticky monkey flower (Mimulus aurantiacus), coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica), and coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis), hoping they would quickly take root and inspire local wildlife to take refuge in my backyard. Spring soon came but my yard was still a mecca of bare dirt and small plants. I realized that this project would take a while and that local birds and butterflies probably had better places to be in the meantime.

A surprise came later that spring when I moved some rice straw mulch around only to find a pair of common garter snakes slithering about. WOW! Local wildlife was on its way. I had successfully jump-started an ecosystem in my backyard. Later that year another trip to the mulch pile revealed that the two garter snakes came together to make many more. I now had about 20 small slug-busting snakes patrolling all major sectors of the garden. This discovery brought me to the realization that a debris pile was the most effective wildlife-attracting attribute in my garden. Though a rich garden of local native plants was intended to be the main attraction for local wildlife, the pile seemed to be stealing the show as the garden grew slowly in the background.

I had accidentally built a pile of straw and they had come. This small pile was a great addition to my small developing native plant garden. During garden renovation or establishment, a couple of strategic debris piles can help you attract the same birds and other small critters that your developing garden was designed to attract. Piles can come in many shapes and forms and each can be designed to attract different types of wildlife. Piles created from medium- to large-sized coarse debris, such as logs or tree trimmings, are excellent for small mammals and birds. Ground-foraging birds such as dark-eyed juncos, white-crowned sparrows, and brown towhees need a pile that has air-spaces between the stacked/piled material. The goal here is to create enough nooks and crannies to allow the birds to safely perch and rest throughout the day or fly through to escape an attacking predator like the marauding neighborhood cat!

Wild CucumberLarge logs and stones stacked low on the ground can make great reptile and amphibian piles. The small air spaces left in the base of the pile afford great protection and potential hibernation spots for toads, salamanders, and lizards. You may not see much of the amphibians in the daytime, but each night they will surely come out and munch on garden insects all night long. You may, however, catch a peek at a northern alligator lizard or western fence lizard sunning on a stone or log next to or within your pile.

Even the smallest garden can accommodate a pile. Very low piles of soft, compact vegetation can fit in any tight corner. These piles offer food and protection for many small creatures such as insects and salamanders. Throughout the city, I am always amazed how many California slender salamanders turn up in a small pile of leaves or small branches. How a critter with such small legs can get around the city with such efficiency will always be a mystery to me.

If you have the space, consider building a larger layered pile with a foundation to serve many creatures. Start by placing large logs or stones in parallel or carefully criss-crossed so they remain stable. Then begin placing smaller twigs, branches or other vegetative material on top to build an attractive cover. Then also consider planting quick growing native perennial vines like giant vetch (Vicia gigantea), Pacific pea (Lathyrus vestitus), California blackberry (Rubus ursinus), or manroot (Marah oreganus or M. fabaceus), that can quickly cover the pile surface with green foliage and spring flowers to add a seasonal dimension to the pile. The resulting pile will have a great diversity of protective spaces. Many different species will be drawn to each structural layer of the pile, offering a great focal point in your garden for wildlife watching.

Like any garden endeavor, beauty is a desired goal. Think and plan pile construction. Be selective and find attractive objects to use. One of my favorite piles to create is a neat stack of shapely sun bleached Eucalyptus logs lightly covered with vivid green California blackberry and manroot. Invoke the same imagination you use to plan your dream native plant garden to design a garden pile. Building one creates an immediate invitation for local wildlife which can help fulfill your original grand vision.

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Gardening For Hummingbirds'; article.authors = 'Hubbart,Lori'; article.content = '

Notes on growing hummingbird plants by Lori Hubbart, CNPS Dorothy King Young Chapter president, based on list originally compiled by Ellie Gioumousis, CNPS Santa Clara Valley.

SHRUBS:

  • Black sage (Salvia mellifera) Big, handsome shrub with modest, lavender flowers and lime green, aromatic leaves. Needs sun, good drainage, as do all the native shrubby sages.

  • Chaparral currant (Ribes malvaceum) Hanging clusters of bright pink flowers bloom in winter or early spring, when nectar is scarce. Needs sunny, dry chaparral conditions.

    Gooseberry

  • Cleveland sage (Salvia clevelandii and its hybrids) Shrubs ranging from three to five feet in height. The true species has deep purple flowers in whorls; the hybrids have lavender-blue flowers. Wide shrubs with aromatic leaves, need full sun. The leaves are edible, with good deer resistance.

  • Fuchsia-flowered gooseberry (Ribes speciosum) Long, tubular, bright red flowers hang along the stems. Excellent winter nectar source. It has fierce thorns.

  • Island snapdragon (Galvezia speciosa) Flowers are miniature, rose-red snapdragons. This shrub is wide and sprawling, but easily controlled by pruning in February. Won’t take heavy freezes.

  • Manzanita (Arctostaphylos species) Available in many sizes. The small, white or pinkish lantern flowers are a vital source of nectar for hummers during winter.

  • Pink flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum) Hanging clusters of bright pink flowers in early to mid-spring. Full to filtered sun, some water. Later, berries good for songbirds.

  • Pitcher sage (Lepechinia calycina) A big, woody sage relative with fat, tubular flowers of white or lavender. Needs sun, occasional water.

  • Tree mallow (Lavatera assurgentiflora) Channel Island native that grows very fast to become a ten-foot shrub. Hummers like the magenta flowers, once they learn how to get at the nectar.

  • Twinberry (Lonicera involucrata) A very large, shrubby honeysuckle, with pairs of yellow-orange flowers. Needs full to filtered sun, lots of moisture.

    Twinberry

  • Western honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula) Actually a woody vine, usually grown for its autumnal red berries. The pink, summer flowers are not flashy, but hummers do find them.

  • Woolly blue curls (Trichostema lanatum) Lovely, fuzzy purple-blue flowers, long, narrow, aromatic leaves. Needs hot, dry conditions, good drainage.

PERENNIALS:

  • Bee plant< (Scrophularia californica) Large, coarse perennial with tall stalks of tiny maroon flowers. Takes sun or light shade, dry or wet conditions.

  • California fuchsia or zauschneria (Epilobium canum) Profusion of bright, orange-red flowers in late summer and fall. Needs sun, tolerates some drought.

  • Cobweb thistle (Cirsium occidentale & related species) Biennial or short-lived perennial, not invasive. Lovely gray foliage, heads of bright red flowers. Needs warm, dry conditions.

  • Hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) Robust perennial sage with large, sweetly aromatic leaves, whorls of magenta flowers. Grow in full or filtered sun. Looks best with some water.

  • Indian pink (Silene californica) Low, spreading perennial with vermilion, fringed flowers. Grows in filtered shade, often under pine trees. If snails are a problem, plant in hanging basket.

  • Penstemon (Penstemon species). From the compact ‘Blue Bedder’ to larger types, the tubular flowers are red, pink, purple, or true blue. Needs warm, sunny, dry conditions. Cut spent flowers to induce more blooming.

  • Red savory (Satureja mimuloides) Perennial with soft orange flowers, all summer. Tolerates a variety of conditions.

  • Scarlet larkspur (Delphinium cardinale, D. nudicaule) The first is a robust perennial, the second is a smaller perennial for rock gardens. They need full or filtered sun, no water in late summer.

  • Scarlet lobelia (Lobelia cardinalis) Vivid red flowers. Actually native in mountains of southern California, it needs sun and damp conditions.

  • Scarlet monardella (Monardella macrantha) Perennial with large whorls of red-orange flowers. Irresistible, but hard to grow - try a container with gravel in the mix.

  • Scarlet monkeyflower (Mimulus cardinale) Perennial with bright, orange-red flowers needs sun and damp conditions.

  • Sticky monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus) Shrubby perennial, flowers usually orange, but can be red, maroon, pink, or yellow. Blooms all summer, occasional water, needs some pruning.

  • Western columbine (Aquilegia formosa) Prefers filtered shade, some watering. Blooms in spring, with nodding, bright red, yellow-tipped flowers.

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Free Market Gardening'; article.authors = 'Hyland,Tim'; article.content = '

Coastal Scrub, Ft. Funston[Tim Hyland, president of the CNPS Santa Cruz Chapter, presented our May 1998 program on gardening with natives. For those who were unable to attend the meeting, he shares his ideas here. - Ed.]

It seems that any discussion about using native plants in a landscape begins with the basic question, "Why bother?" With all the wonderful plants to be found in a nearby nursery, why not use them? What more could you ask for? Well, as it turns out, that seemingly limitless selection of plants adorning most retail nurseries has gone through a rigorous selection process driven by forces most gardeners never think about.

The first question someone running a nursery has to answer about a plant before carrying it is whether it will sell or not. After all, that is what nurseries are in the business of doing. Sure, you can make some money on books, greeting cards, and garden art, but those plants out there are not for show; they have to move or you will soon be packing up and doing that very thing yourself.

What a plant costs, and therefore how well it sells, is at least in part determined by how easily and quickly it will grow in a container - not the ground, mind you, but a six pack, or a three inch, gallon, or five gallon plastic pot. If it takes too long to reach a size that people are willing to buy, or if it refuses to be propagated on a large scale, it will never make it onto the wholesaler\'s list and so it will not be available to you, the plant-buying public.

If the plant grows okay, then it has a somewhat less obvious test to pass. Does it bloom at the right time? When I ran a nursery once upon a time, I had an opportunity to buy a few five gallon containers of shooting stars from someone who specialized in bulbs. They were gorgeous, their graceful arching stems topped by clusters of the most elegant pink, yellow, and white flowers you could imagine. I had been lusting after plants just like them on hillsides near my home. I would buy them, put them up at the front of the nursery, and sell them all in a week, I was sure. Unfortunately for my plan, one of the charming things about these beauties is that they are usually reaching their peak bloom sometime in February, which is not exactly the height of the gardening season. By the time most people have emerged from their houses to once again contemplate the soil and what they would like to see growing in it, shooting stars are no more than clusters of small tan seed pods atop narrow stems rising from small rosettes of yellowing leaves. I never sold a single one of those pots.

This helps illustrate the most challenging criterion that any plant likely to be found for sale must meet. It has to look good in black, not in an evening gown or tuxedo, but in a black plastic nursery container. There are any number of charming plants that look wonderful in a garden and atrocious in a container. No matter their garden worthiness, you will not find them for sale. And, speaking of garden worthiness, you will notice that it is not the first thing a purveyor of plants is thinking about. Sure, one needs to offer a few bomb-proof plants for the commercial landscaper and folks with admittedly black thumbs, but showy flowers and unusual form rule supreme, even if they decorate a plant that the nursery person knows almost no one will ever be able to grow.

Native plants undergo selective pressures as well. They have been out there making deals with pollinators and pacts with birds for thousands of years. They have worked out bargains with rodents and fungi. Some are expert at dealing with salt spray and shifting sand; others excel on serpentine or heavy clay soils. They have radiated into a remarkable variety of forms that put all but the most fabulous nurseries\' plant lists to shame. They have woven themselves so tightly into the fabric of the land that they are inextricable from it.

So why invite them into your garden? Because there is only one reason you find them inhabiting every dune and bluff top, every creek and marsh, and it has nothing to do with someone making a living. They like it here. Without any of the products found in the garden section of your local hardware store or special fertilizers, they thrive. If you are looking for plants that will do well here, they are all around you, not in the nurseries but on hillsides and bluffs. Half the fun is finding out what they are.

You will be able to obtain many of them at the Yerba Buena Chapter plant sales every Fall.

