MIMULUS AURANTIACUS--STICKY MONKEY FLOWER GARBER'S AUGUST 2011 FLOWER

Although the pervasive aridity of August in Garber Park dulls the expectation of encountering flowers, in fact from the vantage of the Loop Trail the cheerful multiplicity of golden blooms put forward by our native mimulus catches the eye of most visitors.  Properly a shrub, mimulus aurantiacus, known popularly as Bush or Sticky Monkey Flower, occurs in several spots in Garber and also occurs directly across the road on the much more exposed and dry north slope of Claremont Canyon in chaparral conditions.
Our riparian woodland Monkey Flower constituents do not exhibit the parched aspect of their canyonside neighbors, preferring to appear waxy and brightly colorful though they are not rooted in especially moist soil.  Calflora shows the distribution of aurantiacus in California as north to south, border to border, one or two counties deep along the Pacific coastline and also in the western Sierra foothills, mostly in the context of "northern oak woodland".  A number of variants of mimulus aurantiacus have been observed and reported in other limited areas in California, but none of these are apparently wide spread.
We do not have so many examples in Garber Park that they might be called common, but there are a small number of healthy, good sized shrubs--enough to feel certain that Sticky Monkey Flower is comfortable among the many floral varieties that grow beside it.  It is always a delight to find, wherever one runs across it.

SEED COLLECTION AND DISPERSAL WORKSHOP 2 - THE ROLE OF GRASSES

Blue Wild Rye - Elymus glaucus - in seed bed #4
at the Evergreen Ln. entrance.

On Saturday, August 20, Lech Naumovich, Golden Hour Restoration Institute led another fun, informative, and hands-on seed collection workshop in Garber Park. Our first seed collection event in June focussed on the "early" bloomers in Garber. The goal of this second seed collection workshop was to collect and disperse the later maturing seeds - especially the grasses. The workshop began with a discussion of the basics of native seed collection, followed by a short walk to the Garber Park Stewards first restoration site at the Evergreen Lane Entrance.

Joyce smiling at  finding a Cream Bush (Holodiscus Discolor).
Not yet in bloom this pretty white flower will be a fall
highlight.

The five beds at Restoration Site 1were all planted with a variety of native plants and grasses that grow naturally in other parts of Garber Park. We were excited about our first "harvest" - we planted this past February.We opened mature seed pods, collected them in paper envelopes, and spread them in a newly cleared area at the restoration site. We then walked along the Lower Loop Trail where signs of fall were everywhere, most evident by the crunching noise of fallen leaves beneath our feet as well as the few dried stalks of cow parsnip still standing. But we also found many plants still blooming - the sticky monkey flower (mimulus aurantiacus), bee plant (scrophularia californica), fairy bells (Prosartes Hookeri), and ocean spray or cream bush (Holodiscus discolor) - which means we'll have many more opportunities for seed collection throughout the fall.

A few of the highlights we learned on seed collecting:

• Never collect more than 10% of the seed of an established population. For newer sites, such as our Restoration Site 1 only collect 2-5%. We want to keep the site intact and healthy for future generations.
• Ascertain maturity of a seed by picking and checking before making a large collection.
• Always look for bugs. You don't want those seeds.
• Grasses - seeds on the head ripen progressively so at any one time both immature and mature seeds are present.
• Seeds need to be dry. Don't put in the fridge right away, let them dry out first. Store seeds in a paper bag or envelope.
• Label the envelope with the species common name (or Latin if you know it!), collection place (easy with phone with GPS app), and date.
• Seed viability: Annuals for the most part have low viability. Grasses viable for 3-5 years. Want to get the first seeds of the season for the best viability.
• Highest germination occurs the first year. Perrenials - 1st year seeds are the best seeds.
• Berries - we're competing with wildlife! We found this on thimbleberries which had no berries remaining.

• 

  Elymus glaucus,( blue wild rye) seed head.

  California Buckeyes are mostly mature trees in Garber. We are restoring the conditions to bring back the buckeye. Because the deer think the tender young leaves are so delicious we have placed cages around several young plants to give them a chance to mature. At Bob's Place there is an Oregon Ash that we need to cage as well.

