Gone with the Wind: Groping Towards a Greenhouse

Yesterday, and all night, the winds were howling around the house and whipping the trees into a frenzy. We lost power for a couple hours. This morning revealed that it was just too much for the duct-tape greenhouse.


Mr Wood Rat retrieved the superstructure from behind the white fence where it had blown, metal post and all.

It was an omen for sure. Only the other day we had been having this conversation:

"Oh Ratty dear, could you please build me another lovely duct tape greenhouse? Against the pool fence there, where it's nice and sunny?"
"Hm."
"I really need more light now it's winter, as well as protection from rain, wind, and critters, to get these seeds going. Plus I could move the seed flats out of your office, and also off of the coffee table in the living room."
"Yeah well I just don't know if I want to do another cobbled-together solution."
"Hm."
"Maybe it's time to look at building you a real greenhouse."
"Really??"
"Yeah, I think it might be a fun project to build, and it looks like your interest in growing stuff isn't going to go away."
(Mouse grins!)
"In fact, how about we drive over to the UCSC farm and look at their setup."

So we did. I love wandering around the arboretum and farm areas at UC Santa Cruz. There were lots of greenhouses at the arboretum, but only of the geodesic dome, or hoop and plastic sheeting variety, and I'm sure they do the job fine but they're not what we are looking for. But at the farm, we saw some brand-spanking new greenhouses.

I love the amazing work they do there, not only for university students and researchers, but for young children too. Here's a view of the new greenhouses from a teaching area.

And here we are sneaking a peek inside.

Ratty was immediately enthralled. "I know how to do construction like this - this isn't much different from a pole barn."

Town Mouse had sensibly suggested that we use recycled materials such as windows from demolished homes to make a greenhouse. But Mr Wood Rat comes from a construction background and just isn't interested in the funky earth-friendly approach. As he is my building resource, we got on the net instead.

Rat started researching the company that built those greenhouses, Conley's and wandered out from there. He quickly decided that we should just get a kit and be done with it. Kits take between 2 hours and 2 days to assemble, depending on the kit and the assembler.

But Conley's "hobby" greenhouse kits are expensive - $3,500 plus. And that seems to be about the going rate for greenhouses of this type.

Of course, I did some basic research, too: First, is it worth having a greenhouse? Heck with worth: I WANT ONE.

I put that angel on one shoulder, and on the other I put the frugal angel who considers other options such as using the horse barn and just adding heat and light lamps. Disadvantages: 1. the horse barn is in the coldest most shady part of the property. 2. It's no fun. I WANT ONE.

OK, given that this is not totally a rational decision, what more do I need to know about greenhouses before we go ahead with the project? I found a good article from the University of Virginia ag extension from which I learned the following about greenhouses, and more:

• Sun: Put the greenhouse where it gets maximum sun. Morning sun is better than afternoon sun if you have to choose. So, facing south or south east is best, in full sun. no shady trees etc. This is for winter use, not so much in summertime.
  
• Size: The larger the greenhouse, the easier it is to maintain the temperature, and the less expensive per square foot. But I don't aspire to even the bottom end of their minimum efficient size - this is an agricultural site. More importantly - don't get one that's too small for your needs. You'll regret it. I figure 8X12 gives the most bench room, without getting really enormous. Maybe 9X12 feet, but no more.
• Structure: Well there are a lot of options. The hoop (quonset) style is very efficient and simple. But I like the more traditional look, with a pitched roof, and this will be in our garden, so I have some aesthetic preference here.
  
• Structural materials: Wood, steel, aluminum, plastic/PVC piping. The article has various plus and minus points on each option. We read about one poor person whose greenhouse melted in the Texas heat, so we eliminated plastic. Wood is nice but is more expensive. Plus, fire risk. Steel and aluminum both seem like good options. Aluminum is cheaper. Many grades available, but we figure as long as the structure is securely anchored it should withstand wind.
  
• Coverings: Glass, double-pane polycarbonate, plastic film. (And another one I read about, like dual-wall polycarbonate, but translucent and more flexible, called Solexx). Glass is very nice, but too expensive, and you can't do-it-yourself so easily. Also I worry about it breaking. The polycarbonate seemed like the best option, other than the fact that it's not easy to recycle, so that's not so good. It ranges from 4 ml to 10 ml. We are not sure what is best, given we don't have extreme weather here. Most of the better quality greenhouses we looked at were 6ml at least, and thicker was more expensive. I'm not sure what you get for the money and thickness - better insulation or more strength.
  
• Flooring: Seems best to not have a floor but to dig-out the foundation area and add a few inches of gravel for drainage. Wood floors won't do.
  
