#california native plant society

[tggardens]

[2manyplants]

Tabling today for CNPS/TreePeople at the Anahuacalmecac restoration event!

[mel-smeld]

Calochortus leichtlinii

Smokey mariposa, Leichtin's Mariposa

Native to coniferous forests and chaparral habitat including lowest elevation grassy hills in the Sierra Nevada mountains, California, USA

Estimate plant range from California Native Plant Society:

[fairandfatalasfair]

"Like all bees, honeybees thrive in a biodiverse landscape. But California’s almond industry places them in a monoculture where growers expect the bees to be predictably productive year after year.

Commercial honeybees are considered livestock by the US Department of Agriculture because of the creature’s vital role in food production. But no other class of livestock comes close to the scorched-earth circumstances that commercial honeybees face. More bees die every year in the US than all other fish and animals raised for slaughter combined.

“The high mortality rate creates a sad business model for beekeepers,” says Nate Donley, a senior scientist for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s like sending the bees to war. Many don’t come back.���" ... "Hope is being found in a new certification program that, similar to “organic” or “fair trade” labels, will help consumers choose products that have been made with bee-friendly methods.

The “Bee Better” certification program, launched in 2017 by the not-for-profit Xerces Society, introduces biodiversity into almond groves to naturally control pests and nourish honey bees. Xerces is working with almond growers to plant California wildflowers, mustard and clover in between the rows of trees and native flowering hedges along the perimeter of the orchard – a kind of eco-friendly fence to keep bees in the orchard. ...

“We don’t have pests; we have biodiversity,” says Anderson, who primarily sells directly to individual customers through his Anderson Almonds company. Unlike large industrial almond farms that strip the orchard ground bare to more efficiently treat for insects and fungi, Anderson allows a rich understory to grow, which naturally nourishes the soil and strengthens the trees.

Anderson hires a “beekeeper hobbyist” from northern California every spring to install about 20 hives in his orchard. “We have the opposite of colony collapse at my farm,” says Anderson. “My beekeeper brings weak hives down that he wants to recharge on my property.”"

[rjzimmerman]

This tree has lived for 13,000 years. California’s housing crisis could doom it. (Washington Post)

At first glance, one of the world’s oldest living organisms doesn’t look like much — a collection of shrubs nestled atop a hill in a rocky gully. But those shrubs are just the crown of a giant, spreading oak tree, 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. Most of the tree is underground.

Estimated to be 13,000 to 18,000 years old, the tree — known as the Jurupa Oak — is older than almost any other plant on Earth. It has survived an ice age and rapid climate warming. Its leaves may have brushed against saber-toothed cats and 500-pound ground sloths. But now, environmentalists and locals worry that the ancient tree is under threat from a more quotidian force in modern California: development.

The Planning Commission of Jurupa Valley, a city of 100,000 an hour east of Los Angeles, is poised to approve a 1.4-square-mile development that includes a business park, 1,700 homes and an elementary school. Light-industry buildings would stand just a few hundred feet from the ancient tree.

The city believes that the project will boost the local economy. The site’s developer has said it plans to protect the tree, but environmentalists believe that the construction and resulting development could be deadly to the Jurupa Oak.

“It’s unique among most things on the planet,” said Aaron Echols, conservation chair for the Riverside-San Bernardino chapter of the California Native Plant Society. “We need to be absolutely sure that we’re not going to cause harm to this plant.”

The tree has plunged the Jurupa Valley into an ongoing debate in California: How to balance the state’s growth and need for housing with protecting its rich biodiversity?

Think about the oldest tree on Earth and you may picture a bristlecone pine known as “Methuselah” and estimated to be close to 5,000 years old. The Jurupa Oak fits into a different category: It’s a Palmer’s oak, which is a species of “clonal tree,” a network of genetically identical shrubs connected through a shared root system. Unlike in normal trees, none of the original tissue is still present; instead, after a wildfire, the tree will spring out new, genetically identical shoots from burned stumps.

[vashwoodzine]

💥LOVE & PEACE!!💥

Preorders are now open until August 2!! Snag your copy below here at https://vashwoodzine.bigcartel.com/

All profits will go towards the California Native Plant Society ♥️🌱

Description of bundles under the cut!