And a couple of general restoration techniques:

• For many of the invasives, especially thistles, "mulch cut" (make several cuts at the same time starting at the top, cutting into small pieces working towards the ground) - the plant won't grow back.
• Direct rainfall on a hillside starts erosion. A good way to reduce sheet flow down the hill is to create "natural water bars." On our restoration site 1 we used logs to create irregularly shaped planting beds. What about Jute netting or cardboard? Except on large planting areas Lech prefers creating the Natural Water Bars.

Read more on seed collection techniques, including sections on Passive Restoration, Steps to a Successful Seed Collection Effort, and Site Preparation for Seeds in the hand-out Workshop on Passive Restoration and Seed Collection 11 - The Role of Grasses given to participants.

For more on the workshop from Lech

Lech opening a seed pod to test maturity. 

SUMMER'S END/HINTS OF FALL

Bob's Place, once covered with an 8ft.
tall hillside of Himalayan
blackberry is recovering nicely.

False Solomon's Seal
(smilacina Stellata) from Planting
Bed 3

August's Tuesday  work session was full of subtle indications that seasonal change is once again at our doorstep. We continued the clearing at Bob's Place, but also took advantage of the beautiful summer light to document our hillside restoration beds at the Evergreen entrance.  We noticed among the litter, the first brown and crumpled leaves from the Big Leaf Maples up the hill.  We also noticed that a very few of our plantings apparently did not survive this period of dessication.  But the outstanding feature of all the beds was the health and vigor of every native grass that we planted and the abundance of seeds that each of these plants has produced.  From Bed 3, just above the beginning of the loop trail, we even found one lingering ripe red berry on the False Solomon's Seal which is doing well in the upper corner. 

Silhouette of grasses above
Fireplace Plaza

Bed 4 which lies just below the Loop Trail is perhaps the easiest to observe, so it is especially obliging this time of year in the amount of native grasses and grass seed that it has nourished. At planting time the hope was that by planting clumps or little communities of different native grasses, proximity might encourage their growth.  Bed 4 appears to have benefited from this practice; all the communities are strong and established.   The seed is plentiful and hopefully headed beyond the boundaries of the bed.  Bed 5 below did not have the same predominance of grasses, but what was put there is healthy and strong. 

Toward the end of our work session, we looked up and noticed that this time of year the only spot of bright sunlight on the hillside fortuitously falls on our "control" bed, the area which we scraped clean in February, and then hoped to see what would naturally grow there.  The control bed is carpeted with invasive Ehrharta grass, forgetmenots, rebounding Himalayan blackberry, and appears to contain no native plant. Compared to our native beds, the control bed is a riot of weeds.  

     It will be interesting to see what the return of the rains produces on the Evergreen Entrance hillside.

A REWARDING DAY AT BOB'S PLACE

My Blog Post last week summarized the flurry of restoration activities in Garber throughout July, but

the dedicated crew restoring Bob's Place along Harwood Creek just wouldn't let July end without ONE MORE IMPROMPTU WORKDAY!  Today's surprise - exposing a large two-foot diameter metal pipe in the middle of the creek.  Kathleen, excited to find out if she could get to the bottom of the pipe, grabbed a shovel and began digging in the mud. What was the original purpose of the pipe? Our best guess is that it was used as a watering hole for livestock back when John Garber owned the land. Discovering the pipe is turning out to be one more in a long list of intriguing mysteries to solve in Garber. 

Click here for more pictures of the exciting discoveries during July in Garber Park.   

JULY FLOWER - THIMBLEBERRY (Rubus Parviflorus)

Thimbleberry (Rubus Parviflorus) 

Although in July in Garber Park we are as likely to see the berry as the flower, we wanted to call attention in mid-summer to one of the delightful berry blossoms that may be found in the wetlands on the lower portion of the loop trail.  Thimblerry (Rubus parviflorus) occurs in many spots in the East Bay ridge lands, but has not been reported elsewhere in the bay counties.  Garber Park's Thimbleberries are dense thickets where the ground is seeping water from the springs upslope. Some commentators suggest that the first habitat in which to expect Thimbleberries is a Coast Redwood Forest, especially Muir Woods, but it seems that many riparian wetlands attract them.

