Pigs Attack the Saltmarsh of Morro Bay… again

Pigs Attack the Saltmarsh of Morro Bay… again

Wild pigs are again active in Morro Bay, causing damage while rooting for the tuberous reeds in the brackish freshwater seep zones close to the high tide line. This time they are at Shark Inlet. We last saw them in 2015 on both sides of the South Bay Boulevard bridge, and neither of the locations appear to have recovered. (more…)

South Central Coast Invasive Species Eradication Project

INVASIVE SPECIES REPORT by Mark Skinner

There is a weed removal initiative underway called the South Central Coast Invasive Species Eradication Project. Funded by the Wildlife Conservation Board and matching partners the $600K project joins CalIPC with multiple partners in a merged region of San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County with help from the Weed Management Area of San Luis Obispo County. This effort is targeting weeds with a realistic chance of eradicating 95% of their populations in five years.

The weeds selected for removal include:

  • Limonium ramosissimum – Algerian sea lavender
  • Limonium duriusculum – European sea lavender
  • Elymus farctus ssp. boreali-atlantucus – Russian wheatgrass
  • Cirsium arvense – Canada thistle
  • Linaria dalmatica ssp. dalmatica – Dalmation toadflax

The sea lavenders are at threat to Cordlylanthus maritimus ssp. maritimus – salt marsh bird’s beak and Suaeda californica -California seablite. They have appeared along the boardwalk in Morro Bay State Park In the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes. Russian wheatgrass can take over areas that are habitat for Atriplex leucophylla – Saltbush, Beach-Bur, Red Sand-Verbena and Dunedelion.

The agencies eradicating the weeds will track their progress through CalWeedMapper that CalIPC arranged. Partners will meet annually to report on progress.

In Memoriam: “Jack” Beigle

Many members of our chapter will remember with a smile the work done by Jack and his wife Grace in supporting our chapter and for his work in association with Kathleen Jones (the Dune Mother) in the protection of the south county dune system. Jack also played a major role in a pampas grass eradication program,
and helped bring the very first conference of the just formed California Exotic Plant Council (now CalIPC) to Morro Bay. He was a State Park Docent, particularly at the Oceano Dunes Center and Butterfly Preserve. Jack died in December in Pacific Grove, and is survived by his wife, Grace and children.

Introducing Ramalina menziesii, the new California State Lichen

Introducing Ramalina menziesii, the new California State Lichen

Image By Jason Hollinger (Lace Lichen  Uploaded by Amada44) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


 

On July 15, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill designating lace lichen, Ramalina menziesii, the California State Lichen.

The law takes effect January 1, 2016, making California the first state to recognize a lichen as a state symbol. Lace lichen joins the California poppy as the state flower and the grizzly bear as the state animal.

The California Lichen Society promotes the appreciation, conservation, and study of California lichens, and has posted a beautiful article about our new state lichen on their website: http://californialichens.org/state-lichen/

CALS sees this designation as an important step in increasing public awareness of the significant roles that lichens play in our natural environment. Calling attention to lichens by recognizing one of them as the California State Lichen creates an opportunity for us to learn about and celebrate the things that make California special.

Landscaping in drought

As we search for answers to deal with the prolonged drought, I’m sure many of you are wondering what this summer will do to your landscape?

Luckily, most of you are well ahead of the game because you already have planted California native plants in your garden. You prepared years ago for this knowing that someday we would have a drought. Now the question is, what can I do to help my plants make it through the summer? I am taking the position of hunkering down and taking care of what you already have. Likewise, hold off on new plantings until after summer this coming fall.

Now this month’s topic. Can I use grey water to keep my natives alive? The answer is yes. However, first we must evaluate the requirements of our existing native plants.

Some may be able to go dormant and make it through this summer with very little water such as the salvias. Also, well established native shrubs or trees, five to ten years old, such as pine, cypress, and manzanita will need maybe one good soaking mid summer. Other plants such as Woodwardia, Penstemon and Ceanothus may require extra moisture monthly depending on your soil type. So where do we turn to get this water?

One solution is grey water. But before you start collecting grey water there are a couple of tips you should know.

First there are two types of gray water, clean and dirty. Clean would be the water you collect while waiting for the shower to heat up. This water is preferred for edible plants or natives that are not well established.

Examples of dirty water would be water coming from your washing machine, dirty dish water or kitchen sink rinse water. This water should be used within 24 hours in order to avoid bacterial build up. Dirty grey water can be used to water well established trees, shrubs and ground covers. If you wish, you can allow this water to settle for 24 hours in a larger container. Remove safe water from only the top three quarters of the container. This will allow the solids to settle and the top water will be much cleaner.

I hope this helps a little with this subject. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions about gardening over the summer, gritlys@gmail.com. Until I see you again, Happy Gardening.

– John Nowak

In Memory of Las Pilitas Nursery founder Bert Wilson

In Memory of Bert Wilson

It is with great sadness that we must report on the passing of Las Pilitas Nursery founder and legend Bert Wilson. The California native plant community has lost an extremely valuable member.

Bert had a huge influence on our knowledge and our gardens. The Las Pilitas  website is the go-to site for information on California native plants and many of our gardens are full of plants from the nursery. Those of us fortunate enough to have had personal communication hold him in very high regard. A bit of his passion and dedication will live on in the many people he reached.

We extend our sympathy to Bert’s family — Celeste, Penny, Ian and Valerie. May we offer these Bert-isms from the CNPS-SLO community as comfort in your time of loss.

