Wes Dempsey and Gerry Ingco, Co-chairs OLD USDA PLANT INTRODUCTION STATION ARBORETUM November 10 Sunday Meet at the gate of the Mendocino Nat’l Forest Genetics Resource Center on Cramer Lane at 10 am (from the Skyway take Dominic south to Morrow Lane, turn left on Morrow to Cramer, follow signs to gate). The station was established in 1904 as a research center to test plants from around the world for their use in agriculture, indus- try, and medicine. We’ll see some of the original pista- chio, kiwi, tung oil, Shantung maple, and camptotheca (cancer cure) trees that originated those industries. The easy nature trail is paved and the trees identified. Over at noon. Leaders: Gerry Ingco 530-893-5123 and Wes Dempsey 530-342-2293. CSU, CHICO CAMPUS AND BIDWELL MANSION TREES November 21 Thursday Meet in front of Bidwell Mansion at 10 am for a stroll along paved walks to see 25-30 magnificent old trees. This is the 125th celebration of the founding of the Uni- versity in 1 888 and many of the original magnolia, linden, American chestnut and oaks planted by Bidwell are still standing. Over at noon. Leaders: Gerry Ingco 530-893- 5123 and Wes Dempsey 530-342-2293. HUMBUG VALEY October 13, 2013. Gerry reports, “Marvelous fall colors in Butte Meadows and snow at the summit. Humbug Valley was exposed under a mostly cloudless sky.” TEN-MILE HOUSE TRAIL TO BIG CHICO CREEK UPPER BIDWELL PARK, CHICO November 2 Saturday Meet at the Chico Park & Ride west parking lot (Hwys 99/32) in time to leave by 9 am. Wear hiking shoes, bring lunch, water, sun screen/insect protection, and money for ride sharing. Call the leader for an alternate meeting place. We will drive east 9 miles on Hwy 32 to the Green Gate Trail Head, (parking on left side [North] of Hwy). Starts at ele of 1,584’. We will follow an his- toric wagon road two miles down to Big Chico Creek where we stop for lunch. On the way we will walk past buckeye and black oak in fruit. We shall stop at a large spring surrounded by old fig and persimmon trees at an abandoned old homestead. Be prepared to climb a verti- cal distance of 800’ on the the last mile of the two mile return route. Rain cancels. Leaders: Gerry Ingco 530-893-5123 and Wes Dempsey 530-342-2293. 2 . The Pipevine November 2013 Executive Board Meeting November 20, 7 pm Paul Moore’s 530 343-4287 pmoore@csuchico.edu President’s Message by Suellen Rowlison, President N ative plant habitat conservation is the crucial context of preserving our native California flora. At the macro level, Habitat Conservation Plans are one way to help preserve threatened species. Woody Elliott and I serve on the Stakeholders’ Committee to develop the Butte Regional Conser- vation Plan for the western part of Butte County which includes 14 threatened or endangered plant species. There is, also, the micro level: our homes and neighborhoods. Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit that helps low-income fami- lies work along with volunteers to build modest homes. In Chico several homes have been built in an area on E. 16th & 19th Streets with two more planned. A new program called A Brush with Kindness offers older home rehab and landscaping. Ni- cole Batemen, new Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity, Butte County, has accepted Mount Lassen Chapter’s offer to help Habitat and homeowners to consider planting native plants around their homes and in common areas. We could also help with their mini-habitat, a “green area” on 16th St. which Habitat plans to also use for a commemorative bricks walkway. Con- tact me if you would like to be a part of helping beautify the Chapman Town area with advice or planning, weeding, pruning, planting natives, etc. As a CNPS member you recently received the quarterly CNPS Bulletin, Oct-Dec 201 3, which is running a series on Native Plant Gardens for the home. Check it out for ideas, as well as the on- going series “Native Plants for the Garden through the Seasons” in The Pipevine by John Whittlesey and Jenifer Jewell. You too can create a habitat around your home for native plants, pollinators and birds. To get started, stop by the Nov 2 Harvest Festival at Bidwell Mansion where we will have a plant sale. Or, go to local nurseries that feature native plants; some nurseries have stalls at the Chico Farmers Market on Saturdays. Happy Fall Gardening! Legislative Notes by David Anderson CEQA