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Native Plant Gardening in San Francisco\'s Back Yards'; article.authors = 'Kushner,Pinky'; article.content = '

The CNPS Yerba Buena Chapter is proud to announce a new gardening-for-wildlife project called BackYard Natives. San Francisco is unusual in its back yard organization in two respects. First, in our dense urban setting a significant portion of lots is typically devoted to back yards. Second, large areas of the city are organized so that residential lots have contiguous back yards. These connect not just to each other but to parks and other nearby open spaces. Thus, our back yards have the potential to become part of a significant system of connected wildlife corridors.

Protecting wildlife in the city has popular appeal since most people delight to experience the natural world. Urban dwellers get satisfaction when they feel they are making even a small step toward making up for the destruction of the habitat of the natural world. Gardening for wildlife using native plants in back yards is in the sustainable landscape/planting practices approved by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission and adopted in the city\'s Sustainability Plan, available on the website of the Department of the Environment http://www.sfenvironment.com/aboutus/policy/sustain/excerpt.htm..

BackYard Natives proposes to bring back yards - out of their landscaped traditions of exotic (more recently labeled drought-tolerant) plantings, and into the natural landscape around them. Its goal is to engage people to create and sustain healthy, dynamic outdoor spaces - from our communities into our homes. The vision is of a sustainable society in which individuals live in harmony with and contribute meaningfully to their local environment.

To add to the environmental significance of back yards, BackYard Natives promotes plants native to San Francisco. The intent, however, is not to deny residents a favorite tree or rose, but to add to the mix. In order to make an impact, Back Yard Natives will encourage neighbors to plant collectively. One oak or a few coyote brush with a lizard tail mixed in may not make a difference to the ecology of a back yard. However, if five or six immediate neighbors each plant an oak or a few coyote brush, the difference promises to be significant, especially when the area is planted in a way that interconnects with nearby natural areas. From my own experience, six months after adding asters and nootka reed grass to an area approximately 12 feet by 12 feet, along with a few bird baths, my back yard was rather suddenly graced by blue damsel flies flitting about magically in the sunshine.

From its start seven years ago, our chapter plant sale has been dedicated to providing locally-collected native plants exclusively. We currently have one sale a year. One significant role our chapter will play in BackYard Natives is to make arrangements to have these plants available year-round.

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Plants That Should Be Better Known'; article.authors = 'Lancaster,Roy'; article.content = 'Sword Fern

The author is a noted British plantsman, lecturer, writer, and broadcaster. This article is reprinted from the December 2001 issue of The Garden: Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society.

I gingerly picked my way through a sea of swords, looked down upon by giants on all sides. There was a cool calm, disturbed only by a feckless breeze tugging at the huckleberries that sprouted willy-nilly from decaying stumps. This may sound like a scene in Lord of the Rings or a Harry Potter adventure, but it was my first experience of the Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood) forests of northern California. The year was 1992 and I was on a family tour heading south along US Highway 101 bound for Eureka and San Francisco. After years of reading and hearing about Sequoia, here I was at last, admiring and enjoying the silence and drama of these famous forests, containing the tallest trees in the world. What most impressed me was the dominance of just two plants-redwood and Polystichum munitum (sword fern). There were other plants in the understory, of course, but my lasting impression is of these two primitives in such harmony. Volumes have been written on the redwoods, and their survival is a tribute to the efforts of people such as John Muir, the great 19th-century naturalist and founder of the American Conservation Movement, together with the continuing work of the Save-the-Redwoods League, which was founded in 1918. But, compared to redwood, little has been written about sword ferns or, to give them their full English name, western sword ferns-for there is another species, P. acrostichioides (eastern sword fern), that is native to eastern North America. The name Christmas fern has been applied to both species in reference to the evergreen or persistent nature of their fronds and their consequent use for indoor decoration during the festive season. Both are also popular garden subjects, though P. munitum is, in my opinion, the more impressive.

Variable Size
Polystichum munitum (munitum meaning armed, with teeth) is a robust perennial forming a stout clump of laddered or pinnate fronds, which are lance- or sword-shaped in outline, often curving to one side in the upper half. The divisions (pinnae) are arranged in parallel ranks either side of the stalk (rachis), which is green, except for the dark base, and freely clothed with loose, narrow, brown, papery scales. The narrow segments have finely-toothed margins and are slender-pointed, broadening at the base to a short stalk, at which point there is a characteristic pointed lobe or "ear" on the upper side. In the wild, P. munitum is found from upper Baja California north to Alaska and western Montana, and is particularly abundant west of the Cascade Mountains. Its favored habitat is in moist, coniferous woodland from near sea level to middle elevations in the mountains. The size of frond varies according to the growing conditions.

Attractive Fronds
Sword FernPlants in a dry border at the base of a privet hedge in my garden produce fronds averaging 60-75 cm. (24-30 in.), while some plants I have seen in cool, moist woodland in northwest America sported fronds up to 1-1.2 m. (3-4 ft.) tall. The young fronds or crosiers appear in early spring and look like tightly coiled springs covered with a pelt of silvery-white scales. The tips droop backwards for a time, straightening out as the fronds gain height and become stronger. The fertile, spore-bearing fronds generally appear first, soon followed by the sterile fronds. In autumn, fertile fronds bear rows of coffee-colored dots along the margins beneath the segments, which darken as they ripen. Sterile fronds, by contrast, are plain green beneath. Thousands of spores are produced on the fertile fronds and are then carried on the wind. These will germinate if they land in a suitable spot, but only a tiny proportion manages to do so.

Designer\'s Dream
So impressed am I with P. munitum that I have planted several in my relatively small garden even though every plant in every space has to justify its presence. This is partly because the fern\'s tough, adaptable nature makes it extremely suitable for difficult sites, and what could be more difficult than the base of a privet hedge? Not only that, P. munitum is a garden-designer\'s dream. Its bold, laddered fronds can be used singly in isolation or in groups as a focal point in the garden. A single, well-grown clump presents an eye-catching appearance and is, inevitably, a source of inquiry or comment. This Polystichum also has a more utilitarian use as a gap plugger in the shade border. I have even seen it grown in large containers for use on the patio or in shaded backyards. Ideally, it should be given some light shade, especially if this means cool conditions, though it will take a more open sunny position so long as moisture is available. Moisture is conducive to maximum growth but P. munitum, unlike Matteuccia struthiopteris (shuttle-cockfern), is not for permanently wet or boggy soils, preferring better drainage. Whether the soil is alkaline or acid in reaction does not appear to be a problem, provided extremes are avoided.

One of the first Europeans to collect P. munitum was probably Archibald Menzies, a Scottish surgeon-botanist. He twice visited America\'s northwest coast in the late 18th century-first on Captain Colnett\'s ship "Prince of Wales" in 1788, and secondly, and more famously, with Captain George Vancouver on the "Discovery" four years later.

Polystichum munitum has a long history of use by Native Americans as a drug to help numb the pain of childbirth, for the treatment of burns and sores, and as a food-for which the rhizomes are steamed, boiled, or pit baked. It was also used as a primitive bedding, as a floor covering, to provide a clean surface for preparing fish or meat, and for lining baskets.

There cannot be many plants, let alone ferns, that are suitable for growing in difficult sites, yet provide such a package of ornamental treats. '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Butterfly Gardening'; article.authors = 'McCabe,Stephen'; article.content = 'Monarch butterflies

We were high school students hiking up open, cross-country terrain, passing mariposa lilies and heading toward an unnamed pass. We hoped to get a view of Lake Tahoe from the top. We began seeing a few butterflies here and there, but weren\'t ready for what we saw next. The butterflies became thicker and took a narrower path as they approached the pass. At the top they were going over the pass in an area about 12 feet wide and 10 feet high like they were going through a tunnel with invisible sides. If we stood in the middle of the "tunnel," butterflies bounced off us or even landed on us. Butterfly experts tell me these thousands might have been painted ladies. On other occasions, on still, warm days in the Sierra Nevada, by wet meadows with lots of daisy family annuals, I have been rewarded by seeing a variety of butterflies. While these days were uncommon, the migration over the pass was unique in my experience.

Butterfly gardening is not always easy. In our history of gardening for butterflies at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, perhaps we can say the butterflies made the first overture. True, the first Arboretum plantings were a group of various eucalyptus species. But monarch butterflies found our grove probably on a side trip from the local Natural Bridges population. Later we received donor support and encouragement to increase our commitment to butterflies. Then we received a special endowment to always keep butterfly gardening in our plans. We have used some of this funding to propagate and plant numerous native buckwheats, Lessingia filaginifolia, Lotus scoparius, Keckiella, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, C. arboreus, yarrow, Coreopsis, Encelia, Ericameria ericoides, Aster, madrone, Erigeron glaucus, and Mimulus (for the caterpillars).

Roses don\'t blow away when it\'s windy and hummingbirds are still out in a light rain, but butterflies present some challenges. Hummingbirds are easier because all you have to do is provide them some nectar-producing plants that they can get their beaks into. Butterflies, on the other hand, are most easily seen on warm still days. They need some nearby water with a place to land and drink. No one would think of going into a garden to try to rid it of all the baby hummingbirds, but what do most people do when they see caterpillars? Some take out the "diseased" plant and never plant that kind again, or spray it with chemicals. Some people just prune off the caterpillar-ravaged branches and throw them in the trash. To be a "good gardener" you rake up the debris in your garden. To be a good butterfly gardener, you leave some of the dead leaves and debris because you know there are some caterpillars or larvae in the duff. As one butterfly enthusiast said, "If you don\'t provide homes for the larval stages [caterpillars and larvae], then when you plant flowers all you are doing is stealing someone else\'s butterflies." With short lifespans for many species of butterflies, you must visit your garden often to see most of the visitors each year.

So leave those caterpillar-eaten shrubs in the garden, leave some of the leaves and debris about the garden, and try to figure out which of your native "weeds" might actually be host plants for some butterflies\' caterpillars. Some bad weeds are good for caterpillars or as nectar plants, but these can be replaced by natives or non-weedy non-native plants. If you have no ponds (in a sunny spot), add an artificial pond made from a shallow saucer. To be useful it must have pebbles, sand, or mud for butterflies to land upon. One could also use coarse sand or gravel next to the water instead of pebbles. Don\'t forget to change the water often enough not to encourage mosquitoes. Provide a bit of shelter from the wind and a sunny spot. Plant lots of flowers that have landing platforms, like members of the sunflower, buckwheat, and verbena families, and then wait for a warm, still summer day and you\'ll probably have butterflies.

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Soil: Science\'s Last Frontier'; article.authors = 'Radford,Tim'; article.content = '

Scientists have launched a systematic study of the last great unexplored territory of the globe: the few centimeters of soil beneath our feet. With a $26,000,000 grant, researchers in seven countries have begun a five-year discovery of the tiny, unknown plants and animals that make the rest of the world work.

Calif. slender salamander

Tiny creatures - microbes, worms, fungi, beetles, and mites - turn the soil, break down dead wood and leaves, fix nitrogen from the air, produce fresh nutrients for crops, manage the water cycle, release carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases, and underpin all life above ground.

Forests, savannahs, and farmland are all supported by a huge and largely unknown suite of creatures living in the first meter of soil below the surface. They have yielded some of the world\'s most important antibiotics, and have saved farmers billions of dollars in fertilizers and pesticides. They could launch a new agricultural revolution and yield untold riches for the industries of the future, yet they are the least studied organisms on the planet.

