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.