GUNSLINGER & PRIEST

1 digital copy of the zine (70+ pages)

STAMPEDE & PUNISHER

One (1) digital copy of the zine

One (1) physical copy of an A5-sized zine booklet (70+ pages)

One (1) random mini 2.5x3.5" photocard and deco sticker sheet

One (1) random 4x6" miniprints

SPIKEY & NICK

One (1) digital copy of the zine

One (1) physical copy of an A5-sized zine booklet (70+ pages)

Two (2) random mini 2.5x3.5" photocards and deco sticker sheets

Two (2) 4x6" pearl laminate sticker sheets

Two (2) 4x6" miniprints

VASH & WOLFWOOD

One (1) digital copy of the zine

One (1) physical copy of an A5-sized zine booklet (70+ pages)

Three (3) mini 2.5x3.5" photocards and deco sticker sheets

Two (2) 4x6" pearl laminate sticker sheets

Two (2) 4x6" miniprints

One (1) 3" glitter epoxy charm

One (1) 2.5" holographic charm

One (1) 4.5" standee

Also, here's a preview of our deco sticker sheets we're throwing in as freebies with our photocards! Use them to decorate the photocards to your heart's content! Please note that our freebies (deco sticker sheets and miniphotocards) are made in-house and may have slight variations.

[evilautisticsociety]

Making a master list for all the great Hopepunk Solarpunk posts ive seen (IT UPDATES!!)

you don’t have to read all of this! you can scroll and find ones that interest you, id bold the ones that i want you to see but then all the links would be bold lmao

giving this to my future self

recipes under 45 minutes, 5 or less ingredients

What is conformity?

What is Solarpunk? (reddit masterpost)

Hattie Carthan- A 60 year old black women who paved the way (website)

Rules of Guerrilla Gardening (youtube)

When to do Guerrilla Gardening (and when not to

Easy way to do Guerrila Gardening (no seed bombs needed) (youtube)

Hope is not mindless optimism

Solar punks are against a shitty future

Deeeefinitely don’t look at the native plants and plant them alongside sidewalks to make the world greener and prettier

How to really make a difference

It is the cohabitation that makes all things beautiful.

Buy Nothing group; becoming a community

Fixing clothes- how to do it

Know your local communities

What if we stop an apocalypse?

Individual action into collective action

Wallgardens- More accessible and less space needed

Gardening for a climate resistance

Social Ecology

Actual solarpunk vs misconception

How to help with little energy/effort

An actual ecovillage!!

Attracting native birds

Amazing Ecovillage (tiktok vid)

Reconstructed Railway Bridge (tiktok vid)

What is Solarpunk? (youtube(

How can we make Solarpunk a reality? (youtube)

A cool guerrilla gardening group (youtube)

How radical gardeners took back centeral city (yourube)

Trees bring rain

Minimalism vs Solarpunk

The first guerrilla gardener (website)

More about Hattie Carthan (website)

Project of homes for homeless

Recommended youruber for Solarpunk

The problem with individualism

California has passed a food law! (Website)

How to be a Druid

How to make Biomass sustainable again

Indigenous Climate Plan!!! (Website)

What is Solarpunk? (website)

Permaculture

Conventional vs Unconventional Permaculture

Independent Gardening is NOT Inaccessible!

Role of Poor Soil

Example of a Guerilla Gardening Community

Seed Companies

How to Start a Garden (for FREE!!)

Affective Mousetrap (no rat poison needed)

How to get started with a new climate project (Instagram)

A district in Japan which works together with fish

How to start medicinal garden

Solar panels work

Ideas to improve bus stop

Kinetic energy power sources

Solar farms

Solarpunk Poetry

Food map :0 (where wild fruit/owned fruit trees are)

How to choose hope

How to turn your neighbourhood into a village

Creating a liberating society this sets off my warning sirens but idk look into it

Creating a Solarpunk city

Ableism, Cottagecire, and Solarpunk

Increasing soil capacity for water

Sourdough Recipe :3

Anarchists Calisthetics (anarcht every day!)