"When people think of where new species might be found, they tend to think of rainforests, mangrove swamps, or places like mountain peaks - not millimeters below their toes," says Klaus Toepfer, the director of the UN environment program.

The nations in the UN-backed program are Ivory Coast, Uganda, Kenya, Indonesia, India, Brazil, and Mexico. Research will begin in the tropics, because these regions are the least studied.

Jo Anderson, of Exeter University and chairman of the program\'s advisory group, says: "We have this image of this incredibly fragile and critically important skin across the Earth which is maintaining just about everything we are familiar with. It is vital to life as we know it. But we are simply unaware of the diversity of organisms supporting that."

There is probably greater biological diversity in a handful of soil from a garden in Devon than there are plants and animals in the tropical rainforest. A piece of soil the size of a sugar lump might hold five meters of fungal filaments of the kind usually visible on moldy bread.

"We are dealing with incredible numbers," he says. Researchers have identified 15,000 nematode worms; there could be 100,000 species. There are probably twice as many earthworms as the 3,600 so far studied.

Streptomycin and penicillin are both made by soil-dwelling bacteria. Chemical industries and pharmaceutical giants have launched massive programs to screen soil organisms for unusual and useful properties. But the biggest rewards may lie in managing soil organisms to save on pesticides and fertilizer use. Releases of native earthworms in tea plantations in India boosted productivity almost threefold and raised profits by $5,500 a hectare each year.

The right strains of nitrogen-fixing bacteria sprinkled on soybean plantations in Brazil had replaced artificial fertilizers and were now saving the national economy a billion dollars a year.

Researchers will also work with farmers and indigenous peoples in each country to make the best of local knowledge. They will also look at ants and termites. These play a huge role in enriching tropical soils. Termites also provide health supplements as they spread new soil from deep underground over fresh leaf litter and animal dung.

"That is immensely fertile," Professor Anderson says. "In some areas of Africa, the women when they are pregnant have a tradition of eating this termite soil. Analysis shows it is very rich in available iron and zinc. It is like a vitamin tablet."

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Gardening With Natives Over Time '; article.authors = 'Rinne,Fred'; article.content = '

Fred Rinne is a chapter member who gardens in and observes a 15- by 50-foot test garden on the campus of City College of San Francisco. Fred first shared his insights with us in the December 1995 newsletter.

A garden is a conversation. You state your intent, your planning. You shape and plant. Then the land answers back with its own intents and desires. Are you listening?

Some time ago, I planted a native meadow selection of grasses, perennials, and annuals on the standard perennial border design, with plenty of room between the plants. They did terribly.

Months passed, and it was only when the plants grew intermingled and "found each other" that they grew bigger and more vigorous. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) shaded the roots of the Douglas iris (Iris douglasiana), which leaned into the varied lupine (Lupinus variicolor). It wasn\'t at all what I had planned, but the plants looked great.

It gradually dawned on me that, since these plants coevolved in the same geographic area (Franciscan grassland), they did not compete against each other but cooperated to form a community.

This made me step back ten paces from my background in horticulture. From long ago, we learn to separate the shrubs from the groundcovers, separate the shrubs from each other, prune to define shape, edge, mow. This is all necessary because the plants in the standard landscape are as alien to each other as to this bioregion. The South African vines, the Chilean trees, and the New Zealand shrubs are going to need some help in getting along.

We have many fine examples of our native plant communities from which to learn. Simply choose a site and return throughout the year. There is much to be learned by following one setting through the seasons and becoming acquainted with the interactions among the plants.

I stress flexibility in the landscape to be planted, because on native undisturbed sites, as in your garden, each year is different. You don\'t get the same thing every year. One spring you might see hundreds of a certain kind of flower, the following spring perhaps a few.

On one test plot I put the community idea to a vigorous test, planting it with yarrow, Aster chilensis, Douglas iris, and a toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia). The first spring had me worried because of the invasiveness of the yarrow, and because the aster was five feet tall and sending out runners everywhere. "What have I done?" I mused as the bed grew cloaked with rampant growth.

I found comfort in reflecting that I had never seen valleys full with Aster chilensis or great fields of yarrow. There must be some reason for this. Sure enough, a few seasons later the yarrow is occasional polite little tufts, the aster comes up at a sedate two feet tall, and there is plenty of room for the other plants on the site such as the toyon, now six feet tall and unstrangled. I can\'t prove it, but I feel some sort of equilibrium was reached between these natives who know how to act around each other.

I\'ll add more grasses this fall, and tarweed and annuals. But the land will decide what will go into this mix and what will not, and each season will be different, no matter what I plan. And I like that about our native plants, the way they stand apart from our preconceptions. It\'s that quality we call wildness.

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Gardens And Wildlife'; article.authors = 'Rinne,Fred'; article.content = '

Buckwheat and BeeWhen I planted my first native plant garden at City College of San Francisco, all I was thinking about were the plants. I grew a selection of coastal prairie plants and installed them in a decorative landscape scheme, with little signs and mulch in between. Problems occurred immediately. For some reason, the mulch kept disappearing as fast as I could replace it, and the signs were usually found knocked over. Then I got there early one morning and saw the cause of this dishevelment.

All the mulch had been meticulously kicked off the site by robin-sized towhees, who were now racing about the site, kicking at the ground for food. Behind them, mourning doves sat like Aztec sculpture, contemplating the bare ground. A nearby blank spot in my planting scheme turned out to be a heavily-used takeoff and landing approach for sparrows, mockingbirds, scrub jays, blackbirds, and more.

It occurred to me that by removing the weedy overburden of wild mustard and oats, I had opened up the area to the birds. I could see how much they need to interact with the ground, free of lawns, parking lots, and "landscaping."

At another site on Corona Heights, I "pioneered" a small garden out of a nearly pure stand of French broom. As I slew the broom and established the local grasses and perennials, I was always accompanied by the bluish form of the resident scrub jay, carefully inspecting my work. I did find a native morning glory on the site, as well as a well-established coast live oak, which puzzled me because I couldn\'t see any oaks nearby. As seasons progressed, I found several oak seedlings on the site. Then one day I saw the scrub jay with an acorn in its bill. These were his oaks; he\'d planted them all. As the acorns mature each year, the scrub jay flies them off by the thousands, installing them in the landscape. With this in mind, I now realize my true role as scrub jay\'s assistant in this new oak grove.

As you may know, one basic rule of pest control is to stop infestations before they get out of hand. So when I spied the caterpillar chewing on a coastal buckwheat flower, my hand shot out to grab it. My hand stopped in midair. What kind of caterpillar was it? Angular and densely built, it didn\'t look at all like a cabbage worm or cutworm. Then I remembered the butterfly lists of host plants. Butterflies need to be caterpillars first, and native butterfly larvae might be currently eating my native plants. In that case, "Help yourself," I said.

Weeks later the caterpillar was gone, I hope enjoying the rigors of metamorphosis. And the coast buckwheat had little damage to show for the support it had given to the caterpillar, no ugly damage or shot-holes on the leaves. Later I read that some native butterflies pupate in the ground, sometimes for years, until conditions are right to reemerge. So watering or mulching around there wouldn\'t be doing the butterfly any favors either.

At the Garden for the Environment at 7th Avenue and Lawton Street, gophers ran riot. The situation was beyond my scope, and my once pristine-looking coastal grassland plot grew pits and mounds as the plants disappeared. Some plants did pretty well, but the bulbs and smaller plants were really taking a hit. I sat eating lunch watching the devastation, thinking about how it makes sense that native plants might end up in the stomachs of native gophers. What could I do about it anyway?

As I pondered, out of the corner of my eye I saw a brownish shape descend to the path next to the garden. It was a full-sized hawk which had just seized a gopher. The hawk flew up to a nearby telephone pole and ate with the joy of a hunter who\'s having an excellent day. I looked back at the garden and again at the feasting raptor and thought, "How do we measure the success of a garden anyway?"

'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Pollination Partners: The Chemical Attraction Between Plants And Insects'; article.authors = 'Saul-Gershenz,Leslie'; article.content = '

MilkmaidWe have been misled. Many people, nature phobics and plant lovers alike, respond to insect visitation with alarm, suspicion, and sometimes physical aggression and often-unjustified retaliation. While inundated with negative press on the one percent of insects that cause economic or medical problems, we are seldom reminded that 99% of the interactions between plants and insects are either beneficial or neutral. Beneficial interactions primarily involve native insects and native plants (no offense meant to the heroic European honey bee, Apis mellifera, which pollinates many of our commercial crops in California). The vast majority of flowering plants rely on insects for pollination, while many insects rely on plants for food, domiciles, and as a source for chemical compounds used in defense, pheromone production, and other activities. As testimony to the beneficial and faithful quality of the relationship, a single female of a solitary bee (Habropoda sp.) may visit more than 620 virgin flowers for pollen to provision a single nest, and over her lifespan she may visit 50,000 flowers, producing more than 6,000 berries.(1) These berries are of course then used by other animals including humans. The story of the interrelationship between the monarch butterfly and the milkweed plant (Asclepias spp.) is well known, but few people are aware that the major pollinator of milkweed is the bumble bee (Bombus spp.)

WaspMany different kinds of insects pollinate plants. Bees always come first to everyone\'s mind. However, flies, beetles, wasps, moths, and butterflies also are important insect pollinators. This interrelationship between plants and insects has influenced flower shape and three biochemical factors in plants: scent, flower color, and the nutritional value of nectar. In short, plants and insects have contributed to each other\'s evolution; our native plants have evolved closely with our native insects. The two are inseparable.

Scents
Probably the first signal that a plant sends out to attract an insect pollinator is an olfactory cue. Insects "learn" to recognize the smells of flowers. Scents, at least from a human perspective, are broken into two categories: pleasant and unpleasant. Not surprisingly pleasant odors produced by plants have received more research attention than unpleasant odors. Bees are especially tuned into flower scents which would be perceived as pleasant by humans. Scent is of primary importance to nocturnal pollinators such as moths. Unpleasant odors that are utilized to attract flies for pollination actually represent chemical mimicry; the plant produces a smell that mimics the smell of decaying meat or feces to persuade carrion or dung beetles and flies to focus attention on its flowers. Scent production by plants is closely synchronized with the activity patterns of their pollinators.

Buttercup & MothColors
Certain colors are particularly attractive to certain insect pollinators. Very generally, bees prefer yellows, blues, and whites; beetles prefer creams or greenish colors; flies prefer browns, purples, or greens; moths prefer reds, purples, whites, and pale pinks; butterflies prefer bright reds and purples. However, keep in mind that there are many exceptions. Some flowers (e.g., Eriophyllum, Rudbeckia, Helianthus, Papaver), particularly those associated with bees, have co-pigments that produce nectar guides which guide the bees to the nectaries. Some nectar guides are not visible to the human eye but are detected by the bee eye due to its ability to see colors in the ultraviolet range. Some plants even shift their pigment production seasonally to attract different pollinators. When its hummingbird pollinator migrates out of the area, the flower color of scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata), a California native, shifts from red to pink to white to attract a second native pollinator, the hawk moth Hyles lineata. In other species, flowers may change color after being pollinated, triggered by the removal of nectar. This directs the pollinator toward the unvisited flowers and improves the efficiency of pollination and nectar gathering. Color shifting has been recorded in 74 angiosperm families.

