There was a break in the rain on New Year’s Day so I headed over to the school. I carried a couple plants with me that had been growing in pots on our patio for a while: California Aster (Symphyotrichum chilense), cultivated from overflow from our yard, and goldenrod (probably Solidago velutina ssp. californica), salvaged from previous gardening work at the school.
I snuck them in next to the amphitheater seating, leaving them to fend for themselves in a sea of weedy grass, mallow, etc.
Then I headed over to see how things were at the main native garden. It was exciting to see three of the new soaproot plants (Chlorogalum pomeridianum) doing well. (The fourth, not pictured, is taking its time sprouting if it’s alive.)
The goldenrod that we transplanted earlier is chewed up — hopefully by bugs, not by getting stepped on — but hanging in there:
The California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) seeds we laid down are sprouting:
The new Ceanothus is looking happy and getting ready to bloom:
And the manzanita’s blooming:
I’m happy with how much the Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis) has grown. I started it from seed, maybe one year ago? The bluer leaves belong to another grass plant that was already growing when I first saw the gardens — another fescue? If it’s Festuca glauca, we should take it out.
It’s good to see the hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea) transplanted by Michelle greening up:
It’s good to see many signs of life from the donated Iris douglasiana:
But I was especially happy to see that the recently transplanted monkeyflower (Diplacus aurantiacus?) is starting to bloom:
My only big sadness was seeing a branch broken off the big coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis):
While I was there, I did a little weeding:
I wonder if the balance of removing these was good or bad; they may out compete the native plants, which should provide more services to the local wildlife; they may also make the garden look bad, turning people away from the good it provides. But are we replacing them all or just leaving barren spots with less life?
Finally, I came across a branch broken off from the evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum). I think the kids tend to step on it when they’re playing. If it roots, we’ll have some new plants for the garden.
(I release theses photos into the public domain. These works are marked with CC0 1.0, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/.)
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