Guerilla gardening tutorial

[flowerishness]

Spartium junceum (Spanish broom)

Spanish broom is very similar to Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) but it's taller. Spanish broom's invasive relative Scotch broom is all over the place in Vancouver but, so far, Spanish broom has only become 'naturalized' in California and Oregon. Both plants are European in origin but Scotch broom is also native to the British Isles and seems to be more tolerant of Vancouver's colder, wetter climate.

Spanish broom is grown as a garden ornamental and has actually been granted the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. This magnificent specimen has climbed into an unfortunate cherry tree to gain more sunlight. The trunk in the last photo actually belongs to the tree and I'm not sure it really appreciates its rather overwhelming companion.

[typhlonectes]

i saw your post about native north american plants for birds in the winter. i’m from southern california so scrubland/chaparral. my neighborhood isn’t very friendly towards small ground animals but a two minute walk takes you to an undeveloped canyon. i’m aware most birds migrate further south for the winter but i’d like to know if you have any recommendations for plants and small trees that would be beneficial for them. my neighborhood does have some trees in communal spaces and some of those trees do have seedpods but i’d always like to help. i’ve seen neighbors who have bird feeders but do not currently have the resources to maintain one of them. do you have any recommendations for native flora? thank you very much for your time

Question about bird friendly native plants for Southern California...

For reference here's the original post:

And here are some resources for helping out wildlife in your own space with California Native Plants:

Pollinator Plants for California: 17-045_02_XercesSoc_Pollinator-Plants_California_web-3page.pdf

A list from Better Homes & Gardens: 15 Top Native Plants of Southern California (bhg.com)

Resources from the California Native Plant Society: Getting Started - California Native Plant Society (cnps.org)

From an Orange County Register article:

"Bird-friendly plants include California coffeeberry, a shrub with dark, red berries this time of year; California wild grapes that yield small, edible clusters in the fall, and toyon, also known as Christmas berry or California holly, with bright, red berries that generally ripen by mid-December.

Tree of Life Nursery recommends other natives for songbirds including manzanita, fourwing saltbush, coyote brush, barberry, California lilac, buckwheat, brittlebush, chaparral honeysuckle, laurel sumac, hollyleaf cherry, oak trees, lemonade berry, currants, gooseberries, wild rose, wild blackberry, and elderberry..."

Good luck!

[scotianostra]

12th July 1834 saw the death in Hawaii of Botanist, David Douglas.

As promised last month a more detailed account of this not so well known Scot.

David Douglas was born in the village of Scone on June 25, 1799, just north of Perth he is much better known in the US state of Oregon, where their state tree “The Douglas Fir” is named after him Douglas was the son of stonemason John Douglas and Jean Drummond. He attended local schools, and by the time he was eleven, he was working as a gardener for local landowners, the Earl of Mansfield and Sir Robert Preston.

While working at the Botanical Garden in Glasgow, he became acquainted with the garden’s curator, Stewart Murray, and British botanist Sir William Jackson Hooker. Douglas attended Hooker’s lectures and had access to private libraries. Hooker later described him as a person of “great activity, singular abstemiousness, and energetic zeal.”

In 1823, on Hooker’s recommendation, the Royal Horticultural Society chose Douglas as a botanical collector. The Society intended to send Douglas to China, but arrangements fell through so he ended up going to eastern North America. In 1824, he found passage on a Hudson’s Bay Company vessel, the William and Ann, and arrived in Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River on April 7, 1825. Among his duties were keeping a journal of his activities and collecting seeds and plant specimens that might be useful as horticultural plants in England. Douglas visited North America four times, three times to the Pacific Northwest and California to look for plants, particularly fruit trees, forest trees, and oaks.

On his 1826 trip to present-day Oregon, Douglas took careful notes on the local vegetation as he traveled up the Willamette Valley. On September 30, he recorded one of the earliest descriptions of the Indian use of fire: “Most parts of the country burned; only on little patches in the valleys and on the flats near low hills that verdure is to be seen. Some of the natives tell me it is done for the purpose of urging the deer to frequent certain parts, to feed, which they leave unburned, and of course they are easily killed. Others say it is done in order that they might the better find wild honey and grasshoppers, which both serve as articles of winter food.“

In October, he traveled farther south to near present-day Roseburg on the Umpqua River, primarily to collect the cones of the sugar pine . On October 26, he described an encounter with a local man who led him to the “long-wished-for pines.” While shooting the cones out of a tall tree, which Douglas described as hanging at the tips of branches “like small sugar-loaves in a grocer’s shop,” he attracted several Natives who seemed “anything but friendly.” After a tense standoff, one man indicated that they wanted tobacco, and Douglas responded that he would oblige them if they brought him more cones. The men went in one direction, and Douglas with three cones and a twig went in another.