Nectar
One of the most important reasons that insects visit flowers is to obtain nutrition, primarily from nectar. (Pollen is also an important food source for larval bees and is collected to provision nests.) Nectars consist primarily of sugars in varying proportions of glucose, fructose, and sucrose. There is a relationship between the ratio of sugars present and the type of pollinator partner. Flowers with nectars high in sucrose are generally pollinated by large bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, or moths. Flowers with low sucrose are generally pollinated by small bees, passerine birds, or bats.

Nectars also contain amino acids, lipids, and occasional toxins. There are ten amino acids which are essential for insect nutrition (arginine, histidine, lysine, tryptophane, phenylalanine, leucine, methionine, threonine, isoleucine, and valine). In fact, all the common amino acids are present in nectar. Some insects, particularly butterflies, are almost entirely dependent on nectar for their nutritional needs. The amounts of amino acids are sufficient to provide insects with an essential supply of nitrogen. The variation in amino acids between species can be used as a chemotaxonomic character to distinguish species. It appears that plants have evolved to produce larger amounts of nitrogen in response to the nutritional needs of their chosen pollinator.

Nectar toxins can have two sides. Some flowers produce toxins that are poisonous to the pollinator (e.g., buckeye, Aesculus californica; some species of Rhododendron); some are secondarily hazardous to humans when they consume contaminated honey, specifically from plants with pyrrolizidine alkaloids.(2) The flip side is that some butterflies (e.g., monarchs and the Ithomiidae in South America) require certain alkaloids found in certain plants (e.g., Eupatorium, Ageratina) to produce sexual pheromones.

Plants may have other sources of nectar in addition to their flowers. Extrafloral nectaries are sugar and amino acid producing glands which occur on leaves, stems, bracts, or petioles. Their purpose seems to be to attract specific ant species which protect plants from herbivores or seed predators. Although the literature focuses on examples of interactions in the tropics, these relationships most assuredly exist here but are less well studied.

Supporting Native Plants
How do you support native plants and native insects? Plant locally-native plants and declare a truce with your insect neighbors. (That means hold back on the insecticide raids.) The best way to find out what insect-plant associations exist in your area is to go to nearby natural area or an arboretum with a good diversity of native plants on a sunny warm day, preferably between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm (peak activity hours for diurnal insects). Your backyard is also a good study site. Take an afternoon and visit another world filled with beautiful colors, wonderful smells, incredible variety, and hard-working inhabitants. Sounds a lot like paradise. Enjoy!'; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Plant Sale Pointers'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

Coyote MintWe want to encourage you to plant our local plants in your garden, so at our annual fall plant sale we try to keep our prices low and carry most of our stock in small-size containers. As an additional aid to you in making decisions about what to buy, here are a few things you may want to consider.

  • If you want wildflowers, plant grasses as a matrix for them. Grasses make a good visual setting for the wildflowers, but they also help to shade roots so the soil doesn\'t dry out too fast, and they provide hiding places for critters that serve ecological functions. You may attain a minimal balance of nature in your little plot.

  • If you are uncertain of your gardening skills, choose the plants that are frequently encountered in our wild areas. The reason they are still around is because they are tough and have wide tolerances.

  • Plant for all-year interest. Spring is exciting no matter what you plant, whereas summer and autumn may need a little help. Angelica, aster, bee plant, dudleya, goldenrod, gumplant, pearly everlasting, buckwheat, and seaside daisy are usually summer/autumn bloomers, although certain individuals of buckwheat and seaside daisy may bloom in spring. Did you ever notice how many of nature\'s most interesting creations come out in summer and autumn, the creepy-crawlies -- the slitherers, the mean dudes that look like they\'re up to no good (from a potential victim\'s perspective)? You want them in your garden, but you must have something to attract them there.

  • Think of interesting combinations. For example, the subtle silvery shades of California sagebrush are a "must" for a sunny dry garden. I cannot think of a better foil for so many of our natives: apricot-flowered bush monkey flower, pearly everlasting, angelica, dudleya, morning glory, coyote mint, clarkia, hummingbird sage, and woodmint, to name a few.

  • Some plants, especially annuals, are not feasibly grown in containers. We will endeavor to have some of them for sale as seed. There is a problem, however, in that you cannot just broadcast the seed in your garden and expect to see an explosion of color. The clarkia seed you scatter, even if it is not eaten by the birds, will likely be overwhelmed by weeds. You must prepare your ground well before sowing. Advice will be gladly given at the sale.

  • Buckeyes grow too fast for containers. We will have buckeye seed available and tell you how to plant it. Because buckeye taproots plunge straight down a couple of feet before any top growth shows, the root would hit the bottom of the can and start circling, and that could create problems. If you plant the seed directly into the soil, you will have a better-formed root system and have a larger plant in two years than if you had bought a one-year-old plant in a container -- and it will be healthier.


    SOME SUGGESTED PLANTS

    Forbs:
    acaena/garnet flower, Acaena pinnatifida var. californica
    angelica, Angelica hendersonii
    bee plant, Scrophularia californica
    blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium bellum
    buckwheat, Eriogonum latifolium
    clarkia, Clarkia rubicunda
    coast aster, Aster chilensis
    coyote mint, Monardella villosa ssp. franciscana
    dudleya, Dudleya farinosa
    goldenrod, Solidago spathulata/S. canadensis
    gum plant, Grindelia spp.
    hillside pea, Lathyrus vestitus
    horkelia, Horkelia californica
    hummingbird sage, Salvia spathacea
    iris, Iris douglasiana/I. longipetala
    morning glory, Calystegia spp.
    pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea
    seaside daisy Erigeron glaucus
    strawberry, Fragaria chiloensis/F. vesca
    woodmint, Stachys ajugoides var. rigida
    yarrow, Achillea millefolium

    Grasses:
    junegrass, Koeleria macrantha
    purple needlegrass, Nassella pulchra
    red fescue, Festuca rubra
    wild rye, Elymus glaucus

    Shrubs:
    bush monkeyflower, Mimulus aurantiacus
    California sagebrush, Artemisia californica
    coffeeberry, Rhamnus californica
    snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus
    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Invite Wildlife To Your Garden By Planting Local Natives'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    Poppy and beeThis year we give added emphasis to our advocacy of inviting wildlife to the garden. With the launching of our BackYard Natives project we are giving point and direction to this aspect, which should add another dimension of interest to the home garden. Pay attention to plants\' needs as sketched here. Observe them in the wild to get clues to their requirements. One simple rule is that plants frequendy need a bit more water in cultivation than in the wild. We advocate extending the rainy season into May or June, and starting to wake the garden in autumn by commencing irrigation in October. This supplemental watering should be on the light side, not the heavy irrigation customary in English-style gardens.

    Soils
    Soils in San Francisco and coastal San Mateo counties tend to be either sandy or a heavier soil, such as clay. Plants adapted to sand frequently suffer in heavier soils, especially in winter rainy spells; conversely, plants evolving in clay or other heavy substrate can\'t handle the porousness and water-scarceness of sand. My personal experience some of my favorite natives come from clayey sites-is that clay-derived plants planted in sandy soil usually either die outright or decline slowly, even when watered copiously. At our plant sale, we will have plants labeled as to whether they are suited to sandy soils or clay soils.

    What Is My Soil?
    If you are uncertain what type your soil is, we can probably tell you just from your address. In the city, our peaks and everything to the east of them are clay. West and north of Twin Peaks was sand, with the exception of the ridge to the west of Twin Peaks-historically known as Sunset Heights (running from Mt. Davidson/Merced Heights/Hawk Hill in the south to Grandview Park in the north). However, the west face of this ridge has an overburden of sand. Sand extended all the way from the ocean to the bay in the downtown area. San Mateo County is more complicated; heavier soils predominate, but very near the coast sand is frequently encountered.

    What Plants Attract Wildlife?
    What are some good plants to attract wild creatures? Nothing succeeds like success: start with the plants that have survived in the wild near you. Not only are they tough and the best adapted to survival under local conditions, their wildlife associates are likely to be in the vicinity, and in the greatest numbers.

    Nota bene: Moderately fast-growing trees such as buckeye and coast live oak are best planted as seed. Roots of plants kept in cans for more than a few weeks start circling the can instead of diving straight down to tap deeper moisture sources. When they become pot-bound they are much slower to establish and grow than if they can form a natural root system. An acorn or buckeye seed will produce a larger tree within five years than a plant grown in a can with a two-year head start-and it will be healthier to boot. Consequently we try to have seed for these trees available at sales rather than offering them as plants. Ask for them. If you have room in your garden or a coast live oak-they DO take a lot of room-you cannot find a plant that is more wildlife-supporting with the possible exception of a willow.


    Plants For Sandy Soils:
    • yarrow - Achillea millefolium
    • dune sagebrush - Artemisia pycnocephala
    • California sagebrush - Artemisia californica
    • coast aster - Aster chilensis
    • beach evening primrose - Camissonia cheiranthifolia
    • seaside daisy - Erigeron glaucus
    • lizard tail - Eriophyllum staechadifolium
    • mock heather - Ericameria ericoides
    • buckwheat - Eriogonum latifolium
    • Franciscan wallflower - Erysimum franciscanum
    • red fescue - Festuca rubra
    • beach strawberry - Fragaria chiloensis
    • gum plant - Grindelia hirsutula or G. stricta
    • bush monkey flower - Mimulus aurantiacus
    Plants For Heavier Soils:
    • yarrow - Achillea millefolium
    • columbine - Aquilegia formosa
    • California sagebrush - Artemisia californica
    • coast aster - Aster chilensis
    • dogwood - Cornus sericea
    • silver hairgrass - Deschampsia caespitosa
    • seaside daisy - Erigeron glaucus
    • buckwheat - Eriogonum latifolium
    • lizard tail - Eriophyllum staechadifolium
    • Franciscan wallflower - Erysimum franciscanum
    • red fescue - Festuca rubra
    • woodland strawberry - Fragaria vesca
    • horkelia - Horkelia californica
    • Douglas iris - Iris douglasiana
    • coast iris - Iris longipetala
    • coyote mint - Monardella villosa
    • purple needlegrass - Nassella pulchra
    • self-heal - Prunella vulgaris var. lanceolata
    • islay/holly-leaf cherry - Prunus ilicifola
    • wood mint - Stachys ajugoides
    • snowberry - Symphoricarpos albus var. laevigatus
    • arroyo willow - Salix lasiolepis
    • twinberry - Lonicera involucrata
    • evening primrose - Oenothera elata ssp. hookeri
    • pink currant - Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum
    • blue elderberry - Sambucus mexicana
    • yerba buena - Satureja douglasii

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Lichens In The City'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    "I remember Mimi asking me as a child to make a lens by curling my fingers around to my thumb. I closed one eye and, with the other, looked through my hand lens. I played with scale. Blades of grass were transformed into trees, a gravel bed became a boulder field. Small rivulets pouring over moss became the great rivers of our continent. My world was my own creation. It still is."-Terry Tempest Williams

    Caloplaca lichenIt sometimes seems-at least to a city dweller-that we are intent on destroying the last vestiges of the natural world. In San Francisco, there is one redoubt for the natural in the form of lichens, which are happy in seemingly inhospitable places. (I am, for the time being, ignoring their vulnerability to air pollution.) They unobtrusively go about their business of photosynthesizing, in the process creating forms, textures, and colors of exquisite and subtle beauty. Few, if any of them, are noticed by passers-by, hurrying to their next task in the human-created world. I am confused by our ability to recognize beauty when it is framed and hanging on a museum wall, while we remain oblivious to everyday scenes which, if viewed in a museum, we would praise. Why do we not see these scenes without the imprimatur of a museum? There is further irony in the fact that the artifact-storage function of a museum is a poor substitute for the real thing.