• Ventilation: You need one roof vent at least, and a door. For a smaller greenhouse that seems to be sufficient.
• Heating and so on: It gets complicated. I don't really think my natives need a lot of heat, and for the ones that do I could use fluorescent bulbs or heated mats. Also Christmas lights apparently work fine to just keep things a bit warmer to prevent freezing. We don't get a lot of freezing here.
• Watering: Well you can spend a lot of money or you can hand water. I hand water right now, so I think I would continue like that, but I'd look at misting systems down the road.

So then we got on the net. Even when playing Scrabble with my dad, while not taking our turn, we were on the net. My dad won the game.

There are a lot of aluminum frame dual-wall polycarbonate greenhouses out there to choose from, and most seem to be in the $3,500 price range and above. They are not quite my picture of a greenhouse, which looks more like this:

(From www.whitecottage.co.uk) But then, we're not in England any more, Toto.
I also love Montana Wildlife Gardener's greenhouse, which you can read about here.

One small company whose product I like is Santa Barbara Greenhouse, located in California. They have a model called Montecito that would do me fine, if I had over $3,500.

Neat, simple, seems to be good quality. The Danish company Juliana seems to be well regarded in this price range - And there are many more.

Then there is the low-price leader, EasyGrow, whose 8X12 foot model is on sale right now for $1299 - $1500 depending where you look. It's made in China. Its walls are only 4 ml polycarbonate. But - maybe it's plenty good enough.

(image from www.greenhousemegastore.com shows 8X8 model)

So what's a poor besotted mouse to do? It would be great if there were some real reviews out there, but we can't find any. It would be great if we could drive someplace and actually see these greenhouses, but it doesn't look like we can. Even the cheapo model is a lot of money and we don't have a lot of money.

So we agreed to put our search on hold and cool down and think about this. Mr Wood Rat went out for a run, and I've been blogging.

Oh, and here he is back, with this thought:

"I was thinking about this greenhouse thing while I was runing and here's what I think: I think I should just build it myself. We've got plenty wood lying around, and on the shady side we don't need so much light, right? So I could reuse those six little windows I took out of the cupola on that side. Two of them open and close. So anyway, I'm going to put these groceries away but that's what I think."

Gotta love that rat.

If any readers have any thoughts to add, we would certainly appreciate hearing from all sides of the question. And I hope our researches into what is possible in the home greenhouse are helpful to others with similar desires, rational or otherwise.

Hikes at Point Reyes -- Photographic Interlude II

After our hike at Mnt Tam, we drove on to spent the night at Point Reyes Station, very close to the Point Reyes National Sea Shore. We hadn't been there for a while, and missed the brisk sea air, interesting wildlife, and exhilarating hikes.


For our first day, we'd picked the hike to Tomales Point. We started at the Historic Pierce Point Ranch, shown above with a stand of the rare Bishop Pine (Pinus muricata). In contrast to Mnt Tam, the Point Reyes area has been used for dairy cows since the time of the early settlers. Sadly, that means that the annual European grasses have completely replaced native bunch grasses. But on the flip side, these are happy cows, and the dairy farmers farm sustainably (and the cheese is delicious).

Some wildflowers remain. It was a special treat to see the Point Reyes wallflower (Erysimum concinnum), which originates here and is available through several California native nurseries.

And yet again, the views were amazing. As you can see on the map, we had the ocean on our left, and Tomales Bay on our right (walking out toward the point). There's some elevation gain, but the hike isn't truly steep. The sandy soil and fierce weather do not support trees, instead, you find Coyote brush (Baccharis piluaris) and Yellow Bush Lupine (Lupinus arboreus). I'm actually not quite sure whether this lupine is locally native here. I do know that it's amazing to hike this trail in late spring, when the lupine is blooming. Right now, it's just coming back from summer dormancy and starting to sprout grey-green leaves.

But here the views. First of the ocean.


And here Tomales Bay. Isn't it amazing? I can't believe I live just a few hours away. (Note to self: Go back in spring, take photos of lupine).

But we weren't just walking this trail for the views. And we weren't just walking this trail in anticipation of another excellent meal of local produce (Chanterelle pizza, anyone?). No, we were after something else entirely, and saw the first trace not to long after we started.


Yes, that's scat! And this particular scat, looking like triple-size rabbit droppings -- hard to photograph, who knew -- belongs to Tule Elk.


Let me quote from Point Reyes National Seashore: "The tule elk herds had virtually disappeared by 1860, 13 years before the state awarded them complete protection. In the spring of 1978, two bulls and eight cows were brought in from the San Luis Island Wildlife Refuge near Los Banos. The elk were contained within a temporary, three acre enclosure to allow for adjustment to their new surroundings. That summer, 6 of the cows bore calves. In the fall, 17 elk were released from the enclosure on Tomales Point to 2,600 acres of open grassland and coastal scrub. By the summer of 1988, the population was at 93 animals. The population census taken in 2000 counted over 400 elk."


