Good morning and happy November! I’m so excited–on my morning garden walkabout, I saw what I think are California poppy seedlings popping up through the soil!
I scattered seeds a couple weeks ago of a few different wildflowers, and this week, there was some real rain overnight. The poppies are the first to show their tiny little selves! Squeeee!
It’s time for me to start sharing what the land I’m tending actually looks like. I think I’ve been avoiding it because my work so far doesn’t look like much. But the whole point of this blog is to share the journey, so I need to be okay with sharing everything–the good, the bad, and the meh.
First, here’s a map of the front yard that I created with Google Drawings. I spent nearly an entire weekend on it, and it was so much fun!
The purple circular shapes are where I have put native plants already. The big purple circle with an X in it is a native oak that was already there. The green shapes are non-native plants that were mostly there when I moved to this place.
The map lifts me up a little when I’m discouraged because it helps me see that I’ve actually already done quite a lot.
All right. Today, I’m sharing the two planting areas to the right of the driveway marked F11 and F12 on the map. I think that whole part of the yard was mostly paved over so someone could park an RV or boat there. The planting areas are surrounded by bricks, and I think there were rose bushes or ornamental shrubs in those areas originally. I cleared most of the dead stumps and roots out, but there’s one stump that I couldn’t quite tackle.
These two beds are where I started with California native plants. In the spring and summer, this spot gets full sun most of the day, except for the late afternoon when it’s shaded by a row of tall shrubs. In the video tour below, you can see the plants I’ve placed there: Red-flowered Buckwheat (see my “Mistakes” post for more on those), Purple Needlegrass (Stipa pulchra), California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum), and Sea Daisies (Erigeron glaucus).
I have no idea what the soil is really composed of, but it’s dry and quick-draining. You can see the remnants of the red-dyed wood chips that the previous residents used everywhere. I’m slowly working on getting rid of those because I can’t imagine the red dye is good for the environment, and the chips don’t seem to break down at all!
The first California Buckwheat plant that you see in the video I found on clearance because its stems were all twisted funny. But it’s growing straight and happy now. The second one I got just recently. You can see it was still flowering in the video, and it seems pretty happy so far. In between are two Sea Daisies, which despite the name actually do grow where I live. We’re not right on the coast, but we’re near the Carquinez Strait and we do get some morning fog and mistiness sometimes. The Sea Daisies have done well so far and even rebloomed a couple of weeks ago!
Once the days cooled off in late October, I scattered wildflower seeds on the edges of these beds. I didn’t keep track (doh!), but I think I put down California Goldfields (Lasthenia californica), California Poppies (Eschscholzia californica), and possibly California Goldenrod (Solidago velutina ssp. californica). So it will be a surprise to see what comes up!
I also put Purple Owl’s Clover (Castilleja exserta) seeds down around the two grasses. When I read about the clover, I found out that it needs to be near other native plants, especially grasses, because it gets some of its nutrients from the roots of its companions. Isn’t that beautiful?
Here are my thoughts and questions about these two beds:
- I should move the Red-flowered Buckwheats since they are not native to where I live. What should I put in their place?
- I’m hoping the grasses and wildflowers will thrive this year and start to put nutrients back into the soil.
- Maybe my husband can help me remove that last remaining stump of whatever plant was there before. Or, will the stump decompose and nourish the new plants?
What do you think?
Resources:
Putting Down Roots 
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