    Lichens are most common on tree trunks and rocks, especially on their north sides, but I have found them on concrete sidewalks and painted metal railings, even on a car (see Yerba Buena News , v.18, no.1 (March 2004), p.10). If you look at our concrete sidewalks you will notice a dull orange coloration. That is a lichen in the genus Caloplaca, and it likes calcium. (A species of Caloplaca is responsible for those brilliant oranges above treeline on the exposed granite peaks of the high Sierra, blasted by icy winds and under constant irradiation by ultraviolet rays. A different species enlivens pines and cypresses along the immediate coast, here and, especially, at Pt. Lobos State Reserve south of Carmel.)

    Various hues of sage greens are the most common colors of lichens, but there are whites, grays, blues, yellows, and oranges-even bright red in the case of a species called "British soldiers." I had a small colony of a brilliant chrome-yellow lichen growing on a curbside pine tree in front of my house. Thinking to encourage it, I supplemented nature\'s water supply from the hose. The lichen died. In a casual conversation later, I was told that the chloramine (chlorine plus ammonia) that is added to our water kills invertebrates, and I decided that that was what killed my lichen. Another distressing thought was that the huge brush pile in my backyard that I have been building up for years to encourage wildlife was doubtless loaded with salamanders, worms, and other creatures that breathe through their skin. Although my garden gets little water, I have watered the brush pile a couple of times during the summer to keep my Fuchsia \'Fanfare\' blooming for the hummingbirds. Bad move. Henceforth it subsists solely on rain.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'It Doesn\'t Have Nine Lives'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    CeanothusLike human beings and other animals, a plant has a budget. In order to exist, its income must equal or exceed its outgo. If you will remember this simple principle it will spare you taking action detrimental to your plants. The principle applies to all plants, but the thrust of this article regards primarily woody plants because they are longer-lived.

    The means by which a plant makes a living is through the rays of the sun. The plant\'s leaves are able to capture the sun\'s energy (miraculous when you think about it), and use that energy source to fuse hydrogen and oxygen from water with carbon dioxide from the air to produce carbohydrates (sugars and starches). This is its income. It uses this income to "finance" growth: new leaves and shoots, new wood, trunk and branch expansion, new roots. After it has taken care of these needs, energy produced in excess of this will be stored ("banked") in various tissues, especially in the roots. If it has enough income banked, it will use some of it to produce flowers and fruits.

    What does all this mean to the gardener? Simply this: if you want your plant to thrive and to maximize its production of either new growth or flowers and fruits, you must understand how things look from the plant\'s point of view. After investing most of its stored energy (bank account) in a burst of spring growth, that investment must be allowed to do its work-photosynthesizing-to pay back the investment which produced it. If you heavily prune a winter-dormant plant in, say, May or June, you severely deplete the plant\'s energy that had been stored but is now in actively growing areas. Depending on the severity of the energy draw-down, you may kill a plant or permanently stunt its growth-you may have created a situation where the plant\'s income either is less than its outgo or exactly matches its outgo and it is no longer able to bank funds. Have you ever noticed a plant producing a burst of flowering just before it dies? That is because it "knows" it is going to die. Its outgo exceeds its income and it is putting its last energy into flowering and fruiting in order to consummate its existence by producing seeds before it dies, thus ensuring future generations.

    As you can see, heavy pruning should be confined to autumn and winter to minimize energy loss - with a proviso for natives. Many California native plants have a different rhythm from most garden plants; they are semi-dormant in the dry season to escape the drought and they grow during the cool, moist winter and spring. You would not want to prune them during the winter when they are actively growing. Be aware of a plant\'s life cycle when pruning or transplanting.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Your Garden In Winter'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    ManzanitaReaders of this newsletter know that we pay attention to the wildlife value of garden plants. Another aspect that I stress is discipline and foresight - giving thought to the consequences of what and where you plant. One of the perennial infirmities of gardeners - it afflicts us all - is that we think mainly or only of spring. Glorious but brief... In the case of a native garden, if you are disciplined (or lazy) and don\'t water much, a garden loaded for spring will not have much going in summer, autumn, and winter. Spring is the party; summer is the morning after. A discerning person can see interest even in the dormant season but most will want a little more positive feedback from their gardens - to hell with sophistication. In a future article I will talk summer; in this one, I talk winter.

    A garden planned with one eye cocked on winter is not difficult. Go for a walk in the woods or the countryside in winter and see how nature, the great teacher, does it. Nor does the winter garden preclude color or interest in other seasons. What is it that appeals to you? Is it the shiny, smooth, yellow stems of the dormant willow or the coral red of the creek dogwood; the hummingbird - attracting heather bells of manzanita; the contrast of dark brown fronds of lady fern partially covering new bright green ones; the large, waxy white snowberries on thin, ramifying branches, so beloved by birds as they descend warily by degrees to ground level, checking for danger all the way to their water source or feeding ground; the elongated clusters of brilliant red translucent berries of California honeysuckle; emerging scallop-margined, blue-green leaves of columbine; woodland strawberry creeping through a carpet of decaying tree leaves; coffeeberry and wax myrtle with their abundant fruits that sustain birds through winter? Are you enchanted by the winter bloomers (usually January) - slinkpod with its striking fawn-spotted, pleated leaves and odd but beautiful purple-brown flowers on long thin pedicels; silk tassel bush bearing long pendant catkins and handsome tough leaves; and the popular pink currant? And don\'t forget that cheerful harbinger with all those apt names - footsteps of spring, yellow mats, bearpaws.

    Those are some of my winter visions. Thev can\'t all be combined in one scene, of course. If I could realize my fantasies in a small city garden it would include a calm body of water bordered by snowberry, lady fern, and columbine, and reflecting bare stems of willows and dogwoods - and rocks, rocks, rocks covered with many species of lichens, liverworts, and mosses.

    We endeavor to provide many of these plants at our annual plant sale to make your winter dream a reality in your own garden. Fantasize.

    WINTER PLANTS: A GLOSSARY

    • bear paws - Sanicula arctopoides
    • California honeysuckle - Lonicera hispidula var. vacillans
    • coffeeberry - Rhamnus californica
    • columbine - Aquilegia formosa
    • creek dogwood - Cornus sericea
    • currant - Ribes sanguineumvar. glutinosum
    • footsteps of spring - Sanicula arctopoides
    • lady fern - Athyrium filix-femina
    • manzanita - Arctostaphylos spp.
    • silk tassel - Garrya elliptica
    • slinkpod - Scoliopus bigelovii
    • snowberry - Symphoricarpos albusvar. laevigatus
    • wax myrtle - Myrica californica
    • willow - Salix spp.
    • woodland strawberry - Fragaria vesca
    • yellow mats - Sanicula arctopoides
    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Your Garden In Summer'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    monkey flowerLook at urban backyards_I use the term "backyard" because most of them don\'t deserve to be called gardens. The usual sight in the Bay Area is a hodgepodge of plants bearing no relation to one another, either visually, ecologically, or by any criterion you choose. Do the owners not care? I think that, like me, they often do care but feel helpless. There is reason for our ineptness. Backyards consisting of twenty-five by fifty feet of unvaried topography that is typical of San Francisco and suburbs hardly inspires the latent artist in us. It is more than lack of inspiration_such a plot defies design. If you look down on the garden from higher ground you see all the neighboring rectangles, each with a different aggregation of unrelated plants, each with a different design conception, if there is one at all. Such a situation would defeat even a Japanese master skilled in illusion of scale. That scale business is a hard one, impossible in most of our gardens. Still, we can learn to have a more pleasing garden by observing nature and emulating some of her devices, particularly form, color, and texture.

    I do not know how to design; my attempts don\'t even have the charm of an amateur, they are just misbegotten and clumsy. Yet I appreciate good design and hunger for it, and I suspect I have company. If we are to take nature as exemplar, we need to look at areas with integrity, not the usual trashed landscapes to which we have become inured. Ever notice how everything fits together, relates to each other, harmonizes, is proportional and in scale_how the landscape "reads"? When I think of nearly-intact landscapes in the California lowlands, I think first of Montara Mountain. Yes, Montara Mountain, right here in the midst of one of the largest agglomerations of people in the world. Except for trails and roads - open wounds or breaches of nature\'s defense system, exposed to infection by weed pathogens - the mountain represents one of the few areas in lower-elevation California deserving the term pristine.

    In June when the rains are past, hike from San Pedro Valley County Park up through the chaparral on the Montara, Brooks Falls, or Hazelnut trails. You will be diverted from the scenic grandeur by the profusion of apricot-colored bush monkey flowers, dead-white pearly everlastings emerging from fine-bladed melic grass, lavender coyote mints, white angelicas, creamy flat-topped umbels of blue elderberry against dulled blue-green leaves, pink honeysuckles and white-tinged-pink morning glories cascading down in fruitful abundance from taller shrubs, deciduating cinnamon bark of scattered madrones bearing handsome rhododendron-like leaves, chinquapins_demonstrating the justice of their scientific name, Chrysolepis chrysophylla (golden-scaled golden leaf)_suffusing the leaf-littered forest floor with a warm golden glow. Sound colorful? Yes, but restraint is the word here; nature paints with a disciplined palette. The hues are soft, gentle, with an abundance of light pinks, coppers and bronzes, whites, sage greens, and gray-blues. The Japanese term shibui may not be totally appropriate here_my concept of the term is understatement to the subtlest degree_but it is in that direction. Surely we can get a few ideas from such a scene?


    GLOSSARY OF PLANTS

    angelica, Angelica hendersonii
    blue elderberry , Sambucus mexicana
    bush monkey flower, Mimulus aurantiacus
    California honeysuckle, Lonicera hispidula var. vacillans
    chinquapin, Chrysolepis chrysophylla var. minor
    coyote mint, Monardella villosa ssp. franciscana
    madrone, Arbutus menziesii
    melic grass, Melica spp.
    morning glory, Calystegia purpurata ssp. purpurata
    pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Wild Cucumber (Marah)'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    Wild Cucumber"So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea...and when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; and therefore the name of it was called Marah."-Exodus 15:22

    Many people refer to plants of the genus Marah as manroot, a suitable name. I have always preferred the name wild cucumber because of its obvious relationship to the family that gives us our cucumbers, melons, squashes, pumpkins, gourds, and chayotes. There are five species of Marah in California, the most widespread being California cucumber or manroot, M. fabaceus. This is one of the earliest plants to start growth after the first rains. Its survival depends on this early start while water is available. Growth is exceedingly rapid and you can measure it day-to-day --you can almost see it grow. Wild cucumber needs to do this so that it can climb (by sensitive tendrils) to overtop shrubs and other plants and spread out its blanket of foliage to absorb the sun\'s rays. The plant is more than 99% water; break a growing stem and watch the water leak out. Water seems to be its only limiting factor; after the rains stop it goes dormant. Summer drought is seemingly what keeps it in balance in nature. In copiously-watered Golden Gate Park, for example, Marah can be an evergreen pest, smothering shrubs and small trees under blankets of foliage.

    This blanket of foliage traps a lot of energy from the sun. Where does the energy go? Into the root, which in this case is a large tuber, a very large tuber. The tubers on older manroots can exceed a large man\'s size. Sometimes the tuber will divide, appearing to have legs. A specimen tuber of M. macrocarpus of unknown age dug at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (RSABG) stood for many years at the entrance to the Administration Building there. It had been transported on a flatbed truck, was several feet in diameter, and weighed 467 pounds, excluding several basal tubers left in the ground.

