Farmer Dave's Garden

Everything is still growing

I love rainy season. That’s the growing season in Southern California. Poppies sown three winters ago have been blooming for almost a month it seems, on York Boulevard, and parts of South Pasadena, but not always where you’d expect.

Most of the poppies that remain are in window boxes and areas with high reflected heat (sidewalk cracks) on the north side (South facing side) of the street. In areas where they’ve survived with no input from myself or other gardeners, introduced annuals such as sowthistle and mallow, may eventually squeeze them out. But it’s hard to say. In some areas where they’ve always been outnumbered by fast-growing grasses, they’ve held their ground.

In the regularly maintained planter boxes of the Foursquare Church “The Rock” on York, the gardener has accepted them and now weeds around them.

At York Boulevard Post Office, my favorite location, someone beat me to installing a complete landscape. They came in and took out every piece of the red apple succulent that once covered those planters. They laid down a thick layer of mulch and planted a variety of fun drought tolerant things: lavender, rosemary, pelargonium, perovskia, aloe, and native salvia. This gardener laid down a calling card in the form of a big rock painted with this address: farmerdavesgardens.webs.com.

Dave is regularly maintaining the plot, and is allowing some of the poppies and cornflower that have reseeded last year to remain in the garden. It looks great and I couldn’t help but to smile at all the colors and textures when I went to buy stamps this morning. The stamps I bought said “C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E”… I will think of our lovely York Boulevard “community garden” when I use those stamps.

In the slide show above (on the right hand side bar) are a couple pictures of the York Boulevard local government branch "community garden" from 2007. Since 2003, it had been nothing but one rhaphiolepis and red apple succulent. I learned the latter had been originally planted by a postoffice worker just to improve the neglected space. In 2006, I approached the postoffice with a proposal to install a native design by Orchid Black, and other permaculture- inspired furniture. Though we got a positive response, we could not get final official approval. In 2007 some friends helped clear out modest patches of the succulent for an experimental seeding in poppies. Spring 2008 was the peak of the planting which I called “Everything is Still Alive”, and poppies bloomed for blocks in any open dirt space where residents and business owners allowed them to bloom. In 2009, I stopped the input of labor except for sprinkling in a diverse mix of wildflower seed at the postoffice and across the street to add color—all things which would bloom profusely with no input but what the sky offers: Cornflowers, clarkia, tidytips. Later that year, Farmer Dave took out the succulents and rhaphiolepis and is now promoting it as a permaculture design. This is going to be it’s best spring ever!

When I started planting poppies in 2007, just about everyone I talked to on York encouraged me, but also warned me that the flowers would likely be stolen, stepped on, or otherwise vandalized. To the contrary, the calling card stone Dave installed looks as good as on day one. And the vulnerable newly planted shrubs are gaining strength during the rainy season.

I’ve added a cutting of Dave’s zonal pelargonium to the Pelargonium Exchange project. This is a garden for sharing pelargonium cuttings and their stories. It doesn’t have a permanent home in Los Angeles yet, but as Robert likes to quote from the Karate Kid, “Buddha will provide.”

For the Pelargonium Project, see:

myriadsmallthings.org/pelarg.html

Year Two and the Multi-Continental Wildflower mix

I've not made regular trips to look after the poppies this year. I wanted to see how the poppies would do on their own. Could they hold their own against the weeds? Might anyone else in the neighborhood intervene on their behalf?

Poppy season on York began earlier than last year. Generally speaking, it went from January to April. The most floriferous sites this year included the empty lot on Nolden, and the flower boxes at Childs' and the Church, where the orange of the poppies perfectly echoed the color of the boxes of oranges set out daily in front of the corner grocery store. 

In just a couple spots the show this year was greater than last year. But lack of weeding made a big difference almost everywhere. Weed competition reduced the vigor and visibility of the blooms.

Other than a couple strays, poppy season on York is over, former spots of brilliant orange superseded by a monotone shag of dried grasses. Several former poppy sites have been concreted over or razed for other purposes. The fresh bare dirt just screams for replanting.

In South Pasadena, there were quite a few poppies in March and April. For a brief week or so there was a pretty good show on two South Pasadena traffic islands. Poppies appeared out of a crack in the asphalt on a major intersection. The other traffic island had no blooms last year. But miraculously, there appeared an even sprinkling of tiny tiny orange poppies on the island this second year, even amongst dense growth of grasses and erodium.

