Sunday, April 12, 2009

April 11, 2009 Clean-up: Enemy No. 1

From Native By Design

On another beautiful day at the Nature Park, our efforts went to removing a lot of garbage (some rather interesting in nature) and finding and removing the above seedlings: castor bean (Ricinus communis)- enemy no. 1.

For the last few months, we focused our attention on the milk thistle, but there were few of these in evidence this time. Now the castor bean is sprouting. If you go to the park feel free to remove any of these that you find. Here's a picture of one still standing. Notice the large oval first leaves (cotyledons) and the palmate true leaf. It is often reddish in color.

Castor bean seedling
From Native By Design


Be very careful to avoid poison oak. This is an important native plant that has good habitat value: it provides cover and food for many animals.

Beware - Poison oak
From Native By Design

Poison oak
From Native By Design

The park is doing well as the following pictures attest.

Park Entrance on Pasadena Ave. (Bush sunflower, black sage and poppies in bloom)
From Native By Design

Baby blue eyes
From Native By Design

Info sign on Pasadena Ave.
From Native By Design

Mexican elderberry
From Native By Design

Sugar bush
From Native By Design

Native plant, everlasting, sprouting on its own
From Native By Design

Deer grass, black willow and coyote bush
From Native By Design


But not all is perfect. The following picture is taken of the main central part of the park. It was supposed to be a grassland but became overcome with weeds during the first winter and spring of its existence. The city then added mulch to smother the weeds. We need to direct our attention to this area. I am hoping to level the area this year in preparation for planting in the winter. Since birds need high, medium and low cover - and we already have nice medium and high vegetation - we should consider using low-growing scrub plants. Buckwheat, black sage, deer weed, monkey flower, bush sunflower are all good candidates that are native to the Arroyo Seco. A generous sprinkling of wildflower seeds would be just the thing!

Does anyone else have thoughts on this?
From Native By Design

1 comment:

CanadianGardenJoy said...

Hello Barbara !
I think you have the perfect solution for sowing wild/native flowers and plants in this area .. I am a huge fan of ornamental and native grasses .. I can well understand the need for ground cover in general in such a vast dry area .. it is wonderful you are so pro-active !