Bottle Brush

A buzzing noise brought my attention to the bottle brush. Only then did I notice how floriferous she is this year. Was it the trimming or a little extra water? Whatever it is, the bees and the humming birds are loving it.

Not a California native, but drought tolerant. It was here before I was, so it will stay in my yard. It's in Zone 3, sharing the space with my vegetable garden. It might get more water than it wants. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

Bottlebrush (Callistemon) is a genus of 34 species of shrubs in the family Myrtaceae. It's a native of Australia. On the Camarillo garden tour last weekend I saw a bottle brush so low to the ground you could call it ground cover. It was very attractive. Definitely tall enough to crowd out weeds.

Get Ready

May 1st is International Sunflower Guerrilla Gardening Day. Since I'm determined to be a CA native gardener, I'm thrilled to say that the Sunflower family (Asteraceae) Helianthus annuus, is native. It is a huge family. Will I be a guerrilla? I'm not telling, but it could be unavoidable. It might be genetic.

The Los Angeles Guerrilla Gardeners have a great website. It reminds me of the Improv Everywhere group, only more stealth. The picture gallery is inspiring.

So what's a guerrilla gardener? Some one who gardens with or without permission on public land.

My parents, Wisconsinites, don't take long walks down the railroad track turned nature trail anymore, but when they were able, they always took a bag of seeds or bulbs or little seedlings to plant along the way. They didn't know they were guerrilla gardeners. They were just having fun. Little by little they beautified the walks they took with Wisconsin natives.

Noise

Driving to the market, listening to NPR, I learned that today is International Noise Awareness Day. I immediately thought of Owen Dell. He mentioned noise in his lecture at the Native Plant Symposium in Camarillo on February 20th. The Native Plant Symposium was a gathering of outstanding speakers. I'm going to mention Owen Dell in this post, but I'll get to the others later.

Owen Dell specializes in SUSTAINABLE landscaping, a landscape that supports itself. Nothing is hauled away because everything is used. When sustainable landscaping is your goal, you plan what you plant, where you plant, what materials you build with, your water needs etc by asking, "What does it do?" How does it contribute to the community in your garden?

You don't have to be a dummy to understand that CA Native plants have evolved to live here. They like our soil, our temperature and natures water schedule. "No one gardens nature," Owen says. So why do we work so hard creating an artificial environment, when nature is already so beautiful?

I was so impressed with his lecture, I bought his book Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies. It sits beside me as I type this. It has already saved me money and helped me to slow down. My garden will evolve carefully, quietly, eventually.

What Not To Do

Some years back, I planted a long row of heirloom tomato plants. Before I planted, I covered the row with a roll of weed barrier fabric to control the weeds around my tomato plants. It worked.

Now years later, coming back to gardening, I plan to plant watermelon there. Now, years later "there" is full of weeds. The weed barrier fabric is buried under wind blown dirt and weeds. A four letter word comes to mind. Today with a shovel and a commitment to remove the fabric the whole length of the bed, I tackled the job.

Like most jobs, getting started was the hard part. HOW to approach the project? The obvious place to start was at the end of the row. I dug until I found the edge of the fabric and then I pulled. That didn't work. More digging, more coaxing, more digging and tugging and digging and grunting and surveying and digging. The first foot was up, but it wouldn't tear away from the other 30 feet, no way, it was a unit. I tried to cut through it with the shovel blade. It's tough stuff, even after all this time. Disintegrate already! It's not just fabric that needs to come up. Weeds have grown through the fabric and into the dirt and roots hold on for dear life. You pull, they pull back. Grrrrrrrr.

Weed barrier fabric advertises itself to last 6 years. For those of us wanting it to be the solution, we read that to mean we won't see weeds in that area for 6 years. WRONG. Weed seeds fly in with the wind from ABOVE. Weeds win. The fabric probably does last 6 years. Maybe longer. It's a polyester fiber. It's another landfill clogger.

If weed barrier fabric is something you are considering to help control the weeds in your garden, I shout, DON'T DO IT. Pull weeds. Watch the new baby weeds come up and knock them down when they are small. Be persistent. It's cheaper than the gym. You'll get a little vitamin D. It's very rewarding. And if you are like me, an hour in the garden might solve the problem you have been mulling over. Solutions come to an aerated mind.

Happy Birthday John James Audubon

It's the birthday of wildlife artist John James Audubon. (1785 - 1851). Raised in France he traveled to America at the age of 18 and became a pioneer in the documentation of wildlife, inspiring Darwin and other ornithological works by his artistry and high standards.

I was fortunate to have a birdwatching mother. Bird books were thumbed through and worn out at our house as she persevered to know every bird that landed on her feeder or in the trees around our yard. She wanted to know it all; the bird, the nest, the diet, the habitat they preferred. When I moved away from the Great Lakes states and west, I had to start over, learning the west coast birds. I'm still learning.

While pulling weeds on Saturday, a scrub jay joined me to eat up the grubs and bugs I exposed. An easy meal for him and a thrill for me. There he was, 2 feet away, a beautiful, slender, single minded scavenger, helping me. He had an aristocratic air about him. I don't care about his bad habits, all that noise about eating the eggs of other birds is just part of the circle of life. He's welcome in my yard anytime.

Wildlife finds a native plant garden and the curious might wish to find the Ventura Chapter of the Audubon Society.