Douglas was interested in all aspects of the landscape, including animals. Those named in his honour range from the pigmy short-horned lizard to the Douglas squirrel ( . He shipped a number of specimens home for examination by leading scientists. Some species, such as the mountain beaver , were new to science. Douglas also reported seeing—and shooting—California condors on the Columbia River.

In 1827, Douglas traveled through the Northern Rockies and then to York Factory on Hudson Bay before returning to London. He worked on his collections until October 1829, when he again traveled to Fort Vancouver. He spent time on the California coast in 1831-1832, collecting plants and animals and making geographic observations. In 1832, on his return to the Columbia River, he made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. He explored the Fraser River district in 1833 and left the Northwest on October 18, 1833, for a return trip to the Hawaiian Islands and a planned return to London.

Douglas had been intrigued by Hawaii and wanted to continue collecting. Unable to get prompt transportation to England, he spent extra time in the islands. It was there, on July 12, 1834, that he met his end,apparently trampled by a bullock in a deep pit designed to capture cattle, although foul play has been suspected.

Douglas introduced more than two hundred Pacific Northwest plants home, many of them important in our gardens today, including Oregon’s red-flowering currant.

At Scone Palace, near Douglas’s birthplace, stands a magnificent Douglas-fir, grown from seed that he sent back from western North America in 1826. His introduction of Sitka spruce to Britain forms the basis of that country’s modern conifer forestry.

Douglas was a tireless botanist and natural historian whose name is honoured in more than eighty species of plants and animals. David Douglas High School in Portland is named for him, a peak in the Rockies as well as numerous plants, are also named after him.

Pics are of Douglas, his memorials at Scone, in Hawaii and Vancouver.

Read more on his life and death here https://keolamagazine.com/.../the-mysterious-death-of.../

[pnwnativeplants]

Can I ask where you order plants from? I live in northern california (about 3 hours from oregon) looking for native plants

I'm in Washington so nowhere I buy plants would make much sense for you. My most recent post is from the conservation districts local annual plant sale but they don't ship. I will pick it up in spring.

I would get involved with the California Native Plant Society, they likely have resources for you:

[tggardens]

I want to add, I found this because of a post made on the California Native Plant Society's Facebook page.

The OP was concerned and asking, "What is making these holes in my Buckeye trees? All the saplings have the same holes."

And the answer was overwhelmingly, "Native caterpillars! "

We've been so trained to think of things eating our plants as a problem to solve by spraying and troubleshooting that we forget that part of the point of planning natives is that they are meant to be eaten!

This is a great article that summarizes some of Doug Tallamy's books and lists the main points succinctly:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/meet-ecologist-who-wants-unleash-wild-backyard-180974372/

[solarpunkani]

Hi! I love your blog! I live in California and I was wondering if you had any advice on native plants in the warmer areas, or book recommendations on that topic. I have a bit of yard space, but not a lot of time to dedicate to the project.

Hey! Thanks so much, I appreciate the kind words!

I'm not in California (I'm actually way off in the opposite coast, I'm East Coast Floridian lol) but I can do my best with what I've found to be the case for me!

I can confidently say that a lot of native plants grow... kinda slowly, especially from seed. Hell, I've been growing Sandhill milkweed seeds since February, and those suckers still aren't an inch tall all the way into April! You're gonna need patience. Other plants I've heard grow really quickly and can spread fast, so you're gonna want to know which do what and prepare accordingly. In the very least, have a contingency plan for if things get out of control--maybe uprooting and repotting volunteer plants to give away could be a good strategy! Of course, if you're worried about a native plant spreading more than you'd like, you can grow it in a pot!

