veldt grass

Pulling veldt grass (Ehrhara erecta) in the oak woodlands. With this weed, it's all about consistency. It's flowering now, some dropping seed. A very prolific seeder, it also reproduces by stolons.

After removing the plant, space is suddenly created for about a trillion seedlings. All of which I try to pull before they set seed the next year. Like I said, persistence and consistency. You can't turn your back on a weed like this. So my problem isn't so much the population in the woodland. It's the population along the roadside.

I've written about this weed and this problem before and I come back to it because it takes up my mental energy. I have to figure out a solution to this problem. Cut and mulch it to death? Shrubby barrier between road and woodland? Spray again?

plants not planted

These flags mark a plot not planted. All the non-natives are pulled and we monitor what comes up. This plot lies within a one acre nasturtium area under coast live oaks. We are in the process of removing the nasturtium and replanting natives. This plot will hopefully tell me how much we need to replant and what might be waiting in the seed bank.

And just a few meters away. . .

is an area that one year ago was covered in english ivy. I trampled all over this place pulling and piling. Now it's nice and fluffy with woodmint, blackberry, and ferns.

It takes time, but we are making progress.

hands on the pulse of the rhythm of the Slough

 

From top to bottom; non-natives bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare), shepherd's purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), sow thistle (Sonchus sp.), mustard (Brassica or Hirschfeldia sp.) and the late flowering native mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana).

early Spring

The oaks on the Reserve are flowering. Full boar. It's the 30th of November. I expect them to flower in March and April.

It's dry and hot and windy. The mustard and radish are flowering, and some garden plants have never stopped. Not totally unusual.

From a restoration perspective, I will need to bump up timing on weed removal efforts, expecting a very early Spring. My years paying close attention to central California weather patterns isn't nearly long enough to understand them.

weed terminator

As I was pulling veldt grass (Ehrharta erecta) in the oak woodlands this afternoon, I thought of a great analogy for who I was and what I was doing. I am a weed terminator. I seek out my plant victim and kill it. I will not stop. I will find every last plant. I will persist and be consistent. Elkhorn Road runs right above this site and carries thousands of E. erecta plants and this is a problem I'll need to deal with creatively.

 Here is my veldt grass bouquet, just before I bagged it. It is flowering already. I came not a moment too soon.

The veldt grass is easy to spot right now since most other plants are just greening up and it's not too thick yet. The wide lime green leaves give it away. Thankfully I have an eye for detail.

While I was pulling, a group of Townsend's warblers (I think - amateur birder here) came through, snacking on insects? on the oaks.

And another oak was beginning to flower, barely unwrapping it's stamens.

Nasturtium removal at the Springer property

Last season we started working on a one acre patch of Nasturtium that had jumped the neighbors fence and is slowly taking over the understory of a beautiful oak woodland. Nasturtium is very easy to control with hand removal, even though it is a prolific seeder.

Our volunteer stewardship team planted over 600 plants in tight planting clusters and cleared five 3 meter by 3 meter experimental plots. In the small plots, we will remove Nasturtium and any other non-native plants and monitor what comes up on it's own for the next two seasons. This will help me to know if we can ease up on planting and perhaps just control the invasive species, at least in part of the site.

 The extra help from the volunteers is invaluable. After our planting we had a picnic and shared stories and snacks.

Central California Invasive Weed Symposium part 2

Last Friday, people gathered at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds to learn about invasive non-native plants. The theme was fire, water, action. Jon Keeley was the keynote and the evaluations said he was fantastic. (I was dealing with a coffee crisis so I didn't get to hear his talk.) We had some time for laws and regs so folks could get continuing education units.

Tool tailgate.

 

complete with goats

 

and a hydro-obliterator, but no picture of that. Apparently the obliterator can cut down a small tree with a fast stream of water. Good for cape ivy. Can be dangerous of not used properly.

We tried to green the event as much as we could, serving mostly local and organic food, composting, and recycling.

And we had wonderful sponsors; Cal-IPC, CHCF, Elkhorn Slough Foundation, Target Specialty, Big Sur Land Trust, CNPS, and so many more.

Thankfully, a good percentage of people filled out and turned in evaluations so we can make next year even better. The number one most favorite thing about the event - the chance to get together with others in the field, collaborating, and connecting.

Saturday was a field trip to Watsonville Wetlands Watch, High Ground Organics farm, and Ellicott Slough. It was fantastic. Such a great opportunity to see projects in action and talk about methods in the field.