Truth is, you don't even have to get out of your car to see the elk, there's a herd on the other side of Piece Point Ranch easy to see from the road. But we had fun doing our 9-mile walk and felt lucky that this land has not been built up and is available for all to enjoy.

The following day we got an early start and were ready for a short hike near the visitor's center. We loved the lichen. Point Reyes really is so much more moist than where we live. And all the forest groundcover plants thrive. Lots of mushrooms, grasses, undercover shubs such as snowberry, and 7-foot high huckleberry (vaccinium ovatum). Sword fern (Polystichum munitum) that was probably 4 feet high (The ones in my garden are about 1 foot, and struggling). It was almost an Alice in Wonderland effect, everything magnified, or maybe I had shrunk.



Again, beautiful views of the ocean, with conifers so pretty you want to decorate them as Christmas trees. Or maybe not.

Interestingly, while the grass at Tomales Point is already green from the recent rains and constant fog, the meadow here is still showing the golden California color. But in just a few weeks, it will be green as well.

Down in the valley, along Bear creek, everything was moist again, green, with lime green lichen, mushrooms, and thick understory. The birds serenaded us as we walked back to our car, happy about everything we'd seen, and feeling fortunate indeed that it had been a dry weekend.

"Now the rains can start," we said. "We're ready to rest for a bit, and hope to come back in the spring."

Hike at Mt. Tam -- A Photographic Interlude

Mr. Mouse and I spent last weekend away from home. We'd been ready for a break, feeling a bit worn out between work and things to do around the house and garden.

We started the weekend with a Saturday hike at Mount Tamalpaias in Marin County. Mount Tamalpaias is a state park, with many beautiful hikes. It actually took us only about 90 minutes to drive there. When we arrived at the East Peak parking lot, starting point for our hike, the views were amazing. It had rained recently in the North Bay, and the weather was cool and clear.

The most amazing thing, though, were the plants. I usually hike in areas that have been logged or grazed or otherwise used by humans. The vegetation in those areas is very much a mix of natives and exotics. The area where we hiked, however, looked as if it hadn't had much to offer for humans. It was too steep for cows and no large trees beckoned to be felled. More importantly, the soil is serpentine. Many European and other invasive plants don't do well in serpentine soil and many natives, including native grasses, do well.

Above, a very happy Manzanita (Arctostaphylos), though I'm not sure which one.

I was especially impressed by the size of some of the Manzanitas, the one above is easily 30 feet. Not a surprising size for a Madrone, but quite unusual for a Manzanita. There were also Ceanothus, Toyon (photo below), and other chapparal plants near East Peak, and our hike went through a mixed woodland with ferns, moss, and lichen.

I could have stopped every 10 minutes to take another photo, like this one of the Richmond Bridge (did I mention the views were amazing?)

But we weren't quite sure whether we were on the right path, and the gates closed at sunset. Thanks to a good guidebook and Mr. Mouse's excellent navigation skills, we made it back to the car with time to spare, ready to continue our adventure.

Where are YOU Planted, Country Mouse?

I was going to just leave a grateful comment on Town Mouse's wonderful and informative post on the topic of "Where are YOU planted" - originated by An Obsessive/Compulsive plant collector - when I realized that though we live only about 30 miles apart AND we are both in the same zones - Sunset Zone 16 and USDA Hardiness Zone 9b - yet our native plant habitats and growing conditions are quite different.

The Country Mouse and Wood Rat establishment is just a bit south-west of the square thingy that's above Scotts Valley on the map. The map includes Ms Town mouse's locale, which lies between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale. As you can see, Ms Town lives on the other side of the Coast Range from me, in one of the pleasant suburbs that spread along the flat-bottomed Santa Clara Valley.

Our home (shown in the image I cut out of Google Earth) is on a sunny ridge about 6.5 miles north of the Monterey Bay, and 900 feet above sea level, on the south-eastern flank of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which protect Santa Clara Valley from much, though not all, of the marine influence we feel much more strongly.

We get our share of fog here in winter; but we are fortunate (I think) to live in a "Coast Range Thermal Belt," which is why we are in Sunset Zone 16: hotter and drier in summer than you might expect, not quite so cold in winter. Lower, shadier locations not two miles from our home are in the more typical coastal zone, zone 17, cooler and more foggy. We can see Monterey Bay when it's clear. Sometimes white fog fills its basin like whipped cream, and creeps up the valleys to engulf us, and sometimes we are totally enveloped in low clouds. But generally it's sunny all summer long.

Our zones are the same, but my soil is also different from Tmouse's soil. Her soil is probably alkaline, deep and clayey. Rich but lacking in air spaces. Mine tends to be acidic, sandy, and thin where there are no trees to provide humus. California natives that like fast draining soil grow here.