The bright red berry of the Thimbleberry.  We hope to collect
these seeds and disperse them at Bob's Place at our
Seed Collection Workshop on August 20.

Thimbleberry is a good shrub for wildlife providing cover in thickets and food for birds and mammals.  The flower provides nectar for hummingbirds.

And, for those Ethnobotany fans indigenous cultures had many uses for Thimbleberry, from making soap to lining baskets,  and even as a remedy to bring down swelling.  For more on the Thimbleberry and its many uses click here.

Next time you walk the entire loop, look for Thimbleberry.  When you find it you will be looking back in time and forward across the ridges of the East Bay.

GARBER PARK'S JUNE FLOWER - Pacific Coralroot

Last year about this time as we were pulling French Broom from the sunny slope above the Evergreen Lane entrance a runner dashed by and asked if we had seen the orchid.  Of course we had missed it on the way up, but on our return we found it close to the trail at one of the steep upgrades.  It was about ten inches high, a thin pinkish stalk with many blossoms at the end of seed vessels that were just forming.  Our May 5, 2010 photograph shows a robust plant standing alone except for the tendril of a native cucumber nearby.

The discovery of a native orchid anywhere in the East Bay ridge lands is important and Garber's orchid brought forth a flurry of attention and botanic consideration.  Consensus said that we had come upon corallorhiza maculata --Spotted Coralroot--though our orchid had no spots.  Together with coralroot discoveries in Tilden and Joaquin Miller, Garber's orchid apparently brings up different taxonomic views and it is possible that there is as yet no settled opinion on the exact taxonomy here.

Because we knew where to look we were able to catch the return of our coralroot (a perennial) in 2011.  We expected the long and moist spring to have produced an even more lavish plant than the 2010 orchid.  Photos show the emergence of a much smaller plant with far fewer blossoms and seed vessels.  By mid-May, some desiccation was also visible.  On July 4 we noticed that only the stalk remained, the entire reproductive cycle apparently having been completed.

So far, we have not located any other coralroots on the hillside or indeed in Garber Park as a whole.  The characteristics of these plants are not well understood, but the appearance of even one in Garber  is testimony to the native botanic richness of the park.

We will keep you posted as to further discoveries and hope that if you come upon this rare native, you will let us know in time to photograph it and add it to our gallery of documentation.

Stone Patio unearthed at Fireplace Plaza

A stone patio unearthed at Fireplace Plaza at the Evergreen
Lane Entrance.  

July in Garber Park has seen a flurry of restoration activity.  Along the Loop Trail volunteers cut back vegetation, removed eucalyptus and broom sprouts.  At Bob's Place our dedicated Blackberry Eradication crew continued to remove Himalayan blackberry rootballs and re-sprouts and haul away the dead cane.
Because of their success at rolling back the years of neglect and the invasion of blackberries the native riparian habitat is returning -  Snowberry, thimbleberry, willows, and ferns are now able to once again flourish.  Bob's Place is now Restoration Site #2.

Back at Restoration Site 1 at the Evergreen Ln. Entrance weeding and monitoring the planting beds on the hillside continue.  Planted in February it is especially satisfying to see all these plants flourishing, most with seeds to be scattered across the hillside to fill in the empty spaces.

Do you have time to research the History of Fireplace Plaza?
Do you have a story to tell?  Interest in helping restore the
stone fireplace?  We need your help.  Contact
garberparkstewards@gmail.com

However,  it's the unearthing of a stone patio in front of Fireplace Plaza that has created the most excitement.  We receive suggestions almost daily about how wonderful it would be to refurbish the fireplace, the plaza, and research the history.  Bob has read through the archives of the Oakland Tribune and discovered that the fireplace that we thought was built during the WPA-era is actually much older, and was built in the early 1920's.  Nancy Mueller and others are actively engaged in ways to enhance the aesthetics of the ugly screen that was put over the fireplace last year after two fires were started there.  Still others are discussing ways to refurbish the fireplace itself.  We now have Restoration Site #3.  Do come to the Evergreen Lane entrance, walk down the stairs to Fireplace Plaza and contact us at garberparkstewards@gmail.com with your suggestions.  We need your help to make this project a reality.