Central California Invasive Weed Symposium Part 1

I am excited to attend the 11th Annual Central California Invasive Weed Symposium tomorrow and field trip on Saturday. This is a joint venture between the Monterey and Santa Cruz County Weed Management Areas. I look forward to talking with others working on removing invasive plants, learning new tools and skills, and seeing projects in progress first hand. I've enjoyed helping to bring this symposium to fruition. I hope it all goes well.

women growing natives

A few weeks back I threatened myself to start up a group of women who grow native plants for restoration. I was just getting a group like this together in the San Francisco Bay Area before I left and moved back here. Well lo an behold I sent out the word, it has spread like wildfire, and we have a substantial group very excited to get together. So the dream is happening. We have a location, a list of people, a couple of items to chat about, and I know we'll have good food.

This is about collaboration and sharing information. The nursery trade can be a bit lonely, and honestly, I think we like it like that. However, all of us collectively hold a vast amount of information and knowledge learned over many years of trial and error, and if we can share that with one another, we can be that much more effective in our work to restore function in habitats.

volunteers rock

The most recent volunteer class has graduated some very awesome people, some of whom choose to spend their time with stewardship. I have had a recent boost in volunteer activity and it has given me a push and a shove into extreme productivity and a fresh look at the potential to make a difference.

We couldn't do half of what we do without volunteers. It sounds like a broken record, but it's the truth.  Plus working with others is simply more fun. Today we had 25 year volunteer veterans working side by side with brand new volunteers.

So I want to take a moment to thank those who give their time and energy to causes they believe in. These Slough volunteers inspire me every day.

guzzlers and other small freshwater sites

The Reserve maintains several human-made freshwater sites. A few are large seasonal ponds and some are much smaller. These smaller freshwater spring substitutes we call guzzlers, originally put in in the 80's. We have 18 in all.

 

Most of the guzzlers have native vegetation and cover providing refuge for lots of different critters. My goal is to recreate conditions that might exist at a freshwater spring site. Few of these reference sites remain in the watershed, but there are some.

We also have two small excavated areas that hold freshwater some months of the year. Right now, when all other large ponds are dry, these two smaller ones continue to hold water since the recent 4 inch rain event.

Shirley Murphy investigates one of the smaller ponds.

 

dirt

Working with plants so much I can't help but contemplate soil. As the volunteers and I pulled old hemlock stalks to clear a new restoration site today, I kept thinking about dirt. How does it change with different plants? How does that change affect the progression of plants at a site? How long might it take to return to "healthy" soil? What is healthy soil anyway?

Over the years I've been told or read various things about how different plants and disturbance regimes can change the structure, composition and critter make-up of the soil. Sometimes false information is passed down, based on a few observations or poorly drawn conclusions. Sometimes not. The process of exchange between a plant, the soil, the critters (from bacteria and microorganisms to birds), and air is incredibly complex. I don't pretend to completely understand it. But I need to know certain information so I can best plan for system recovery at a site.

Here's an example of the complexity of change in soil. Some folks on the peninsula at Edgewood Park, are helping the recovery of the threatened bay checkerspot butterfly by focusing on the problem of added nitrogen to serpentine soil which promotes growth of certain plants that then crowd out host plants for the butterfly. (http://www.butterflyrecovery.org/species_profiles/bay_checkerspot/)

I hope to embark on a new monitoring journey, focusing specifically on coast live oak understory, hemlock (Conium maculatum), italian thistle (Carduus pycnocephalus), maybe a few more weeds, and the soil before and after the addition of appropriate native plants and before and after removal of said weed. I have a bit of research and assessment to do. Maybe this has been done.

To be continued. . .

continuing cape ivy removal at the Jazwin property

Manually removing cape ivy is a long and slow process, but is working beautifully at the Jazwin property. It's about persistence. I visit once a month to continue where I left off. Above is the first removal site. This was the first time no cape ivy sprouts were found!

What I did find were lots of these native blackberry (Rubus ursinus) sprouts.

The burrito roll is completely dead after one year and decomposing.

At the second site, I've got the entire patch almost rolled up into one long burrito. I'll need some help in the future rolling this over so it doesn't resprout.

The last patch that I need to remove is enormous. It's one acre and grows basically into the marsh. Here it is intertangled with pickleweed.

Nasturtium at the Springer property

1pm. Mapped nasturtium infestation to fenceline of neighbor. Very windy, cool but not cold. If not for the wind, it would be warm. Edges are mixed with nasturtium sparse. Middle of infestation approx. 100% Nast. cover.

Above are notes from mapping a nasturtium infestation under the oak woodlands at our Springer property. Note: we name our properties by the last names of the most recent owner, unless we can find a better more historically appropriate name.

This is a large infestation (couldn't calculate the acreage due to operator error!). But easy to remove and replace with natives. As I may or may not have stated here before; Nasturtium is not a good competitor. At least not here at this site under the oaks. It will persist - the seed bank - but cannot compete with dense planting of species like woodmint. We continue to remove Nasturtium by hand and plant clusters of natives.

