Mammillaria Strikes Again

I was looking at my last couple of posts and found that I had noted the last time it rained here. It was November 8, and I have already talked about how many of my plants have responded. One plant that I didn't mention before is my prized Mammillaria dioica. The last time I discussed the Mammy was in January when it was blooming like crazy. It's off to a great start again this season. Here's my best flower shot, taken with my new macro lens on my phone.

M dioica is known to be one of the earlier bloomers, so it's not surprising for it to be putting out flowers now. The plant currently has two open flowers, two that are just about to open, and 9 buds. I'm assuming this is all in response to the November 8 rain because, unlike last year, I haven't watered it. 

I was a little concerned about this cactus during the summer because it started leaning over. I have seen Mammies do this before, and I guess it's because of low water inside the stem. I typically do not water it during the summer, but maybe I should. Despite the lean, it has continued to look healthy, as seen the next two photos which I took today.

I have surrounded the plant with rocks because whenever I see it in the wild it is growing in rocks of some kind. I may have mentioned before that this species is found both on the coast and in the desert, and it is exactly the same species in both places. However, there are a couple of newly recognized subspecies, both from Baja. Subspecies angelensis is from Isla Angel de la Guarda, a large island in the Sea of Cortez. Subspecies estebanensis is from a smaller island, also in the Sea of Cortez. Therefore the local taxon is officially known as Mammillaria dioica ssp. dioica.

As this cactus grows it doesn't get progressively larger. Instead it adds new stems or "heads". Below is a photo of one with an incredible number of heads. This is still a single plant. I photographed this two months ago in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park .

Unfortunately, Mammillarias are sought by poachers who will dig them up and sell them to cactus collectors. One like this would be quite valuable. I try to obscure the precise location of the plants that I photograph so that poachers can't easily find them. Mammillarias are fairly readily available at nurseries, so it should never be necessary to collect one from the wild.

An Annual Event

 Every year at about this time my garden begins to change. It really comes to life in a short period of time. The photo above shows one of the first signs of this change. It is Blue Dicks (Dipterostermon capitatus, formerly Dichelostemma capitatum). This plant grows from a corm that stores energy so that it can put up a shoot immediately after the first rain. I've had these Blue Dicks for 20+ years. Also shown in this photo is a Dudleya pulverulenta.

The annual seeds that I put out a few weeks ago are also sprouting quickly. Here are some Arroyo Lupines (Lupinus succulentus) that still have their cotyledons as well as their adult-type leaves. I just bought a macro lens for my phone/camera which yields much finer detail in closeup photos, such as the hairs on the leaves of the Lupines.

Another plant that is coming back to life now is White-flowered Currant (Ribes indecorum). Like many California plants it is summer-deciduous, so it loses its leaves around June and they come back in fall. Mine is putting out tiny leaves while wild plants are doing the same. The first photo below was taken in my garden on Nov. 7 when I noticed the first green leaves coming out. The second photo was taken on Nov. 17 at Lake Wohlford near Escondido.

Other plants that are summer deciduous include members of the Ocotillo group (Fouquieria genus). In our local deserts we have Fouquieria splendens. In Baja there are two species, and these are the plants I have in my Encinitas garden. The first one (below) is Fouquieria diguetii, known in Baja as Adam's Tree. You can see that it has spines, and the leaves come out at the base of the spines after a sufficient rain. I have it in a container, but I'm pretty sure it has put its roots through the bottom of the pot by now.

A close cousin to Adam's Tree is the truly unique, even bizarre, Boojum Tree (Fouquieria columnaris). In Baja it is known as Cirio which means candle. The thing that makes the Boojum look so strange is the fact that it has a thick trunk at the base, tapering to a slender, rounded point at the top, and it puts out uniformly short, stiff stems all along the trunk. These side stems are completely out of proportion to the size of the trunk. The main trunk sometimes divides into two or more branches at the top. The oddity of its appearance is most evident in really old specimens. First, here are a couple of shots of my Boojum which is in a container. It started putting out leaves a couple of weeks ago.

Below is an older specimen photographed in the Catavina region of Baja.

(c) Tomas Castelazo, 2007, published at WikiCommons

The final summer-deciduous plant I want to discuss is a native of our Channel Islands. I first saw it on Anacapa Island. It is also an odd one, a member of the sunflower family (Asteraceae) but it looks nothing like other sunflowers, having a succulent main trunk and fern-like leaves. The flowers, though, are typical sunflowers. Below is one in my garden that is just now putting out leaves.

There are other plants in my garden that are starting to wake up, but I'll save those for another day.

First Rain of the Season

 This weekend we got the first rain of the 2020-21 season. I took advantage of this to sow some wildflower seeds and bulbs and to plant some plants. The seeds included arroyo lupine (Lupinus succulentus), Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla), owl's clover (Castilleja exserta), and some others. The bulbs were splendid mariposa lily (Calochortus splendens). I have no pictures of these because there is nothing to see yet.