Chemical spraying reduced what had been a dramatic show of orange in front of South Pasadena Nature Park last year to only a very light show this year.

Ironically, chemical spraying often does nothing to decrease the number of weeds, because the people who spray typically are not paying attention to the lifecycle of plants. Since they often spray after the weeds have already dispersed their seeds, there will be just as many new weeds next year.

As for our elite estate community of San Marino- the street maintenance people in that neighborhood are skillful and thorough! There was not a single repeat bloom in that neighborhood.

---

A couple people, not from the immediate neighborhood, offered to help water the poppies. This made me think of how in our culture we are taught from very early on to associate the image of the watering can with the tending of plants and the idea of caring for living things.

Yet it's not water that the poppies really need-- they are happy to subsist on rain alone. Extra irrigation merely helps them get bigger and extends their bloom time. What they really need is protection from weed competition.

If not the watering can, what kind of image could symbolize the tending of plants that were actually designed to grow in our environment? If not for our interventions (the importing of livestock, building of houses, roads and lawns), such plants might still be prevalent in our city.

---

This year, in a couple choice locations on York Boulevard, I sprinkled a wildflower seed mix, hoping for slow waves of color as spring progresses, in true old-California style. Both these locations benefit from some extra watering, the first because of Nanette, who keeps the street beautiful, and in the other location, because of the occasional watering of people I've not met yet.

The only mix at Home Depot was labeled "Southwest Desert Wildflower Mix and was predominantly composed of California natives. I did get a nice sprinkling of yellow tidytips and blue phacelia, even a pink clarkia or two to complement the poppies. But unexpectedly I also got flowers that were not native to California or even to the US.

Unbeknownst to me when I grabbed the packet in the store, the mix included all sorts of other things which the Stover Seed company considers suitable to the climate of the Southwest. Exceedingly prolific in this mix were blue cornflowers and red flax, both European wildflowers. Another Old World favorite, the red poppy, papaver rhoeas, is about to bloom on York!

The mix also includes Dimorphotheca sinuata, an African daisy. I fear African daisies are becoming a California native pretender in my neighborhood. On a hill south of Eagle Rock, which has benefited from native plant restoration efforts, someone has sown African daisies for the last several years. The first year, the bold colors and markings of the flowers left no doubt as to their identity as African flowers. They were colorful in a cheery way, but added a touch of free-way to what I wanted to think of as a "natural" area. This year, climbing up the hill to the same spot, I was surprised to see what appeared to be a whole field of poppies where there had not been poppies before. Upon closer inspection, I discovered only a field of African pretenders in the exact orange hue. A cruel joke!

The combination of colors and forms in this multicultural Southwestern Desert mix don't have the same charm as native wildflowers. Next year I'll drive the ten extra miles to get a wildflower mix from Theodore Payne Foundation, instead of Home Depot.

Rogue blooms

It's summer now. Or fall. I mean middle of winter, but the temperature during the day is hot enough for summer clothes. Perpetual spring, or a harbinger of summer? For about a month, poppies have been blooming as if it were April on two separate lots on the corner of York and Nolden, holding their orange heads up high over neat expanses of closely clipped grass. Who would have thought that California poppies and lawns could be so compatible? Could it be possible that a judiciously timed mowing might have induced bloom for poppies interspersed with lawn grasses? Subject to further research, from the York Boulevard Poppy Lab.

It's been over a year since the first poppies were sown, and I've chosen to tend the poppies only minimally this year, if at all. Let the poppies tell us themselves where they are meant to grow.

 

Wildflower hotline: May News

HIGHLAND PARK REPORT

It's been two and a half months since the last drop of rain, and two months since the first blooms appeared in South facing window boxes on York Boulevard in Highland Park. The window boxes that provided non-stop cascades of blooms for so long are getting dry and asking to be trimmed down.

In many unirrigated places where I did not see poppy foliage even a month ago, there are now flowers in full bloom. The largest of these sites include the traffic island at the Southeast corner of Figueroa and York (most notably the traffic island off to the side of Jack in the Box, where they sell Christmas trees) and at the front edge of a large vacant lot in South Pasadena, directly across from the Nature Park. Most of the dramatic field of poppies at the entrance of the Nature Park has been razed. Graciously, however, the weed removal folks left a few sizable clumps of flowers.

Poppies are still looking great by the tattoo parlor and weaving store: this is to Nana's credit. Nana from the weaving store splashes them as she hoses down the street.