    While I was a gardener in Golden Gate Park, there was an unwanted plant growing beside my toolbox. I continually pulled up its new shoots, attempting to starve the root. It showed no signs of giving up after five-and-a-half years so I decided to dig it up. Although not a rival for the RSABG tuber, it was big enough-about three feet long and one foot diameter. Being deprived of ability to photosynthesize during that period had had no apparent effect on it. It was firm of flesh and sound in every fiber. Good thing I decided to take that shortcut, otherwise it would have outlasted me.

    Plants in San Francisco are California manroot, Marah fabaceus, except for a single plant of the coast manroot, M. oreganus, off Sunnydale Avenue in McLaren Park. Coast manroot is plentiful on San Bruno Mountain and Montara Mountain. The name Marah suits it; all parts are exceedingly bitter; touch your tongue to a cut root and your jaw will lock. This strong a chemical defense indicates potential medicinal use. The cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae) in California-which includes five species of Marah, as well as the desert members Brandegea and the gourds (coyote melon and calabazilla in the genus Cucurbita)-was a pharmacopoeia, a veritable drugstore for native people. Roots were used as a purgative, as were seeds. Stroughton\'s Bitters, a laxative, was made from California manroot. Natives threw crushed root into waterbodies to stun fish and used its seed oil for a variety of purposes. I am unsure what wildlife make use of this plant, except that rodents and scrub jays cache its seeds. You can be sure that there are creatures which have found a use for such a common and widespread plant.

    A note on the derivation of its scientific name: Munz in his Flora of California incorrectly states that Marah was from an aboriginal name. Another biblical citation is Ruth 1:20: "Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me." Other sources say it is Latin, but perhaps the Romans used the biblical reference for the origin of their word for bitter?

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Pink Flowering Currant (Ribes Sanguineum Var. Glutinosum)'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    Pink Flowering Currant

    Pink currant is one of the easiest of all our native plants to grow. It tolerates a broad range of conditions-sand, clay, wet, dry, sun or partial shade, acid or neutral soils. It is a modestly good-looking shrub that can be accommodated by small city gardens of our chapter area. Its broad, two- to three-inch-wide lobed and scalloped leaves are attractive. It is deciduous in the wild, dropping its leaves by late summer when running low on water, but when irrigated in a garden it tends to hang onto them. I recommend withholding water by midsummer to encourage it to shed its leaves so you can enjoy its pendant panicles of warm pink flowers on bare branches in the dead of winter-usually January or February-and its good form, pleasing bark and buds. The flowers are followed by quarter-inch diameter glaucous, blue-black berries insipid to human taste but eagerly consumed by birds. The seeds are excreted over wide areas, resulting in occasional seedlings volunteering in our gardens.

    With all its virtues and ease of cultivation, you would expect this to be a popular plant in local gardens. I have frequently seen it in Tasmanian, New Zealand, and English gardens-why isn\'t it more commonly planted here? Is there an apprehension that native plants are difficult to grow or that they require special conditions? Some do, but not this one. Maybe you just hadn\'t previously thought of this plant as an appropriate subject for your San Francisco garden. Well, now you know!

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'California Buckeye (Aesculus californica)'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    BuckeyeThe California buckeye (Aesculus californica) is common in the Bay Area but harsh winds, sandy soils, and other factors conspired to prevent very many trees from growing in San Francisco prior to European contact. A Flora of San Francisco, California, published in 1958, states that Archibald Menzies in the 1792 Vancouver Expedition records the buckeye on the "skirts of the Bay and hilly Country behind" in the northeastern part of what is now San Francisco.

    The flora reported only one tree extant in the city in 1958 and it is still thriving at the Caltrain station at 22nd and Pennsylvania Streets. Subsequently we have located a sizable one in a backyard at the base of a cliff at the open space at Palou and Phelps Streets. Other large ones are on the shoreline of Mallard Lake in Golden Gate Park and in a front yard at 2694 McAllister Street, corner of Willard.

    The trunk of the last-noted one is approximately two feet diameter just above its swollen base. Knobby excrescences and fused branches invite visual inspection, one fusing branch producing a ten-inch-diameter doughnut hole. Some of the limbs are larger than the trunks of most trees you will encounter. An impressively large California bay laurel keeps it close company. But you should see the trees soon-they are growing in front of an old empty cottage with an unkempt yard (as is the cottage next door) and they both have "condo" written all over them. It would be nice if the landowner were enlightened enough to save them but the world isn\'t like that, is it?

    BuckeyeAre these cited trees indigenous occurrences? Estimating the age of a buckeye is not easy. Buckeyes have a moderate growth rate even when growing in fairly dry surroundings. When water is available growth can be rapid, so that a large tree is not necessarily very old. Buckeyes share with olives the ability to look ancient after only a few decades. In the case of the McAllister tree, reasoning tells you that it is not likely that a buckeye grew atop windswept sand dunes. Lack of water and leaves sensitive to wind would prohibit that. More likely the buckeye and the bay were planted by the owner after the cottage was built. The Mallard Lake tree could be indigenous because it is growing in a depression, out of the wind and where the water table was probably high enough. However, abundant water is provided by the lake and it could have been planted within the last five or six decades.

    Buckeyes are easy to grow and if you have space in your yard (they will eventually want to spread thirty feet or more) you might want to pick up a seed at our November plant sale. We recommend seed rather than a plant because a buckeye grows quickly from seed, it will have a better-formed root system, and it will grow faster than if you had started from a plant in a can.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Buckwheats, Eriogonums'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    buckwheatWould you like a well-behaved garden plant that, once established, no longer requires attention, needs little or no water beyond rainfall, is compact and shapely, easily blends into other colors and textures, is attractive at all times of the year to humans and to wildlife, AND is easy to grow? Look into the many kinds of Eriogonum (called buckwheat), the largest genus in California after Carex (sedges).

    And such a genus! One would be hard-pressed to come up with another group of plants containing so many eye-catching varieties that make the beholder think how nice it would be to have them in the garden. At the moment, I can\'t think of a single species that hasn\'t evoked that feeling in me. With 115 species in California, you expect a range of form and color-from the numerous perennials that range from diminutive alpine cushions to four-foot-tall shrubs to those wonderful annuals with red thread-like branches that proliferate on road shoulders in deserts and other arid areas.

    Buckwheats have gray, gray-green, or white leaves of pleasing form and texture. Hundreds of tiny flowers are aggregated into dense heads. The flowers are white fading to pink, yellow fading to red, or, occasionally red fading to deeper red. When dried, the flower heads become a subtly eye-catching russet or auburn, which is ideally contrasted by the grayish leaves. Plants look thrifty even at the end of a dry summer.

    buckwheat & beeEriogonum culture can be conveyed in two words: sun and drainage. Different species of buckwheat are found all the way from coastal dunes to the highest alpine zones and they are pronounced inhabitants of arid areas, including deserts. With that variety of habitats, it is not to be expected that they are all going to be happy in your garden. Nevertheless, as a group they are very adaptable, and experimentation may prove rewarding. In any event, you will find many that will be happy, with a modicum of attention to their needs.

    Start with your local species (always a good idea anyway), which in our area is the beautiful coast buckwheat, Eriogonum latifolium, available at our November plant sale and at the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Center (HANC) recycling center (at Frederick and Arguello Streets near Kezar Stadium in Golden Gate Park). Nature gives a clue: coast buckwheat grows naturally in sand dunes at Pacifica and Crissy Field, between bushes in coastal scrub, in cracks in the rocks of cliffs, and in grasslands where soil is thin and rocky. I try to imitate nature as much as possible, so I plant its natural companions with it-bunchgrasses, yarrow (Achillea millefolium), dudleya, acaena (Acaena pinnatifida var. californica), clarkias, lupines, poppies, and blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium bellum). If it finds your garden suitable to its needs it may self-sow. It comes up in cracks in the sidewalk in front of my house and I encourage its peregrinations because coast buckwheat provides forage for native bees and butterflies and because its gray and pink tones soften the harsh look of the concrete and harmonize with it. The openness and warmth from the concrete are to its liking, and there is adequate moisture trapped beneath.

    There are California buckwheats available in the trade which are not native to our area but which make good garden subjects: Eriogonum arborescens, E. giganteum, E. x blissianum, E. grande var. rubescens, and E. crocatum. The first three are two- to four-foot shrubs; E. grande var. rubescens looks similar to our native, but its flowers are deep pink to red; and E. crocatum has white leaves with chrome-yellow flowers. (Some of these can be seen in the native garden at Strybing Arboretum & Botanical Gardens.) Please avoid planting invasive non-native buckwheats like E. fasciculatum and E. parvifolium. The latter, planted by Caltrans many years ago along Highway 1 through Pacifica, has invaded the dunes at Pacifica State Beach and has almost completely displaced the native E. latifolium. Although native to the coast just a few miles south of Pacifica, E. parvifolium evidently lacks its natural controls here and becomes rambunctious.

    I hope to explore this wonderful group of plants more thoroughly in a later article. With or without drought, water is going to be a problem in California\'s future because of inexorable population pressures. When that happens, dry gardens will become fashionable, and buckwheats are going to leap into prominence at the head of the crowd in this latest fad.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = ' Contaminating the Gene Pool'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    Monkey FlowersI would like to address the home gardener from a broader perspective, where I see the main issue. CalTrans and environmental consultants have all sorts of mitigation and revegetation going on. I think particularly of something in my back yard, San Bruno Mountain. Congress passed an amendment in 1982 to the Endangered Species Act that created habitat conservation plans (HCPs), and the first such was here. From the beginning it was compromised. Environmental consultants or subcontractors were hired, but the genetic stock that was used there for restoration was not appropriate for San Bruno Mountain. For example, they scattered seed of a red flowering form of bush monkeyflower, Mimulus aurantiacus, from southern California in a misguided attempt.

    And now those genes are passing into the wild population of northern Californian Mimulus aurantiacus, and you\'re getting all sorts of strange intermediate forms. Nobody knows what is going to be the long-term effects of this gene flow into the wild population, but since we don\'t know, we shouldn\'t be doing it. We shouldn\'t be doing it, period. It\'s genetic pollution, and that is the sort of thing which I am concerned about.

    Now, this is a roundabout way of getting to the home gardener, which is a lesser concern to me. A home gardener, if he puts a bush monkeyflower from southern California into his home garden on the slopes of Twin Peaks in San Francisco, and they pass into the wild population of bush monkeyflower, may not be so serious for the simple reason that in time whatever genetic pollution there is will probably die out. But on San Bruno Mountain, where you\'ve got massive seed sowing you\'ve got genetic swamping, you\'ve got all these foreign genes that are going to overwhelm the native population.

    Another example: There\'s been a lot of seed sowing of California poppies, and a lot of them probably come from those gorgeous great big, deep orange forms from Antelope Valley down in southern California. They\'re genetically different from what we have up here, and especially as you get towards the ocean you get smaller and yellower flowers, maybe not quite as showy, but they\'re distinct. So when people sow poppy seeds all over the place, as they have been for many years, the gene pool is contaminated, and we don\'t know whether it\'s good or bad or what the consequences are. All we know is that it\'s happening.