Either way, the thing about native plants is that they're most likely going to get better with time and care. If something looks really wimpy and sad in year one, in year two it may come back and be a superstar! Sometimes they'll surprise you--I thought a lot of my coreopsis flowers got decimated by snails last year, but this year they're coming back strong, and I've only been planting more of them! With that being said, do try to remember where you planted what--I think I accidentally destroyed my Aquatic Milkweed plant last year digging around to put something else in the ground (though my soil isn't very aquatic in the first place and I'm surprised it survived 2 years).

All that being said, I'm most knowledgeable about native plants in the Florida area (and honestly, the more I poke around on iNaturalist, the more I realize... I barely know anything lol), but! I hope I can provide some resources on California native plants for you to refer to!

I probably don't have to be the one to tell you that California is very big. It has a lot of different climates and growing conditions, so your mileage may vary with any of the sites I give you. But hopefully at least something helps!

Here is a link to the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy's guide to native California wildflowers! It's also downloadable as a PDF! They also have a guide for planting and watering California native plants that may be helpful!

Califlora is a nonprofit database providing information on California native plants, and they seem to also have a growing guide to help you find what plants grow in what area and with what care needs!

The California Native Plant Society will likely be a good resource! They have 36 chapters state-wide, each with their own website, so checking out the chapter that serves your area will likely be a fantastic resource for you! If they're anything like the chapter in my district here in FL, they'll likely have monthly meetings and may even host field trips and plant sales! Pro tip, if they're hosting a plant sale, show up early--I missed out on milkweed because I showed up on time and not 10 minutes early. I am still salty about that, but I regaled the tale on my gardening blog, so I won't bring that here. Here's a page that'll help you find out which chapter serves your area! Their main page also has a tool to help you pick native plants by location and water needs, providing information and tips, and finding nearby nurseries that may have the plants you're looking for! Fingers crossed there's relevant nurseries in your area, my city... doesn't have much.

Across the United States, there's land grant universities that have a mission to make agricultural research accessible to growers in their state, and they'll likely also provide information on native plants as well! To the best of my ability, I think this is the extensions office website for California--the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources website. I did however find the University of California Cooperative Extension which... is either what I meant to find, or something else, I'm no longer sure. Or is it this site that we need? I don't know what's going on anymore.

SFinBloom is a... group? Team? Pair? That's gotten popular for guerrilla gardening in the San Francisco area (but they'll also travel to other places? I lost track). They sell native seed blends on their website, and have five for California! Which makes sense, since most of the work they do is in California. I haven't tried their Southeast mix any, but they sell seed blends and shakers that one could use for on-the-go seed scattering, but no one's stopping you from buying the seeds and using them in your yard. I'd highly suggest double checking the list to be sure they're all native, which is honestly something I'd recommend when it comes to any seed mix being sold, but feel free to give it a shot! They provide the common name and the Latin name, which in my opinion is always a good sign. They have a very popular Tiktok account you can check out if you feel like it too, and an Instagram!

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife lists resources on California native plants. I've listed some already, and some others I do not have the braincells to check out at the moment.

Regarding books, I think of all my gardening books, I only have 2 that specifically talk about native pollinator plants. One is a purchase from Barnes and Nobles, which was published by the Florida Native Plant Society, so it's extremely Florida-specific. I do also have The Xerces Society Guide to Attracting Native Pollinators: Protecting North America's Bees and Butterflies, which does have a list of Pollinator and Nectar Plants in the back few pages, including a section for California and the Southwest. The rest of the book talks about why you should pollinator garden, special considerations for gardening in different places, and different kinds of native bees so let's be real. Here you go.

Shhhhh don't tell Xerces.

Speaking of native wildflowers, it would be remiss of me not to mention milkweed specifically. It's My One Thing. Milkweed4Monarchs has lists of native milkweeds arranged by state, which is what I've been using lately to recommend species to people. It provides 18 names, but I'll tell you right now, I envy anyone who can grow Heart-leaf milkweed (A. cordifolia) naturally in their region and as such. Please. Do it for me. This site also sells seeds, which I haven't purchased personally but a friend in my gardening server has successfully grown Purple Milkweed (A. purparescens) from this shop and that's honestly a pretty high recommendation in my book.

