2022 News
We lost another live Oak Tree growing on the East facing slope of the hillside after high winds. Its difficult to tell why these oaks are falling. Perhaps it is years of drought. They grew with split trunks and perhaps they slowly rotted away at the base.
Many of the wild flower seeds I threw out this year have sprouted but then disappeared. Some of the lupine and baby blue eyes- supposedly deer resistant. The rainfall has disappeared this January after a very wet fall. So the poppies and phacelia are looking thirsty. The tansy leaf phacelia seem to have taken hold and are spreading. Again it seems as if something has come by and chomped on a few of the phacelia plants. The poppies seem to grow close to Italian thistle which I hand pick and try to leave in place. Hoping that the prickly leaves will still protect the young poppies. Oxalis plants have gotten out of control after years of trying to contain them. I have cleared them from under the oaks where they have been competing with the bee plants I have planted and propagated.
This year pacific sanecle (snake root) has been spreading. I wonder if I should try to control it a bit, even though it is a native - it produces a very prickly seed. The hedge nettle is also doing well. We recaged a 6 year old buckeye tree that has reached about 6 feet in height. Last year, something came by and ate leaves off the tree when we removed the cage.
As for wild flowers, there seems to be some lupines that continue to grow. As well as clarkias, minors lettuce, and yarrow. Again the major weeds, I am managing this year seem to be the Italian thistle (it grows everywhere now in our neighborhood), clinging bedstraw, and this plant with yellow closed flowers that turn into silver puff balls. There is nonnative geranium everywhere and lots of oxalis which I only try to gently clear away if something native is growing close by. I also see an increase in clasping henbit. These nonnatives that I let grow last year as they seemed to attract bees was perhaps not such a good idea. However when I am at local parks, I also see a lot of geraniums so perhaps they are just getting out of hand everywhere.