    Human beings live their lives on very short time scales. Nature thinks in geological ages. The Earth has been through all sorts of climatic changes, where you have periods of several hundred years of drought, of warming, of cooling, of this, that, and the other thing. The genes for all the native plants have been sorted out over a very, very long time scale, and they\'re very finely tuned to their environment. \'When we introduce exotic genes - exotic meaning not of this place - it could be a very short distance away. It could be like, instead of plants from San Francisco, you plant plants from Napa County or Monterey, or even the East Bay for that matter-which may do very well in the short term, but in the long term nobody knows what effect they\'re going to have. They may weaken or even cause the extinction of a particular species.

    This has a lot of practical effects. For example, the Forest Service is looking now for strains of sugar pine that are resistant to white pine blister rust. If they plant thousands of acres of those trees, which would be grown from seed that is selected from resistant trees, we don\'t know what other genes those trees might have. They might succumb to long-period droughts. They might succumb to freezing temperatures or warming or, you know, there\'s just a zillion factors that Nature is concerned about that human beings don\'t have a clue about. Does that make sense?

    It\'s this factor that weighs on my mind. I don\'t want to appear overly precious in terms of the home gardener. That\'s of much less importance, and it\'s just that I would like, wherever possible, to get people thinking in terms of preserving the genetic integrity of the local landscape. It requires people to care and to know, and we are living in the midst of an environmentally illiterate society. As long as we are living in that society, then we\'re going to have these very bad decisions because that\'s where the power is.

    One more example of potential genetic pollution would be in the Presidio of San Francisco, where the Army had planted cultivars of Ceanothus griseus from the Monterey area, the ground-hugging ones, \'Yankee Point\' and \'Hurricane Point.\' The Army planted some of these cultivars along Lincoln Boulevard in the Presidio, and Ceanothus griseus is closely related to the native Ceanothus thyrsillorus, the prostrate form of that, which occurs in the Presidio. And as of today, any genetic damage is not apparent. The reason for that is that ceanothus is a fire-dependent species and does not regenerate from seed except in the presence of fire or some other disturbance.

    So there is no apparent damage done by these plantings, which have been there for several decades. Now, if there ever is a fire or a bulldozing or some kind of disturbance, then I think all of a sudden we re going to find a lot of intermediate seedlings between the indigenous C thysiflorus and these C. griseus hybrids or cultivars. So this is a time capsule. This is not going to happen for X many years in the future. It\'s not apparent right now.

    It would be good if people in their home gardens would think in these terms if they live near a natural area. Even in San Francisco we have quite a few natural areas around. They re pocket sized, and they all require a lot of management, but they are still there, and we\'ve still got several hundred species of native plants. It would be good if people were aware of the fact that they ought to be augmenting the indigenous population, which is very, very small and beleaguered. If you plant another form of the same species, not only might those genes pass into the wild, which may or may not be much of a concern but it might be that the native wildlife don\'t find your plant particularly inviting, palatable.

    I\'d keep preaching the doctrine, and people would say, "\'Well, where can I get these plants? and I\'d say, "You can\'t." Well, obviously it was a problem. So that\'s why we started our chapter (CNPS) plant sale, and from the get-go we have always offered only locally collected native plants. We don\'t offer any other kind for sale. So they can get them from us at our annual sale in November. There are a number of problems that we haven\'t ironed out yet. This is not an ideal way to do business, but it\'s a start; you\'ve got to create the awareness. We hope that the idea will grow and people will become more sensitized to this issue.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Winter Botany In The Bay Area'; article.authors = 'Sigg,Jake'; article.content = '

    SF WallflowerIf you are unable to travel to southern California to enjoy the early season, what might you see in December and January right here in the Bay Area? In our region, most of the germinating seeds are actually annual non-native invasive weeds. The slower-growing native perennials have a competitive disadvantage of becoming established from seed. Most of the spring bloomers here are long-lived perennials which die down to the roots in the dry season and revive with the rains.

    To a knowing eye, a gardener\'s eye, the awakening of the earth after the first autumn rains is one of the most enjoyable times of the year, offering an excitement that holds its own against the full efflorescence of spring. After the early "germinating" rains, look for Polypodium ferns, and spot the first green leaves of native bunchgrasses, the bold wavy leaves of soap plant (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), and the foliage of aster, gum plant (Grindelia spp.), Douglas and coast iris, checkerbloom (Sidalcea), and many others, which are usually leafing out by Christmas time.

    Sun-warmed south-facing slopes are where to look for early wildflowers. The same species of plant may flower a month or two later on the cool north faces. Harbingers of spring on warm slopes are the well-named footsteps-of-spring (Sanicula arctopoides), lace parsnip and bladder parsley (Lomatium dasycarpum, L. caruifolium), miniature star lilies (Zigadenus fremontii - only on Bernal), and buttercups (Ranunculus californicus). You can\'t beat San Bruno Mountain\'s Summit Trail for a profusion of all the early spring bloomers, which include rock cress (Arabis blepharophylla), San Francisco wallflower (Erysimum franciscanum), miner\'s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata), and many others.

    Foetic Adder\'s TongueMontara Mountain is dominated by shrubs, and they put on a subtly beautiful show in winter and early spring. The creation of the Hazelnut Trail many years ago breached the shrub community, and native wildflowers moved into the narrow opening in the shrub layer. This is home to the beautiful little foetid adder\'s tongue or slinkpod (Scoliopus bigelovii) and other early-blooming species. You can visit this trail on Randy Zebell\'s chapter field trip in February. Edgewood Park in San Mateo County offers hard-to-find early-flowerers, such as hound\'s tongue (Cynoglossum grande), leatherwood (Dirca occidentalis-but you\'ll have to look hard for this rarity), and silk tassel (Garrya elliptica). A February CNPS Santa Clara Valley Chapter field trip (http://www.cnps-scv.org) would give you the best assurance of locating these plants. Muir Woods is a delightful nearby treasure of a redwood forest habitat, where you can see early-blooming understory plants such as milk maids (Cardamine californica), as well as a plethora of winter-rich ferns.

    Striking early-flowering shrubs - oso berry (Oemleria cerasiformis), with spring-fresh green leaves accompanying pendant clusters of white flowers, and pink flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum), whose flowers hang from still-bare branches - in most years bloom during December in Glen Canyon, Mt. Davisdson, and the oak woodlands of Golden Gate Park. The red berries of toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) are another winter treat, not to be missed.

    Those who are local-bound and confined to public transportation have access to one of the richest examples of a wide variety of early-blooming native plants. San Francisco Botanical Garden\'s Arthur Menzies Garden of California Native Plants is a veritable cornucopia, where you can see pink flowering currant, silk tassel, manzanitas, ceanothus, and many other plants, in naturalistic gardens that are easily accessible and displayed for your pleasure.

    Don\'t hibernate! Discover a new perspective on the "wildflower season" and a new affinity with nature\'s wonderful processes of rebirth.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Origins Of Appreciation: Considering Garden Influences'; article.authors = 'Songster,Dan'; article.content = '

    child in gardenParents rarely if ever consider what type of effect the garden they are planting will have on their children. Certainly other influences will have their place, but let\'s not underestimate the memories of our youth and the strong influence early experiences have upon our mature attitudes, appreciation, even our interests and actions. Nearly any real garden will in some way communicate a love of plants - anything from cactus to rose gardens! That in itself is certainly a good thing. There is something in plants which speak to us, not just to us as grown ups, but to us at ANY level in our lives.

    What type of garden is best for children? Should it be a pristine garden, exactly maintained, showing a child that gardens are precisely arranged collections of beautiful flowers and interesting plants, not to be touched? Ideally, a garden should allow and encourage interaction and participation by children, allowing investigation and rewarding curiosity. How much better, if those experiences include plants native to our region! If they do, perhaps the pungent aroma of sage and sagebrush will in later life bring back the pleasant memories of youthful play - of the hummingbird magically suspended as it sips from hummingbird sage or coral bells, of sitting near the fragrant chaparral currant, or of climbing the low spreading branches of the native redbud or walnut.

    Yes, even activities with parents can be memorable. See the bumblebee in the penstemon? After the bee is gone examine the flower with its colored directional marks showing the bee just where to go. Observe the finches collecting all sizes of twigs to create their nest, and watch the young ones arrive and learn to fly. What about hatching "their own" butterflies in a garden including both native food plants for the larval stage (caterpillars) to eat and a nectar source for the adult butterflies to sip. What a gift to teach children about the magic of a caterpillar becoming a cocoon and then a butterfly. They can watch it in their garden (and invite their friends over to see something really cool).

    Of course, the more accessible a garden is to the child the better. Imagine a young adult recalling stories of hiding behind the clumps of deergrass and sage, using leaves to imprint the still moist surface of clay bowls (or the wet concrete of patios or pathways), examining strands of algae from the small pond with Mimulus guttatus along its border. (Eyes get bigger when peering through the magical handlens.) I believe the garden environment children are reared in can be just as important as a natural history museum. Perhaps more so since they are immersed in it so often, especially if they feel at least a part of the garden is "theirs"!

    So what about a part of the garden to call their own? A little help could prompt a teepee of sticks covered with rapidly growing island morning glory, Calystegia macrostegia \'Anacapa\'. Imagine lying back inside and viewing the pale pink flowers against a blue sky. With subtle instructions children could also plant lovely wildflowers, learning the basics of soil, seed, patience, and reward. Imagine how they would respond when family, friends, or guests commented on fantastic clarkia, California poppy, tansy-leaf phacelia, and other easy-to-grow species of great beauty. (And these wildflowers can be grown in containers if space is a consideration.)

    Teaching a child about the uses made of native plants by Native Americans is another possibility. Experience together acorn pancakes, simple basketry, natural soaps, and flutes from the fast-growing Mexican elderberry. A crown woven of native grasses and wildflowers is beautiful when fresh and a wonderful keepsake as a dried arrangement. As a child grows there is always a next level of wonder and interaction available in a living garden imaginatively designed and made available to the child.

    Providing excellent raw material for a child\'s memories is an essential part of parenting. What is our demeanor when in the garden with our children? It should be one of happiness, contentment, curiosity, and purpose. Their memories should be of their parents teaching them, helping them, sharing in little discoveries, not memories of hard work and sharp comments. Leave the day\'s irritations behind you and match your tone to that of the gentle, interesting, and generous garden. The lessons a garden can teach are endless and parents who do the preparation and research before engaging in shared projects direct the young mind to expect pleasure from discovery and excitement in its anticipation.

    Don\'t the years fly by? As children grow into a young adults, what will their feelings about our natural world be? Won\'t they be more inclined to preserve a section of coastal sage if they remember playing in fragrant artemisia and salvia? Having marveled at the little flock of tiny bushtits working their way through a loose hedge of lemonadeberry, will they not more readily see the connection between native plants and the animals they feed? If they have been brought up playing under an oak tree and hearing all the stories about the animals which depend upon it, won\'t they be more likely to vote to save an oak woodland nearby? If the small water feature in the back yard includes various native sedges and rushes, won\'t their understanding a bit of that system prompt them to worry about the health of the few riparian and wetland habitats left? Perhaps it will. Very probably, positive experiences in their home garden will extend to larger interactions with the surrounding parks and natural areas. Very likely, it will make them think about such issues seriously, and that is a huge step.

    And what a wonderful added benefit it is when a native garden wonderland serves to bring parents and children closer together, adding to the depth, richness, and warmth of their relationship.

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Seed Germination And Seedling Growth'; article.authors = 'Stephenson,Bobbie'; article.content = '

    SeedlingA Brief Consideration of Seedlings
    The winter rains have started and seedlings are peeking out of the soil in our local plant communities. What gets this process going? The three especially important environmental factors affecting germination are water, oxygen, and temperature. Water is the most critical.