Last week I bought a few plants from the annual CNPS sale. My timing was good for getting them planted before the rain arrived. I put three of them in containers. First is showy penstemon (Penstemon spectabilis). It is found from the mountains to the coast and from Ventura County down into Baja. Of course it has no flowers yet. Following that are some of my photos of P. spectabilis in the wild in San Diego County.

The second of my new plants is conejo buckwheat (Eriogonum crocatum), a rare species that is found only in a small area on the Ventura County/L.A. County boundary. It has nearly white foliage and yellow flowers, which will make a really nice color combo in a terra cotta pot.

Plant number three is scarlet monkeyflower (Erythranthe cardinalis). It's a plant that is usually seen in streams, so I put it in a pot that doesn't have a drainage hole in the bottom. I'll be able to keep it consistently wet without using too much water.

Below is a photo I took recently of E. cardinalis in the wild. When kept moist it produces blooms for a long time.

Now, here are three plants I put in the ground. They are less showy but still very valuable plants. Below is salt marsh fleabane (Pluchea odorata), another plant that likes damp soil but is not as thirsty as scarlet monkeyflower.

Here's a photo I recently took of a wild Pluchea odorata in bud.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of sawtooth goldenbush (Hazardia squarrosa) while hiking, so I decided to buy one for my garden. The photo below shows it, followed by one I observed in the wild.

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Lastly is seacliff buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium). In the wild it is found strictly on the coast, from San Francisco down into Baja. I had one years ago but then had to take it out for various reasons, and since then I have wanted to get another one. It is quite low growing, forming a mat that is essentially a ground cover. It has small white flowers, but I value it mostly for the foliage - small, rounded, shiny leaves. Also, its roots are excellent at holding soil on bluffs to prevent erosion. It's a plant that should be used all along our coast.

My next post will discuss the response to first rain by established, mature plants.

A Native Lichen Garden

This is a post that I have been wanting to do for years, and now I'm finally getting around to it. Some time ago I wrote about my interest in rocks, and I am especially fascinated by rocks with lichens, like this one:

Lichens are symbiotic relationships between one or more species of fungi and one or more species of algae, along with some cyanobacteria. I'm not good at identifying lichens, but I think this one above is Dimelaena oreina (Golden Moonglow lichen). I saw it at Mt. Laguna.

When I was working (until 15 years ago) I was fortunate to be in a position to collect rocks from areas that were about to become subdivisions. I worked for the City of Carlsbad and I knew when projects were about to break ground. In at least one of these sites there was so much rock that blasting was required. I got out there before the earth movers did and collected as much rock as I could carry. And a lot of these rocks had great lichens on them. Most of them I've had for more than 20 years, and in many cases the lichens have grown while I've had them.

Initially I distributed the rocks around the garden. Then recently I thought it would be good to put the most interesting lichen specimens together to make a "lichen garden." I'm not aware of a lichen garden anywhere else, so this may be the first. It seemed like the best location for visual effect would be among some succulents. The result is subtle from a distance but striking when examined up close. Here's an overall shot of the area which is the Baja succulent section of my garden.

The plants visible here are Dudleya candida (from the Coronados Islands), Cochemiea halei (from the Bahia Magdalena region), Echinocereus maritimus (from the Pacific coast), and Euphorbia lomelii (from the southern peninsula).

Some of the larger rocks making up the low retaining wall have lichens on them, such as these two:

These large foundation stones are nice, but the ones I really want to highlight are smaller and more colorful, like these:

There are several species of lichens in the above photo. I wish I could identify them all.

I believe the yellow one above is Candelariella sp. (goldspeck lichen).

Since these lichens all came from coastal north county, they are doing well in my garden. They require no care at all, and they are the perfect complement to the plants. That's my lichen garden and
I'm pleased with it.

Pond Update #2

BIG RED DUDE, my favorite dragonfly is back at the pond. I don't have much to say about him except that he and his ancestors have been coming to my pond for over 25 years. 

Here's a better photo that I took on 7/7. At this time there was also a female present and she was depositing eggs in the pond. I wanted to get a photo of her but she was moving much too fast.

Pollinator Habitat

The plight of pollinators has gained more attention recently. A lot of attention is focused on honey bees, but many people don't realize that honey bees are not native to North America. They were brought here from Europe by early settlers. They are important as pollinators for agricultural crops, but there are many wild, native plants that need native pollinators. These include native bees, wasps, flies, beetles, spiders, birds, bats, and even some lizards.

I have a lot of annual wildflowers that need to produce seeds every year. Thus, they need pollinators. The native pollinators have specific requirements for nesting habitat where they can deposit their eggs. If I want to keep them happy in my garden, I need to provide nesting areas for them. Fortunately, the Xerces Society is really on top of this issue and has tons of information on their web site. I highly recommend the organization for anyone interested in an ecological approach to gardening. In my research, I began with this document.  One of the suggestions that I found interesting is the use of hollow stemmed plant stalks as nesting spaces. Many plants have hollow or pithy stems that native pollinators can utilize. Xerces recommends leaving some of the stems standing when doing garden clean-up, and don't be too thorough in cleaning up. So I'm now giving it a try.