The mapping is essential to monitoring progress. One conservation goal at ESNERR is to protect, enhance, and restore coast live oak woodlands. The removal of invasive non-native species such as Nasturtium is an integral part of that plan.

Rabbit's foot grass

 The floating lawn. Rabbit's foot grass (Polypogon monspeliensis) seed head, bent over into the freshwater where hundreds of seeds germinated on water. This is a non-native invasive grass, especially invasive in wet habitats, and this picture exemplifies why.

logic models

Yes. Logic models. My new best friend. Maybe everyone says that after they get out of a two day workshop on project design and evaluation, but I really mean it.

Now, my husband may scratch his head at me actually identifying with logic models, but isn't it about the complimentary relationship here? What I lack in logic, the model makes up for in organization? In any event, I intend to use them to map out my stewardship management objectives at the Reserve.

Here's an example taken from the web. I don't know if you can detect my excitement in this text, but believe me, it's there!

green thumb, black thumb, win some, lose some

The nursery is often productive but sometimes, it's not. Most of what you see here are dead plants.

After transplanting these mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana), most of them died. This isn't what is supposed to happen, especially with this hearty species.

What should happen is this. 

 Same soil, different plant but just as hearty. These are bush lupin (Lupinus arboreus) and they all survived. Yep. Every last one. None show any signs of distress.

It's not easy to show the things that don't go well in restoration. But it is just as important to show what went wrong as what went right. It's advancement of knowledge either way.

I do think it's time, however, for the "Women Growing Natives" group to really get going. Better walk my talk and pull this group together.

resources and links

I am updating all the great web resources that exist for us as restoration folk and native plant enthusiasts. The list to the right isn't even the half of it. These are my favorites (although not nearly all) and I would expect that if I asked a colleague, she might give me an entirely different list. Next will be a list of hard copy resources that I can actually dog ear and get coffee stains on.

As the blog grows and changes, it becomes a resource for me. I would love for it to become more of a collective, or to change and morph it into something more collective and collaborative. Or create something new that is collective??? I'm open to ideas. . . .

making lots of babies

in the nursery. Not those kinds of babies. These kinds of babies.

Martha's hands are moving so fast I can't even capture her transplanting with a digital camera!

Believing we are going to have significant rainfall this season, I have ambitious goals this planting season. Judging by this storm coming in, I don't think I'll be disappointed. However, it could rain a lot, then stop for several months and start again in say late January. Who really knows??

We have thousands of plants getting ready to go in the ground. We'll start planting beginning of November and go through late February.

eucalyptus

Over 200 species planted in the states in the last hundred plus years. A few became invasive and now I'm dealing with what was once hope for economic prosperity. This water sucking tree is right at home at the Reserve. It's not all bad. The little research that has been done doesn't make this species out to be the demon of all invasive species. In fact, a eucalyptus forest may support a diversity of species comparable to an oak forest (see Elkhorn Slough's Coastal Training Program references on Eucalyptus, http://www.elkhornsloughctp.org/). This is a bit dangerous to say; nevertheless it's the truth and we need facts to help inform decisions.

What I'm most concerned about is that these trees have been used to dry wetlands. I'm also concerned with fire, but we won't get into fire right now. Back to wetlands. . .one restoration strategy is to remove eucalyptus from around important freshwater wetlands that support listed species such as the Santa Cruz long-toed salamander, California red-legged frog, and Western pond turtle. All of whom use a particular freshwater pond on the Reserve called Cattail Swale.

In hopes of securing as much freshwater as possible for Cattail Swale, we have begun the process of removing eucalyptus saplings from an adjacent upland canyon. By saplings I mean anything less than 12 inches diameter at breast height (DBH). Even these small trees take time and care to remove. Each stump is treated with herbicide so it won't grow back (at least I hope not).

For almost every eucalyptus removed, a coast live oak grows underneath. My long-term goal is to help this particular canyon above Cattail Swale return to native coast live oak forest. It won't be difficult. It WANTS to be a coast live oak forest. The pieces are already there. There's just one piece that doesn't really fit. Yep. The eucs don't belong here.

images of the week

This praying mantis was near one of our freshwater guzzlers.

This guzzler just had a face lift (thank you Shirley Murphy!) with new native plants and a brush pile for refuge.

Rush rose (Helianthemum scoparium) seeds about to go into the toaster oven. 250 degrees for 5 minutes helps them to germinate.

Rush rose seeds.

Found this beauty while I was moving bricks.

Deerweed (Lotus scoparius) seeds.

Deerweed seeds in a hot water bath. You know, to help them grow.

And who is this sweet heartbreaker and why is she in the Slough images of the week? Well, I picked her up after work as she charged out of the marsh into the busy Elkhorn Rd. She's safely at a shelter, and if no one claims her. . .let's just say she made an impression on me in the 15 hours we spent together.