Notes From Our Community

I always enjoyed my time at the chaos of that nursery. He always extended me the greatest and broadest invitation to roam about the beds looking for overlooked treasures. I would take the long way over the La Panza summit and down the Pozo Road, just so I could swing by the nursery.

Bert took time with even the least experienced, to educate them. I remember showing up with a teacher who wanted to landscape a school with natives; Bert gave a curt “Plant Coyote Bush, so at least something will survive.” But it was just to judge our commitment, and once he softened us up, he loaded us up with plants and rarities.

I believe on his favorite subject of soil micro-ecology and symbionts, his promotion of native microrhizae changed California restoration. Even tomatoes are being grown with specialized soil microbes by gardeners such as Ralph Johnson that tell me they first learned about micro-ecology from Bert’s website and frequent discussion.

I don’t know all of his introductions to horticulture, but “Powerline Pink” (Salvia spathacea) and Pozo Blue are favorites of mine and have inspired me to turn a keen eye to finding selections in our native flora. He actually tested fire resistance of chaparral shrubs and likely saved enormous swathes of landscape by being able to defend keeping the species that are far more fire resistant than the dry grass firebreaks that were promoted to replace them. His website, hundreds of pages, has been a go-to site for real horticultural tips for a decade. -John Chesnut

 

What a loss! Bert was one of the founders of the Wildflower Weekend that was such a success for many years. -Dave K

 

Bert was a marvelous resource about native plants when no one else knew about them. I have every one of their catalogs since they started out and I learned so much from my visits to the nursery, the websites and their catalogs. The visits were a hoot. Even if Bert didn’t want to sell one of his babies to you because you lived in a zone where it wouldn’t thrive, Celeste would sell it while he went off grumbling. I remember so many visits where he showed off his newly grown babies and was so proud of them. He had character, he was a character, he was memorable and I learned so much from him. -Heather

 

I have been going out there for maybe forty years now and was there again a few weeks ago and I have always appreciated having the California natives that are available the Las Pilitas Nursery. Penny is now doing an amazing job out there, along with her mother. Bert Wilson’s work has had a big influence throughout the state. -Mardi

 

Bert was always so generous to me with his time and advice when I called asking questions. -Susi

 

I think we all have “Bert stories.” In our case, he was the only nurseryman who figured out what would grow on the abominable soil found in the area where we live in SLO and that he did from his property without visiting the site, 50 miles away. Bert called it “yellow clay” and recommended ten different species which all have managed to survive when everything has not. He took the time to listen to our stories of woe and come up the perfect answer, while everyone else we had asked at the time had no clue. That’s real intuition! -Bill Waycott

 

Monkey Flower

A new species of monkey flower discovered in the Sierra Nevada!

Mimulus filicifoliusI am the editor of Madroño, the Journal of the California Botanical Society. In the most recent issue Jay Sexton, Katie Ferris, and Steve Schoenig, published their discovery of the fern-leaved monkeyflower (Mimulus filicifolius). It’s a new species with finely divided, bi-pinnately compound leaves found in the northwestern Sierra Nevada where it occurs mostly on ephemeral seeps in rock outcrops.

Mimulus filicifolius is highly restricted, known only from Butte and Plumas Counties within the Plumas National Forest, and should therefor be considered in future conservation strategies.

As new botanical discoveries like this one are made, revised treatments for the Jepson Manual will be published online at the Jepson eFlora.

− Matt Ritter

Mimulus filicifolius map

 

Fire and Fuel Management

Wildfire is a natural part of California ecosystem. However, wildfire also has significant potential for creating conditions that aid in the establishment or spread of invasive plants.

To address these conditions, the California Invasive Plant Council and a team of fire and fuel management experts have developed a set of voluntary best management practices (BMPs) for fire management planning, fuel management, fire suppression, and post-fire activities. The 3rd edition of Best Management Practices for land Managers incorporates these BMPs and is now available.

Download your free copy from www.cal-ipc.org/ip/prevention/landmanagers.php.

Fellow Award to Dr. Dirk Walters

Fellow Award to Dr. Dirk Walters

Fellow of the California Native Plant Society CNPS presents the Fellow award once a year as a means of awarding special recognition to persons who have made an outstanding contribution to furthering appreciation and conservation of California native flora and to the success of the Society.

On the recommendation of the Board of Directors of CNPS, the Chapter Council has elected Dr. Dirk Walters to be made a Fellow of the California Native Plant Society.

Dirk Walters has been active in the conservation of native plants since his arrival in California in the late 1960s, where he joined and became an active member of the newly formed San Luis Obispo Chapter serving in leadership positions on both the Chapter and State level. Dirk has blended his position as a Professor of Botany at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with the interests of CNPS by arranging for Chapter meetings on campus and encouraging student membership.

Walters has performed botanical monitoring on beheld of CNPS’s conservation program and has influenced planning at the Hearst Ranch and other locations in San Luis Obispo County, In the early 1980’s Dirk, along with his wife Bonnie, undertook the work of monitoring the threatened and endangered Nipomo Lupine, publishing “The Natural History of the Nipomo Lupine (Lupinus nipomensis Eastwood)” in the journal Crossoma.

Educating, hiking, teaching, plant-selling, writing, and advocating appreciation of native plants by the public are all activities Dirk is accomplished at. He has lead numerous field trips and produced many plant lists for different areas of San Luis Obispo County, has authored, co-authored, and contributed to academic and local publications including Vascular Plant Taxonomy and Wildflowers of San Luis Obispo, California. For many years has set up and staffed CNPS booths at community events and actively promoted CNPS with other conservation organizations that he is involved with.