The above photos show stems of Clarkia unguiculata that have finished flowering and gone to seed. This area looks pretty barren now, but 2 months ago it was full of flowering Clarkia. I also have a Yucca schidigera and a couple of Cercocarpus minutiflorus here to give it some year-round interest.

Below are more Clarkia stems that I stuck into some cracks in a railroad tie to serve the same purpose. They are in various lengths as recommended by Xerces.

Below is a cut stem of Romneya coulteri.  I always cut this back after it has finished blooming, but I used to cut it very short. Now I'm going to leave some longer in case a pollinator wants a taller stem to nest in. Romneya stems have a soft pith which bees and wasps should be able to chew through easily. 

Bamboo can also be used this way. My neighbor was disposing of a lot of relatively small stems which I collected. Using various lengths and diameters, I placed this bundle of stalks in the grape vine which I am hoping will be an attraction to pollinators.

In general, I think my garden is working well for pollinators. I'm judging this by the amount of seed produced by my annual wildflowers. The last photo shows the Clarkia fruit/seeds that I have collected this summer, and this is only a fraction of the seeds that were produced.

Pond Update

I Mentioned in my last post that there are a couple of frogs in my pond but I had never seen them.  Well, now I have. Thanks to my niece and her husband, we were able to find the frogs at sunset one evening. Here's a couple of photos. 

I'm really happy to finally be able to see them. For those interested in what type of frog this is, I have learned that it is Pseudacris hypochondriaca, or Baja California Tree Frog. 

Pond Party

By special request from one of my three followers, this post will feature changes to my pond in recent months. I had been dissatisfied with my pond for a couple of years. One problem with ponds is the appearance of the liner. It looks very unnatural and it isn't easy to disguise it. The liner is typically black and very smooth. If you have a rock edging, the space between the water and the rocks will be visible, and it looks wrong. Below is a photo of what it looked like when first completed. 

You can see the liner and it just makes the whole thing look fake. Also, I used flagstone as the edging and it doesn't look great either.  Later, the plants filled in and it looked better. 

Fast Forward to 2019. I decided to give the pond a makeover. Here's how it looks now.

I removed some of the flagstone and put in boulders. This helped a lot. The next step was to figure out how to disguise the liner. After trying several ideas that didn't work, I hit on a great product. It's a spray foam that is used as a filler and insulation in plumbing and other wet areas. I sprayed it onto the liner to give it some texture. Then I painted it to resemble dirt. Here's a closeup:

 

I think it's a pretty good imitation of a natural earth bank.

About the same time that I was able to get some tadpoles and I put them into the pond. They immediately disappeared. To my surprise, they turned into frogs and now they serenade us every night. The funny thing is that I have never seen them. They are really good at hiding in the daytime. At night if I take one step outside they stop croaking and once again it is impossible to find them.

One of the aquatic plants in the pond is Ludwigia. I'm not sure which species this is. A couple of species are native to California and several are not. Anyway, it produces long runners that stretch out across the pond. It is now putting out some flowers:

A lot of critters use the pond. Raccoons come out at night and wash their food. Birds come around all day to drink, take a bath and eat flying insects. Lately I have seen some tiny water skimmers skating around on the surface. My favorites, though, are the dragonflies. There are the big red ones that have been coming around for more than 20 years and laying eggs every summer. Now I have been seeing a big green one. A few days ago I found this one struggling on the surface of the water.

You can see in this photo that one of its wings is undersized and deformed, and that's why it was struggling. It was unable to fly and it did not survive. Still I hope there will be more of them around.

That's the pond report for today.

Time for a Photo Extravaganza

March and April are definitely the months when my plants look their best. I want to get photos of them all, and the best way to showcase them is in a tightly cropped closeup. So that's what this post will consist of.

Prunus ilicifolia lyonii from the Channel Islands

Salvia brandegeei from the Channel Islands

Allium haematichiton growing in container

Dendromecon harfordii from the Channel Islands

I would call this Mimulus aurantiacus

I would call this Mimulus guttatus, a plant of streamsides and damp places

Baby Blue Eyes, Nemophila menziesii

Arroyo Lupine, Lupinus succulentus

Goldenstar, Bloomeria crocea

Tidy Tips, Layia platyglossa

Blue-eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium bellum

I think it is Polypodium californicum

Used to be known as Potentilla, now known as Drymocallis glandulosa

Euphorbia misera, an underappreciated plant from Baja and south San Diego

I would call this Dichelostemma capitatum

Heuchera maxima from the Channel Islands

Geranium sp.

Mirabilis laevis

Clarkia unguiculata

Purple Sage, Salvia leucophylla

Baja Fairyduster, Calliandra californica