Where TMouse has a large garden by suburban standards, we have a small lot by mountain standards: officially just under three acres. But it feels like an endless universe to me. I never would have guessed I would ever own such a property, not in my wildest dreams.

The Google image reveals that the "garden" areas of our property, close to the buildings, are not - ahem - very well developed as yet. I need help with design. But I also have control issues! Result: planting paralysis. More on that in another post maybe. I'm more focused on eradication of invasives, managing the fuel load, and propagation of local natives. But I would like a pretty garden one day.

In the photo you can see the chamise chaparral that lies to the south. The part across the road is on our property too - I'm not really sure where it ends. We haven't disturbed it and may not. On the house side of the road you can see where we have been thinning, taking out most of the chamise, and all the dead wood, as is recommended for fire safety. The photo shows how it looked last year. That area is almost completely thinned now.

There are also open spots now in the wooded areas on the northern facing slope, where the bay tree and eucalyptus were removed this spring. I wonder when that will show up on Google Earth. The northern slope has redwood and mixed-evergreen forest habitats with beautiful toyon, madrone, Douglas fir, and, of course, redwoods.

Las Pilitas has us wrong, in terms of their Communities by Zipcode feature. They say we should have Mixed Evergreen Forest, which we do, and Coastal Sage Scrub, which we we don't. We have Chamise Chaparral. Artemisia californica, California Sagebrush, grows nearby, but not on our property or the areas adjacent. Mother nature is messier than the botanist's neat schemes. Some plants common to both sage scrub and chaparral grow here, like monkey flower, and manzanita, but it's too hot and dry here in summer, I think, for the sage scrub habitat to take hold. Las Pilitas doesn't mention the redwoods either, that cover much of the shady slopes.

But I don't exectly know the history of this spot yet. At some point before this land was divided up into lots for wilderness homes, it was a "ranch." The old name still hangs from a disused farm gate at the end of our road. I would love to know what the rancher did up here, how much of the land was left in its original state, and how much was cleared - probably for orchards or grazing for animals - and then returned to the wild later, or turned into vineyards, a common use for land around here. Maybe there was sage scrub here, and it got converted to chamise chaparral through human intervention? I'd love to find out.

I'm thinking about history lately because I've been dipping into the books I splurged on, in a recent University of California Press sale. (I went there for Jepson, of which more anon, and ended up buying many more books!)

One of my purchases was A Victorian Gentlewoman in the Far West, the memoir of Mary Hallock Foote. She was a published writer and illustrator, an Easterner who came west with her engineer husband in the late 1870s. But even though she lived in the "far west" for most of her adult life, she never did feel at home here.

Curious, I read her short story, "In Exile," because it is set near here, and is based on her experiences living in the community that sprang up around the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine, just south of San Jose. (It's now the Almaden Quicksilver County Park, with a great museum and wonderful hiking.)

I was so surprised by the attitude of the characters in her story, the "exiles" filled with longing for their cultured eastern homes, and dislike of the arid California climate and landscape. Well, of course things are less rough-and-ready around here now. No lack of culture. Plus - the Internet! But it did make me realize how differently I feel.

How can I not feel that this is where I'm planted, amid this cornucopia of flora and fauna that spills out ever more abundantly about me, the more I simply look?

Where are You Planted?

Earlier this month, Secrets of a Seed Scatterer had an interesting post "Where Are You Planted." The question originated with Janie, and it immediately resonated with me.

Geographically, I'm located in Mountain View, CA "in Silicon Valley," as it says on the Wikipedia disambiguation page for the entry. Home of Google, as well, and of NASA Ames. You can read about my fair city (or my fair suburb) in various places on the Internet so I won't bore you with details.

But where am I PLANTED? For me, that means, which plants live here, which plants belong here and do well in local gardens. Let me count the ways of discovering that.

1. Sunset zones. For much of the country, how cold it gets determines the hardiness zone you're in (I think we're in Zone 9b) and that, in turn, determines which plants will grow. For much of the West, however, other determining factors are how hot it gets, and possibly how dry or how wet it gets. Because of that, we use the Sunset zones, which give a more fine-grained picture. The best map I can find is here, but a more detailed map in the Sunset Western Gardening Book shows just the SF Bay Area and seems to place us in Zone 16. It's hard to believe how many microclimates we have in the Bay Area. Most of us have driven just 30 miles to find ourselves in unexpectedly cold (or hot) conditions, with the wrong clothes.

Why do I care about my Sunset zone? Because the Western Gardening Book and many other garden resources tell me which plants will do well where I live. (The Western Gardening Book includes many native plants. Unless you're aiming for locally native plants, the information is invaluable).

2. Calflora has a What Grows Here site that allows you to see which plants are found in which part of the state. I've used the site already to figure out what that wildflower was that I found in a State Park or during other hikes. The very rich (and at times slightly confusing) interface allows me to do in-depth research on the plants that grow where I live. My search resulted in 2042 plants, 1602 of them native. I can focus on just trees, or for example, just vines (this search). Very cool, and I love the photos!