SURVIVED P roposals for major revisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) did not make it through the 2013 ses- sion of the California Legislature. The Legislature was unable to devise changes that would reduce delays and frivolous lawsuits without jeopardizing the right to public input into and adequate judicial review of CEQA proceedings. The lone CEQA amendment that passed was SB 743, which was approved by Governor Brown on September 27. It will ease the way for authorization of a new basketball arena in Sacra- mento and other large urban projects. SB 743 was opposed by CNPS and other environmental organizations. The bill includes provisions exempting some residential, employment center, and mixed-use development projects from the requirements of CEQA. It also provides that where CEQA does apply to those projects, aesthetic and parking impacts on an infill site within a transit priority area shall not be considered significant impacts on the environment. While CEQA did escape major damage in 2013, the new law is another bad precedent in establishing exemptions from CEQA to accommodate large, politically supported projects. MOUNT LASSEN CHAPTER Nominations 2014 Elected Officers The following names are being nominated for Mount Lassen Chapter, 2014 Executive Board Officers. The election will be held at the General Meeting on November 6, 2013 MEMBERS SHOULD ATTEND AND VOTE President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Members-at-Large Vote! CATIE BISHOP JANNALATHROP ANN ELLIOTT JOHN MEEHAN HESH KAPLAN PAUL MOORE KARROLYNN YELLS RON COLEY The Pipevine November 2013 3. Mount Lassen Chapter CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY November 2, 2013 10 am -2 pm Bidwell Mansion Historic State Park NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO PLANT NATIVES Some of the plants Mount Lassen Chapter CNPS will have for sale are white sage, bush monkey flower, chaparral currant, California pipevine, chaparral clematis, blue flax and more. Contact - Janna at 228-0010 orjlathrop4mlc@comcast.net HARVEST FESTIVAL FARM CITY CELEBRATION FREE FAMILY EVENT with arts & crafts, animal displays, antique farm equipment, food booths, bee demonstrations, Bidwell Mansion tours, horse-drawn carriage and much more. The Pipevine November 2013 4. Photos by Woody Elliott Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at CSU, Chico is a peer-led, learning in retirement organization that offers a wide variety of non-credit classes and activities for adults, age 50 or retired. For nearly 25 years, lifelong learners have joined together at CSU, Chico to enjoy a wide range of intellectual, cultural, social, and recreational activities. Nearly 800 members have the opportunity to join in any of our more than 75 peer-led courses on a wide-variety of subjects. Cindy Weiner (left), our Pubicity Chair, taught a class with OLLI called GARDENING WITH CALIFORNIA NATIVES - they learned about the benefits of gardening with natives, how to choose the right plant, where to buy them, and how to plant and water them. Each class included a short walk to see natives growing on campus. Our own Field Trip Co-chairs, (bottom) Wes Dempsey and Gerry’s Ingco offered the OLLI Class, TREES OF CHICO - six field trips to outstanding collections of trees in the Chico area. Each trip covered 25 trees and information about uses, origin, history, problems, advantages and disadvantages. The Pipevine November 2013 5. NATIVE PLANTS for the Garden A GARDEN FOR PLACE and PEACE OF MIND by John Whittlesey F ive years ago I was asked to design a garden outside of Stonyford. The setting was dramatic -a rugged canyon with Stonyford Creek running through it. The long, two story house has views looking across the canyon and down onto the garden. The climate is harsh. Being in the rain shadow of the coast range, precipitation is sparse and the usual Sacramento Valley summers are hot. The winters offer up occasional snow and temperatures dipping into the teens. The soil is lean and fast draining. The requirement by the owners was for a garden that could survive for weeks or months if the well went dry. My goal within that broad framework was to design a drought tolerant garden that would be attractive through the seasons, from within the garden and look- ing down onto it. Now, no matter the time of year when I visit the garden for maintenance, I