REPORT FROM SOUTH PASADENA

Oak woodland is just one of the main plant communities that once made up this region. South Pasadena might now seem to be an entirely new "plant community". This new plant community is made up of craftsman bungalows, sprinklers, ivy, shrubs and green lawns. Yet, I wonder, Does an oak woodland ever really stop being an oak woodland? How much of this first plant community would come back if humans stopped the weekly watering and trimming of lawns, ivy, and hedges?

While cutting back ivy in South Pasadena to make room for poppies more than six months ago, I uncovered a lone native oak sapling. Though this seemed reason for optimism, it was surrounded by four or five saplings of the ubiquitous exotic, Mexican Fan Palm, which is extremely difficult to eradicate.

Meanwhile, in a nearby San Marino botanical garden, every single hedge seems to have an exuberant oak sapling shooting out of it. When the hardworking gardener removes them, shoots simply sprout up elsewhere. The work is never-ending. Up above, oblivious to this struggle, the mighty oaks continue to do their slow seasonal work of dropping acorns. The scrubjays continue their work as well: distributing, stashing, and forgetting those same acorns.  (Judith Larner Lowry talks about the process of collaborating with local wildlife in designing her garden, in the book, The Landscaping Ideas of Jays. Go read this book!)

Breaking news from the world of plants: in South Pasadena and San Marino, the oaks are trying to gain back the landscape! They just need a little help. Clear the ivy. Pull out the Mexican Fan Palms. Don't cut the oaks down. Marc Herbst has urged us to tune into plants for the news. It's true. Keep your eyes and ears open.

Wildflower hotline: Urban wildflower tour scheduled

Sunday April 6, 10:30 am

In the California tradition of "going flowering" in the spring, please join us for an urban flora tour through Highland Park, South Pasadena, and San Marino. We will look at places poppies are blooming, and places they were removed. We can gossip about wildflowers and weeds, as we compare the public spaces of these diverse communities.

Starting point:

parking lot of York Boulevard Post Office

5132 York Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90042

The tour should last just over an hour. We'll start out with a bit of walking, so remember to wear comfortable shoes.

Wildflower hotline: The poppies are talking

The poppies are talking to us. Their petals open wide as the day begins. They curl tightly shut as the day ends. Contrary to what people say, California poppies make great (but delicate) cut flowers, and will continue to open and shut even when indoors. Mark time with the poppies.

Warm weather has brought out more flowers. Most of the South-facing sites planted in Highland Park are now blooming (on the North side of the street). A couple full-sun sites on the South side (North-facing) are blooming as well.

Good spots for urban poppy viewing are the North side of York between 55 and Nolden, and the entrance to South Pasadena Nature Park, just east of the 110. I've been told these poppies will become larger and more floriferous over the years, if they are allowed to remain in place, like the jaw-dropping poppies on the Southbound entrance of the 110 at York, which are growing out of cement cracks.
Not all the sites I tended are blooming. This artists' studio below was one of the first sites prepared and planted. Despite that many seeds germinated, and that it was one of the sites were I spent the most weeding hours, including reseeding and even transplanting from other sites, no poppies grew. I wonder if this local bird can tell us why? He was having a great time pecking at the ground.

As I was checking on the flowers, I met this group of girls, who were making themselves comfortable on this incredibly well manicured landscape in front of Super A. (A landscape which was too well maintained for poppy growth).
I complimented them on making good use of a very nice lawn in a neighborhood where the nearest park is.... Hey, come to think of it, there is no nearby park.

A couple locations in South Pasadena are blooming, though the majority of sites will bloom much later, if they survive at all. Generally, the sun in this area is filtered through the many non-native sycamores lining the street. (Hot and dry York Boulevard, in contrast, is planted with the sparsely canopied native sycamores, which were once an indicator of intermittent water sources, but are now used as an abuse-tolerant street tree.) 

This ivy-covered yard was the very first site planted. This is one of the few instances where there is clear communication between the very kind property owners and their gardener. Though it's in full sun and is well-tended by the gardener, only a few flowers are showing. So far.

The large plot which promised to become my most impressive show of poppies in South Pasadena was mowed in February, due to a communication mishap with the gardener. Will the poppies recover?