3. Las Pilitas is a native plant nursery in Southern California that has a wealth of information about native plants (some of it a bit controversial). I might go to Calflora to see what's planted here, and to Las Pilitas to see what I can plant here. When I look up Mountain View in their Plant Communities database, I find myself in Coastal Sage Scrub, which is characterized by these plants:

• California Sagebrush (Artemesia californica),
• Buckwheat (Eriogonum ssp),
• California Lilac (Ceanothus ssp),
• Manzanita (Actostaphylos ssp),
• Monkey flower,
• Gooseberry and Currant (Ribes ssp),
• Sage (Savia ssp),
• Coyote Brush (Baccharis ssp).

Thankfully, those are exactly the plants I have in my garden. Las Pillitas also lists Mixed Evergreen Forest for my zip code, and again I find several plants that I've already added to my garden.

I especially enjoy that Las Pillitas includes information about the critters that live where I'm planted, which include Towhee (yes!), White crowned sparrow, Cottontail, Deer, Coyote, Raccoon (unfortunately true), Quail, Skunk, Gopher (oh please, no!), Hummingbirds (and lots of them!).

4. Native Plant Link Exchange. Now, assume I'm really getting excited about adding some plants to my garden that belong where I am. I might just drive to one of the excellent native plant nurseries nearby (see our side bar), or go to the Native Plant Link Exchange. What I like about that site is that I can select a plant I already have, then find other plants that might be good companion plants, and then find where I can purchase those plants. For example, assume I look up Dryopteris arguta (wood fern). The site shows me 5 nurseries that carry the plant. But I can also click "What plants grow with Dryopteris arguta", and can even filter the results of that search.

To anyone who's followed along this far: Congratulations! I hope you'll enjoy a few happy hours as you plan what to put into your own garden, or you might just enjoy looking at pictures and descriptions of Where I Am Planted (if your eyes glazed over in the middle of it, I promise the next post will have pictures and fewer links).

Jeffrey Caldwell sent me the following information about an additional great resource:

A useful local source not noted in your blog is the Natural Resources DataBase, which lists plants for many local county parks, open space preserves, etc. [227 protected areas] throughout the greater San Francisco Bay region (also birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish). You can use it to generate plant lists of those preserves that are closest to the location of interest.

To generate a plant list for the preserve of interest

1. Run your cursor over "Searches" which generates a drop-down menu;
2. Choose "Checklist" search and click.
3. Then on the Checklist page,

a. check "Flora" in the species category,
b. check your preferred 'Sort By' and
c. run your cursor over "Select Preserve" for another drop down menu.

You can get to a particular preserve by name or click on County and then again on the particular preserve you wish to generate a checklist for.

This database is a wonderful tool. There are many other ways to use it, too -- it is all pretty simple, I'm no techie and have used it various different ways ...

End of the Line

Gardening Gone Wild has invited garden bloggers for the last Picture This Photo Contest of the year. The topic is "End of the Line", which can be taken literal or metaphorical. It's been fun to see what people have come up with, including our own Country Mouse with her End of the Line for the Brush Pile post.

For me, the post was a sad reminder that by mid-November, it's usually no longer possible to dry clothes outside, so it's the end of the clothesline until the days get longer and warmer.

My mother never had a dryer, and I never stopped drying clothes outside during the warmer time of year (disclaimer: usually Mr. Mouse is responsible for the laundry and does the work, but philosophical, we agree on this matter). Laundry smells much better, the energy savings are significant, and it really doesn't take that long to hang things.

We own multiple contraptions for hanging things outside. The Japanese square-with-clothespins is very convenient for socks and underwear. You just put the basket with the wet laundry somewhere elevated and pin everything, then you hang up the whole square. No bending down for each sock. Also an easy way to presort socks by color.

For clothesline overflow, we have a rack. We actually use the rack inside in winter for synthetics we don't want to stick in the dryer. The rack folds up small and goes into the shed or closet.


And here's where the clothes drying business intersects with garden concerns. While we love hanging things up to dry, we don't really want to see the different contraptions (or the laundry) during the rest of the week. Drying clothes on the line is newly fashionable, and some love to have a visible clothesline as garden ornamentation (I might like it if I had a larger garden, but I don't). We prefer other art.

So we put the Japanese square and the rack in the closet, and even the clothesline is retractable and hooks over two screws in the house. We lift it up, and that's the end of the line for the week.

I can't wait to look at everyone else's posts. It's always educational to see what the juror likes and what I enjoy. Though really, I enjoy so many of the posts, I'm glad I don't have to select a winner.

I'm so sorry!