Asides from that! All I can say is that I hope this is helpful! And if any California gardeners want to chime in with their favorite resources and plant lists/plant sources, by all means go ahead!

[rotationalsymmetry]

Apparently whether planting milkweed helps the butterflies is More Complicated than it seems, based on variables like where exactly you live and what type of milkweed it is.

On the bright side, I am being pointed in the direction of organizations I very much wanted to know about, like the California Native Plant Society and the Xerces Society (which is about insect/invertebrate conservation.)

Learning things is good, right?

[rjzimmerman]

Solar Farms Have a Superpower Beyond Clean Energy. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

It’s not your average solar farm.

The glassy panels stand in a meadow. Wildflowers sway in the breeze, bursts of purple, pink, yellow, orange and white among native grasses. A monarch butterfly flits from one blossom to the next. Dragonflies zip, bees hum and goldfinches trill.

As solar projects unfurl across the United States, sites like this one in Ramsey, Minn., stand out because they offer a way to fight climate change while also tackling another ecological crisis: a global biodiversity collapse, driven in large part by habitat loss.

The sun’s clean energy is a powerful weapon in the battle against climate change. But the sites that capture that energy take up land that wildlife needs to survive and thrive. Solar farms could blanket millions of acres in the United States over the coming decades.

So developers, operators, biologists and environmentalists are teaming up with an innovative strategy.

“We have to address both challenges at the same exact time,” said Rebecca Hernandez, a professor of ecology at the University of California, Davis, whose research focuses on how to do just that.

Insects, those small animals that play a mighty role in supporting life on Earth, are facing alarming declines. Solar farms can offer them food and shelter by providing a diverse mix of native plants.

Such plants can also decrease erosion, nourish the soil and store planet-warming carbon. They can also attract insects that improve pollination of nearby crops.

Pollinator friendly solar can pay off for business, too, potentially saving money and giving projects an edge for approval at a time when communities are increasingly wary of vast solar farms. Developers are taking note.

But there’s a broad spectrum of pollinator friendliness and little agreement on what efforts should count. Standards are often nonexistent. Some big projects are limiting pollinator habitat to tiny corners of their sites. Ecological value varies widely.

Communities may not understand the difference, and corporate marketing may exaggerate. That’s led to accusations of greenwashing.

Pollinator habitat on solar farms is “a serious work in progress,” said Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit group that is working on an effort to bring some clarity by certifying solar sites.

“It’s not fair if some people are truly stepping up to do this right and another company is barely doing anything and saying they’re pollinator friendly,” he said.

“If you build it, will they come?” he asks in his research. So far the answer is a resounding yes, if you grow the right plants.

In a study published late last year, his team found that insect abundance had tripled over five years on test plots at two other Minnesota solar sites. The abundance of native bees grew twentyfold.

The results come amid a global decline of wildlife that leaders are struggling to address. Some of the most well-known insect species are in trouble: Later this year, the federal government is expected to rule on whether to place monarch butterflies on the Endangered Species List. North American birds, for their part, are down almost 30 percent since 1970.

But at this site, called Anoka County Solar, acoustic monitoring has documented 73 species of birds, presumably attracted by the buffet of seeds and insects. Some build nests in the structures supporting the panels.

Mammals are showing up, too. Mr. Walston checked a trail camera before leaving, hoping to discover the occupant of a remarkably large burrow: A fox, he thought, or a badger. No luck.

(It’s trickier to make solar sites friendly to large wild animals, in part because developers are nervous to let them near expensive infrastructure, but efforts are underway there, too.)

What makes this meadow possible is the height of the panels. A prairie restoration firm had told ENGIE, the owner and developer, that taller panels would allow for a sharp increase in native vegetation species, providing much more ecological diversity, said John Gantner, the director of engineering and delivery for ENGIE’s smaller-scale sites.

[vashwoodzine]

We are proud to announce that we were able to donate $13,696.69 to the California Native Plant Society!! Thank you all so much for your incredible support; we are truly grateful that we could help make a difference for our beautiful environment. 🌱 ❤️

With such exciting news being said, we will be announcing the dates for our leftover sales soon, so be sure to keep your eye out!

Again, thank you all so much! We couldn't have done this without you!! Love and peace! ❤️ ✌️