    The seeds of flowering plants consist of an embryo, a seed coat, and stored food (endosperm). Most mature seeds contain only five to twenty percent of their total weight as water. Germination is not possible until the seed imbibes enough water for metabolic activities to begin. The amount of water imbibed is considerable and the seed swells. Pressure develops within the seed, causing the seed coat to rupture. The first structure to emerge from most seeds is the radicle, or embryonic root. This order of events reflects the primary needs of germinating seeds for water and for anchor in the soil.

    During the early stages of germination, respiration may be entirely anaerobic, but as soon as the seed coat is ruptured, the seed switches to aerobic respiration requiring oxygen. If the soil is waterlogged the amount of oxygen available to the seed may be inadequate for aerobic respiration and the seed will fail to germinate. As the soil dries, the swollen seeds are able to produce the energy for growth.

    Although many seeds will germinate over a wide range of temperatures, they usually will not germinate either below or above a certain temperature specific for each species. The optimum temperature varies with the metabolic requirements of the enzymes used in cell building and growth. The minimum temperature for most species is 0-5 degrees C; the upper, 45-48 degrees C; with the optimum of 25-30 degrees C. At either temperature extreme, the percentage of germination will be low.

    The most crucial phase in the life history of the plant is the period from germination to the time the seedling no longer depends on its endosperm. At that time the plant is most susceptible to injury by a wide range of insect pests and parasitic fungi, and water stress to the tiny seedling can very rapidly be fatal.

    What to Observe During a Winter Trip to San Diego County
    If you have and opportunity to spend some time in southern California this winter, look at some seedlings and think about all the biological processes going on within the little plants to get themselves established. And remember that, all over, in the duff of the chaparral, coastal sage scrub, oak woodlands, and other plant communities, are thousands, millions, maybe even trillions of seeds waiting to germinate in some future season. One way that plant populations have adapted to protect themselves against extinction is that the seeds they produce germinate over many years, never all in one year.

    In the coastal mesas and foothills of San Diego County, winter with its rains is the season of rebirth. We don\'t have to wait for the snow to clear. Tidy-tips (Layia platyglossa), poppies, and mesa saxifrage are already germinating by December and will soon (if they aren\'t already) be blooming. Some white-flowered Ceanothus species and many manzanitas (Arctostaphylos spp.) are showy in January along the coast, in canyons, in chaparral, and at higher elevations further inland. The tiny mesa saxifrage Jepsonia parryi can still be found in open areas of moist shaded chaparral and coastal sage scrub but its flowering period is almost over by January. Enjoy our bountiful winter!

    '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Gardening With Natives, Randy\'s Do\'s And Don\'ts: A Sunset District Perspective'; article.authors = 'Zebell, Randy'; article.content = '

    YarrowMy yard is beginning its third spring as a native plant restoration experiment. A few years ago I moved to a house in the Sunset District blessed with a neglected yard and a landlord who didn\'t care what I did, as long as I didn\'t ask him to help. I started, with the help of many friends, to cut back more than 20 years growth of mirror plant (Coprosma) and Himalayan blackberry, chopping, yanking, and swearing while progressing toward the back corner of the yard. Along the way we uncovered a stone walkway complete with two terraces, several engine blocks, and innumerable unidentifiable rusted car parts. Spurred on by these achievements, I descended upon our Yerba Buena Chapter\'s first native plant sale.

    Thus began the experiment. It turns out that my yard, and I suspect many a Sunset yard, is amenable to local native plants. The soil is mostly sand overlain by a foot of clayish top fill. The sand provides excellent drainage, which most natives prefer. It\'s not very hard to dig through the clay layer, provided it\'s still moist, and mix it with some of the sand to ensure drainage. My yard slopes westward, which provides fog and wind exposure, bad for tomatoes but good for locally adapted native plants. Coyote bush, poppies, scorpion plant, lupine, yarrow, yerba buena, columbine, and purple needlegrass are all thriving. The yard is now chock-full of insects and birds.

    If you find yourself wondering whether you have what it takes to grow native plants, stop wondering and just do it. Native plant gardening can be started on a small scale with very little effort, and can reap substantial rewards as you become more in tune with nature\'s cycles, processes, and inhabitants. The following list of do\'s and don\'ts will promote biodiversity in your very own backyard.

    • DO plant as many different species as possible. Select many growth forms, from trees and shrubs to grasses, perennial herbs, and annuals. Also try to select plants that flower over the entire season: red flowering currant, seaside daisy, and rock cress bloom in early spring, whereas coyote bush and native aster bloom much later in mid to late summer. This provides food for critters throughout the year.

    • DO bum seeds from friends. What grows well in a friend\'s yard will likely do well in yours too. I got California poppies, coast buckwheat, scorpion plant, and bee plant from a friend\'s yard and they\'re now spreading rapidly through my own. Native bumblebees flock to the poppies and scorpion plant.

    • DO be careful when weeding. When in doubt, don\'t pull it out. I have two additional native species in my yard only because I didn\'t give in to my initial urge to yank out unknown seedlings. Rather, I waited until the mystery seedlings grew and flowered, revealing them to be meadow foam and a native rush.

    • DO create as many types of habitat as feasible. I like to keep at least a small patch of bare soil open throughout the year. In spring, birds seem to enjoy pecking for seeds, worms, and insects in these patches, and later in the season I see lots of large steel blueblack wasps burrowing tunnels into the soil. Last year I found a few of those tunnels in a forgotten flower pot and uncovered grubs of some kind in various stages of poor health. One tunnel revealed a live grub with a small yellow egg attached; another housed a completely shriveled grub with an apparent wasp pupa surrounded by a cottony cocoon. Obviously these were some kind of parasitic wasp preying on my backyard grubs. This discovery felt every bit as exciting to me as a PBS nature show.

    • DON\'T use pesticides. One of the greatest pleasures of a native garden is seeing the diversity of insects increase over time. Pesticides harm beneficial insects as much as detrimental insects.

    • DON\'Tbe too neat; allow entropy to work for you. Don\'t clip and prune everything at once. Some insects need different parts of a plant at different times of year to complete their life cycle. Consider pruning only a third of your shrubs each season. This will give those creatures that overwinter as pupae a place to hang out undisturbed until spring or summer. If pruning or removing trees or large shrubs, why not leave a few open branches as perches for birds? Don\'t cart away all yard scraps to your compost pile or trash can-let them compost in place. Pile pulled weeds in the sun for a few days until they\'re completely dead, then return them to the soil surface as mulch to encourage earthworms and minimize evaporation. Leave some old logs, branches, or lumber in a corner pile on the ground. This makes great salamander habitat, as well as food for saprophytic fungi or even slime molds. A friend of mine has found three species of salamanders - arboreal, slender, and ensatina - underneath a lumber pile in his San Carlos yard, while I\'ve noticed at least two types of slime molds and several types of fungi fruiting on decaying logs in my yard. And don\'t rake up those leaves. Piles of decaying leaves are great places to find all kinds of small creatures, and they give birds like brown towhees a place to hunt for lunch.

      Happy experimenting!


      GLOSSARY OF PLANTS

      aster, Aster chilensis
      bee plant, Scrophularia californica
      California poppy, Eschscholzia californica
      coast buckwheat, Eriogonum latifolium
      columbine, Aquilegia formosa
      coyote bush, Baccharis pilularis
      lupine, Lupinus spp.
      meadow foam, Limnanthes douglasii
      purple needlegrass, Nassella pulchra
      red flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum var. glutinosum
      rock cress, Arabis blepharophylla
      scorpion plant, Phacelia californica
      seaside daisy, Erigeron glaucus
      yarrow, Achillea millefolium
      yerba buena, Satureja douglasii

      '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //***BEGIN ARTICLE ENTRY newArticle(); article.title = 'Gardening for Bees'; article.authors = 'Zebell, Randy'; article.content = '

      Bee and CheckerbloomI can\'t say exactly when I fell in love with bees. Perhaps it was the time I saw perfectly round, dime-sized holes cut into dozens of bright green leaves of the Clarkia plants I was carefully cultivating. It slowly dawned on me that the only possible explanation was that leaf-cutter bees had discovered an alternate use for my Clarkia leaves. I was familiar with leaf-cutter bees from PBS shows on the biodiversity of far-away tropical places. Could they really live here in San Francisco, too? Sure enough, they do. Or perhaps it was after I read "Bumble Bee Economics" by Bernd Heinrich, and learned that bumble bees can maintain a steady, high body temperature essential for their flight muscles to work over a very broad range of ambient temperatures from near freezing to well into the 90s. This is an incredible feat of biomechanical engineering for such a small creature. That\'s one reason whyyou see bumblebees, and not honey bees, foraging for nectar or pollen on cold days. Or perhaps it was when Iread that more than 450 species of native solitary bees had been identified within Pinnacles National Monument just south of us in San Benito County. Talk about biodiversity! Or perhaps...

      There are about 130 species of bees found in the Bay Area. Most are solitary bees, meaning a single female bee builds and provisions her own nest without the help of other bees. Others, like bumblebees, are semi-social. A single fertilized female bee starts a colony in spring that can grow to up to 250 bees by the summer\'s end, when all the bees die except for recently fertilized females that overwinter in a sheltered hole in the ground. A less common lifestyle is exhibited by the introduced European honey bee, one that is fully social. It forms large colonies of thousands of bees that live together, provisioning and enlarging the swarm throughout the year.

      Luckily for bee-lovers like me, it\'s easy to create bee-friendly gardens. All you have to do is give them what they want - water, flowers, and nesting sites - and avoid what they don\'t want - pesticides (it\'s best for bees and other beneficial insects to avoid all use of pesticides). Native plants evolved with the local bee species and are the best choice for attracting them into your garden. Try selecting plants that flower at different times of the year to maximize the duration of flowering in your yard. I can\'t recommend arroyo willow (Salix lasiolepis) too strongly. It\'s one of the earliest flowering species in our area and draws bumblebees from far and wide to gather pollen in my garden. Once I introduce a new generation of bumblebees to my backyard with willow flowers, I keep them coming back with silver beach lupine (Lupinus chamissonis), coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica), ceanothus (Ceanothus thrysiflorus), California poppies (Eschscholzia californica), phacelia (Phacelia californica), meadowfoam (Linmanthes sp.) (I know, it\'s not indigenous to San Francisco), and bee plant (Scrophularia cailfornica).

      Other types of bees seem to prefer other plants. I see what I suspect is a medium-sized solitary bee that is inordinately fond of checkerbloom (Sidalcea malvaeflora). I frequently find several bees curled up, seemingly lounging, in its blossoms. I keep a small patch of sunny ground free of vegetation for these bees because I\'ve noticed that they burrow small holes, about 1/4 inch in diameter, into the bare soil to excavate a home for their offspring. Other, even smaller, solitary bees seem to really enjoy my footsteps-of-spring (Sanicula arctopoides) before moving on to seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus). I don\'t yet know where these bees make their nests.

      One final word on bee gardening: Be sure to spend a lot of time just watching. I\'m sure you will be surprised by what you will discover about the not-so-secret life of bees. Also, you adventurous types should be sure to check out the bee condos for sale at www.beeworks.com. I have yet to try these in my yard; maybe next year.

      '; article.date = ''; addArticle(article); //***END ARTICLE ENTRY //************************OTHER ARTICLES***************************************// gardeningArticles = sortArticles(gardeningArticles, 'title');