Mr. Mouse: " I'm so sorry. That succulent really was a bit too close to the driveway."

Town Mouse: "Well, we're lucky that I have a ready supply of that same succulent in the back garden. They're just ready for dividing. "

Town Mouse (thinking) "And after that delicious dinner you and Mr. W.R. treated me and Ms Country Mouse to, who could be angry over such a mere trifle."

Propagation tips from another pro, and a bit of this and that

NOTE: This post was written by Country Mouse, though it has the Town Mouse byline.

First thanks again for the responses to Town Mouse's blogday retrospective - it is gratifying indeed to know that we are not burbling into the wind but that indeed we are all enjoying mutual sharing of knowledge and experience on our similar or different garden paths.

A wordy post this time - words are quicker for me to jot down than pictures are to dig up, and I don't have a lot of time today.

A propos of nothing: I recently read (in Introduction to California Chaparral by Ronald D. Quinn and Sterling C. Keeley), that bushtits (Psaltriparus minimus) are insect and spider eaters. So when I see them on the coyote brush, digging into the fluffy flowers and seeds - they must be after insects and not seeds! I'll have to go out with a loupe and see if I can see little bugs in there. I haven't gotten any good pictures of their acrobatic antics yet this year, maybe a little later on. (I'm taking this fine book on a weekend trip I'm taking to Savannah Georgia tomorrow, for a wedding. I hope to write a review if I haven't already done so when I get back.)

I learned so much at a CNPS talk I attended recently on growing California natives from seed. The speaker was Matt Teel, propagator at Yerba Buena nursery. Here are some of the amazing and enlightening things I learned:

A good tip for collecting seeds from plants that explode their seeds when they are ripe, such as lupines, is to gather flowering stalks with seed pods just before they are ripe, and put them in vases as you would flowers. Matt puts the vases into garbage cans - you need some way to capture the seeds when the pods pop.

He also explained why it is important to clean the seeds, i.e., remove all the other plant stuff that is not seed from the seed: it rots or gets pathogens. Then the seeds rot or get pathogens. I spent a nice peaceful evening cleaning all my seed collection that is in envelopes. Also - seeds should be stored in the dark, in paper envelopes.

I learned why soaking is necessary before you plant some seeds; they have to experience a couple of good rains before they germinate. Then they won't come up and get dried up because of one freak rainstorm. So you are removing the layer of germination inhibiting stuff that the first rain washes off.

Matt also recommended not tossing your seed flats if nothing germinates - he's had experiences where the following year they all came up in his compost pile because he had just given up and dumped them out. Let them dry out over summer and water them again next fall, and you might get a pleasant surprise.

I think my seeds are not getting enough sun, maybe not enough air circulation, and probably too much water. The main thing to protect them from is heavy rain that will flatten them. And critters.

When potting on seedlings, hold them by a leaf, and not by the stem. It's much easier to crush a seedling stem than a leaf. Who'd a thunk!

Another revelation was why we pot from seed trays to small pots and then to big pots. Matt explained that it is difficult to maintain proper moisture levels in pots that are much larger than the tiny plants with their little roots. Many of us had thought that intermediate step not worth bothering about. But the plants just don't thrive as well, apparently.

And - another surprise - Matt recommends using Osmocote fertilizer pellets! He said, I know - everybody says natives don't need fertilizer. Then he held up a fertilized and an unfertilized monkey flower plant in a pot. Big difference. He assured us that the nurseries pretty much all do this. Low nitrogen ones, and use about 1/4 of the recommended amount.

I met a pleasant person after the talk, who is writing a book on gardening with California natives, month by month - Such a good approach - It'll be published by U.C. Press - I'm looking forward to that one.

And btw I ordered a batch of new books when UC Press had a huge sale recently. I finally took the plunge and bought "Jepson" as it is known - a large and, to me, highly intimidating reference manual that costs $100 - on sale for half off! I've been told that it contains much useful and interesting horticultural information, as well as the identification keys that require a good bit of technical background to use. I'll let you know!

But you know what nobody seems to know? Why we call putting seeds in the fridge "stratification." Not a single person in the room, and there were many very knowledgeable people there, could give me the answer to that one. Do you know?

(Low) Maintenance

I almost called this post "Book Review Review", because it's inspired by two most excellent book reviews I read recently.

• The Blue Planet Garden blog had a review of "The American Meadow Garden: Creating an Natural Alternative to the Traditional Lawn" by John Greenlee.
• And Pam at Digging had a review of "The New Low Maintenance Garden: How to Have a Beautiful, Productive Garden and the Time to Enjoy it" by Valerie Easton.
  

DISCLAIMER: I have not read those two books. Instead, I'd like to share my reactions to the information I do have, and follow up with some thoughts on maintenance and time spent in the garden.