When I first sought permission to plant most of these sites, almost half a year ago, countless property owners told me, in the very same words, "Don't worry. No one will weed out the poppy shoots. The gardener is too lazy. He doesn't do a thing!" In fact, in most of these sites, I had to reseed the poppies when the "lazy gardeners" turned out actually to be very  on top of things. It is surprising how common it is to have so little communication between property owners and their "help"-- this happened in both Highland Park and South Pasadena.

This super wonderful property owner arranged the rocks like this just for the poppies.

For an even bigger show, involving California poppies among myriad compatriot California plants, look around the corner on Milan Avenue!

Next time: A report from a local governmental branch, which is gradually morphing into a guerilla community garden; and words from an underground oak woodland.

Wildflower Hotline: Stray blooms

The first stray blooms appeared about ten days ago in Highland Park, appropriately, in a cactus planter outside an artists' studio. This week more locations are showing poppy action--Child's moving company, The Rock Church-- all south facing sites on York Boulevard in Highland Park. 

In the several weeks since the last rains, the weather has warmed up dramatically. Though it's been relatively dry, the poppies have been growing exponentially faster than before. Unfortunately it's not just the poppies growing. Dave Pisley told me today, that in his own garden, weeds have been appearing by the "thousand-fold." Gotta get out and put in some more weeding hours this weekend...

Highland Park Wildflower Update

The poppies are utterly on their own now. I only pitch in with a little weeding every once in a while.

Next week, look out for the South Pasadena Wildflower Update.

Everything is still alive

In Highland Park, many of the plots I am tending are no bigger than a tree well, or a crack in the cement. It is incredible how much trash can accumulate on these sidewalk plots even during the course of a day. Imagine what the streets might look like if many of the business owners weren't clearing this trash every single day. "I do this every day because I love Highland Park," the owner of the Party Goods store told me.

To weed the plots, I push aside old cups, bottles, packaging, dried doggie doo. Reaching deep into the soil to pull up filaree roots without breaking them, I fear the occasional shard of broken glass buried within.

At the same time, reaching into the soil is always a turning point. Is the soil moist and rich? Is it the kind that appears hard as concrete, but which is just sandy granules packed tight? The initial repulsion fades. Instead, I wonder about the soil's capacity for holding moisture, or nourishing plants. Has it nurtured plants in the recent past? Is there sign of recent chemical use?

I have heard inklings that parts of York Boulevard once were, and other parts were crossed by intermittent streams. I would guess that the wide range of soil types I encounter gives some clues about where water used to run.

These are speculations. But I do know that each plot of soil holds a trace of many events in the past. Where it came from (if moved from elsewhere), what got mixed with it, what water washed into it, things that grew in it. 

In the same cumulative way, everything about our everyday environment is mutable. It is something that has to be recreated every day by us in a thousand seemingly uneventful decisions. The choice between driving by and ignoring, OR deciding to slow down. The choice between thinking "it's just that way" OR thinking "It's that way because I allow it to be that way."

Today, I bumped into Jeffrey Chapman, who told me about different native plants which he had seen relatively recently, growing on untended lots in the vicinity of the sites I've been tending. Shooting stars (flowers), Nassella pulchra, White sage.... not your usual urban "weeds". I could not believe that native perennial grasses existed until recently on a hill in my own neighborhood. I knew that the original plant ecosystems were decimated early on by the grazing of livestock brought by Europeans. But evidently the contemporary urban environment, even with all the weedy annual grasses introduced by the Europeans, doesn't have to be seen as the polar opposite of a "natural" ecosystem/environment.

A seed of a shooting star flower might still find a patch of untended dirt in Highland Park a promising place to grow.

Thousands of little poppy sprouts are now coming up in Highland Park and South Pasadena. Each of these seedlings appears as four delicate hair-like leaves, so slender one can hardly see them, except where they have been seeded too densely. In places where twenty or fifty seeds rolled into the same depression and simultaneously germinated, the sprouts collectively have so much upward lifting power that they push weighty chunks of bark or clods of dirt to float off the ground!

Some of these sprouts have another gargantuan task: mustering energy to push their roots through dirt that is a hard as a rock.

Ironically, the biggest threat to the poppy sprouts is now gardeners. In their habit of neatening things up, they might tear out any unfamiliar plants.

I'm now making up a flyer to spread the word, that at least for the span of this project (through the spring), that poppies are desirable. They are not a "weed." They are among the things that would have grown here, before any of us arrived. And also to spread the word, incidentally, that everything is still alive.