Readers of this blog might think I'd immediately be enamored of The American Meadow Garden. After all, the vision of clump grasses, annuals, and a few perennials, the pollinators and butterflies frolicking in the garden seem enticing. The photos are stunning -- well, they're by Saxon Holt, so of course they are.

Problem is, I've talked to people who've tried to have a meadow. One woman just had a small area, with lupine and some bunch grasses. She told of endless hours of weeding to get out the bad seeds and encourage the good. She hung on for 2 years. Next time I drove by her garden, she had some perennials in the spot where the annual lupine used to be. My fair city actually sowed California wildflowers on the former dump after it had been covered with soil. The first year was spectacular: Owl's clover, poppies, lupine, and some bunch grasses. The second year was more of a mixed bag. By now, the European annual grasses have taken over completely, with a few poppies as a reminder of great things past.

So, would I discourage anyone from trying to establish a meadow in their garden? Not at all! I think the small lupine meadow might have had too much shade, and the meadow on the dump probably had the wrong soil. It's possible do do this, especially with the no doubt excellent instructions from the book. But to be quite frank, I don't think I can handle the weeding. I can barely keep up with the weeds I get, and they're not bad. Maybe when I'm retired.

The New Low Maintenance Garden actually pushed the exact opposite button for me. As I understand it from the review, the premise of the book is that we have no time to enjoy our garden because the plants are just trouble. Having more hardscaping and a limited plant palette is the author's solution.

I've actually taken issue with using concrete in the garden in my Blog Action Day post. I hope the author does not advocate concrete as hardscape, but I know many landscape architects do. Realistically, it's the easiest way to have a weed free surface, but the environmental problems are manifold.

I also very much question the limited plant palette approach. For the wildlife gardener, more species is almost always better. Pollinators need nectar and pollen year round, birds need seeds and insects for their young. I'd leave the limited palette to the industrial plantings and encourage everyone to think diversity. An estate garden planted with natives that I saw a few weeks ago had a plant list that covered 4 spreadsheet pages. Several hundred plants, and yet it looked tidy and had clean lines. Good planning is key, regardless of how many plants you use. And having plants in the right spot will allow them to grow well with minimal pruning, watering, fertilizing or otherwise molesting the plant.

That said, the photos in the book review look appealing, and the ideas of using less lawn, collecting water on the site and -- gasp -- enjoying the garden all sound great. Who knows, I might like the book after all.

Here's what's interesting, though. I searched for the book on Amazon, and typed "low maintenance garden" (leaving out "new"). And pages and pages of books about the topic were displayed. I could not believe it! It seems as if, next to the search for the flat stomach and the wrinkle-free face, the low maintenance garden might be one of the holy grails of Americana.

So I asked myself whether my garden is low maintenence, and what I spend time on in my garden. Here it is:

• Spot watering (summer) -- The irrigation in the front garden is broken, and I want to stop watering the front, so it makes no sense to fix it. I spot-watered the plants approximately every 10-14 days this summer. It took about 1 hour each time, and I enjoyed spending the time and seeing the progress (or not) of the new plants. Next year, I'll switch to every 14-18 days, then to once a month.
• Container watering (summer) -- I have some water-loving container plants in the shade. In summer, I water them every 2-3 days, 5-10 minutes. Note to author of The NEW Low Maintenence Garden: Containers are more work than plants in the ground, not less.
• Weeding (fall and spring) -- When there's water and some warmth, there are weeds. I tend to weed as I go, 10 minutes before I go to work, or a brief period here or their. This year, I'm finding the dreaded Oxalis pes caprae, so I'm trying to be extra vigilant.
• Pruning (summer and winter) -- I prune most natives in summer (or not) and my fruit trees in winter. The fruit trees actually take quite a bit of my time, between pruning, raking leaves, lime sulphur application, and harvesting. But then it's also one of the most enjoyable parts of gardening. Does eating the fruit count as maintenance?
• Leaf raking (fall) -- For about 3 months in the fall, I spend quite a bit of time raking or sweeping leaves or redwood branches. However, here's the catch: Most of the time is spent clearing off the hardscaping or the dry streambed. What falls in the other areas is often left to rot. I did try out a neighbor's electric leaf vacuum last year. I found it heavy and very noisy, and it took me a long time to clean up most of the dry streambed. I decided I'd rather go back to sweeping and picking up the leaves.
  
• Planting (mostly fall) -- Each summer, I plan some changes or additions to the garden, and I buy and plant things in the fall. I'm also planting bulbs and hope to start annuals from seed. Is that maintenance? Does it stop me from enjoying my garden? Probably not. In fact, probably the opposite.

Now here's the interesting question: Is my garden low maintenance? I often get that question during the garden tour. And I'm tempted to ask back: Compared to what?

On the one hand, I don't have a lawn I need to mow, fertilize, and otherwise coddle. Most plants don't need a lot of pruning or care. I only fertilize the fruit trees, mostly with my own compost. On the other hand, hand weeding and dealing with the leaves does take a little time. And I'm truly behind on the bulb planting. But I usually enjoy the times I spend outside, listening to the birds, smelling the leaves, imagining the joys of spring to come, discovering new blossoms or spiders or mushrooms. Then I run inside to get the camera for a photo, or to get a cup of tea and have a break, and I think I'm so lucky to have this special time to play. Is it maintenance? Is it low? You decide.

Happy Birthday TmouseCmouse

(Click on any banner for a full view; well, everyone probably knows that already)

Last summer, after having dabbled in gardening with natives for a few years, I read Douglas Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home. The book had a profound effect on me. It has scientific evidence for the damage invasive plants can do to not just other plants but pollinators, birds, and eventually the whole ecosystem. And it explained clearly the good that native plants can do by supporting the pollinators, birds, and all that surrounds us, even in small suburban lots.



I wanted to do more than just fiddle with my own garden. So, in October last year, I asked my good friend Country Mouse whether she might enjoy doing a joint garden blog. I still remember, we were having a companionable luncheon at the cafeteria at work, and it was a sunny fall day. After contemplating the matter, Country Mouse indicated it was a definite Maybe, but immediately came up with a brillant name: Town Mouse and Country Mouse.


I did my first post on November 9, and just proceeded to muddle on. We both hoped that our posts would be entertaining, educational, and inspiring. Well, actually, I just hoped Country Mouse would finally be done with her deadline and join in, and that someone would find our blog.


Then I found Blotanical, and realized there was a whole wide world of garden bloggers out there. Amazing photos! Interesting stories! And many like-minded bloggers who cared deeply about sustainable gardening, native plants, or both.


We were so excited about our first comments, and even more excited when we found our blog on other blogs' side bar. And really, getting some feedback has made it so enjoyable to write the posts. Thanks to all who participate, or follow our blog or -- believe it or not -- recognize us as the "famous" mice we are. As happened to Country Mouse last weekend.


For me, the exciting part has been how the blog, and our understanding of native gardening, has grown over the year. I've also received an amazing camera and I'm slowly learning how to make photos that capture what I see. Which is surprisingly difficult, but fun to experiment with.


Going forward, I might try to revive the Book Review and the Native Plant of the Month feature.
I hope to get better at identifying birds and insects. But mostly, I hope to continue to enjoy sharing, and learning from others.



I hope to continue to feel a connection, from my blog to other bloggers, just as my birds aren't my birds but belong to all of us.

And while I was worried at the beginning that I'd run out of things to blog about, the problem has actually been that I don't have time enough to post and read and garden. But then I remember that it's fine to enjoy the quiet and some rest. Especially during this darker time of the year.

End of the Line for the Brush Pile - Fire Department Heroes -- with Chipper

I finally called up Friday to register for the chipper rota with the Branciforte Fire Protection District, staffed almost entirely by volunteers. It might be two months, I was told: the local fire departments share a chipper and everyone must take their turn. Oh well. But true to their mission statement, the officer I talked to was indeed nice:

All members of the Branciforte Fire Department will strive to give excellent customer service, to always do the right thing, and to always be nice.

Don't you love that last part!

The next morning I was out collecting seeds (Madia elegans) when Mr Wood Rat called my cell phone to say that the chipper would be there within an hour!

Yes, it was the end of the line for the brush pile -- and a great photo op for this month's Gardening Gone Wild photo competition whose theme is -- "The end of the line."

The picture at the top of this post is my pick for the competition. As you can see, it's the end of the line for the brush we cleared - and there is a fire fighter literally at the end of the line for feeding the last of the brush into the chipper. On the left you can see the tiny pile of mulch that is all that remains of the gargantuan brush pile!

Below I begin at the beginning of the end ...

This was near the beginning of the hour and a half it took to reduce the pile of dangerously flammable dry wood to usable mulch. They worked really hard!

In fact you could say they really got into their work....

Hey there, didn't you read the warnings?...

I also liked this next photo as an entry for the competition because you can really see where the end of the line is for these big old rotted logs that Mr Rat had lugged out of the woods. (They were in a big pile where we now want to do some landscaping). It is a more dramatic shot. But I went with the visual pun.

That was some heavy-duty chipper! It hardly hiccuped. I like the teeth someone painted on its output chute.

I was so happy to see the back of that pile. I asked the guys if I could take their photo and they graciously agreed.

We extend a BIG THANKS to these volunteer firefighters who are supporting local homeowners to maintain a defensible zone around our homes.

And here is Mr Rat grinning at the place where the pile was, as the fire fighters drove off to deal with their next pile.

Duncan the dog was hopeful some of the late residents of the pile might still be around. But they, like the pile itself, were gone.