am moved by how attractive and varied it is through the seasons. A balance of evergreen and herbaceous or deciduous plants was needed to make the space visually interesting through the year. At least 80% of the plants are California native plants. Swaths of the low growing coyote bush, Baccharis Twin Peaks’, provide a bright green constancy through the year. Along the upper path the low (non-native) rockrose, Cistus salvifolias, with its small sage-green leaves makes undulating mounds leading the eye along. Quanti- ties of the native deer grass, Muhlenbergia rigens, with its spiky inflorescence developing in late summer, holds its own through the winter months weaving through groupings of Spanish lavender, baccharis, Russian sage, and low growing mats of Salvia ‘Bee’s Bliss’, tying them all together. On the perimeter to screen the wide gravel driveway, a number of native shrubs were planted. Five Arctostaphylos ‘Louis Edmonds’ are being pruned to display their elegant red bark and sculptural branching. It is through this open framework the garden will be seen by visitors coming down the driveway. Several Fremontodendrons were planted to hide the reflective concrete surface of the basketball court across the driveway. In a few years time they’ve grown to nearly 15’ and are fulfilling their role as envisioned. There are also redbuds and coffeeberry alongside the staggered rail fence. For height and to provide summer shade by a large rustic bench, desert willow, Chilopsis linearis is planted. This is perfect by a bench 6 . The Pipevine November 2013 through the Seasons as it leafs out late in the season providing shade when it is needed most on summer afternoons. The activity of hummingbirds attracted to the long season of tubular flowers is a bonus for those sitting on the bench. The view of the garden from the bench was designed to be more intimate by using lower growing perennials and smaller grasses. A favorite combination of mine is to use Penstemon ‘Marguerita BOP’ in the vicinity of the sulphur buckwheat. Both have thrived in this garden. The penstemon is smothered with spikes of rich blue flowers on short spikes at the same time the eriogonum is producing its domed clusters of bright yellow flowers. A fine contrast in flower color and shape. Nearby, water drips into a simple, scallop edged plow disc set on a large rock. Goldfinches, hummingbirds, bluebirds and others are constant visitors. The fragrant leaved Sierra mint, Pycnanthemum californicum is planted at the base of the rock, colonizing happily in the moist ground along with some juncus, blue-eyed grass, and seedling cattails which have naturally seeded themselves. The silver foliaged Mediterranean salvia, ‘Nazareth’ with light pink flowers, is planted on the high and dry side of the rock. A number of native salvias are well represented in this garden. They provide color, fragrance and attract many native bees and butterflies. The hybrid ‘Bee’s Bliss’ has made itself perfectly at home spreading its silver foliage luxuriantly through the clumps of deer grass. Salvia mellifera, black sage, has been indestructible with no irrigation and is a magnet for bees. S. clevelandii has been more temperamental often dying back in the winter months - perhaps due to cold combined with wet soils, as has the white sage, S. apiana. I haven’t given up on them. With fingers crossed there are currently several nice looking plants of each. The hummingbird sage, S. spathacea is colonizing nicely under a desert willow, where it seems to appreciate relief from the direct sun. The owner recently paid a high compliment to the garden. He told me how one day he was sitting on the bench reading a non-fiction book that was a bit depressing. He set the book down and was soon im- mersed in the garden - the playful action of the hummingbirds, birds at the birdbath, the orange flowers of the zauschneria blending with tawny grass seed heads. He soon lost the tension, finding ease and contentment in his garden. The Pipevine November 2013 7. A SALUTE TO SHRUBS D own by the riverside all along the rocky basin banks, a variety of shrubs and trees help hold the earth together. I was looking uphill from the Parkway path, toward the Centennial Park perched on top of the levee with its fine array of pampered native plants, and noticed a California brickellbush clinging to the rugged bank. It was as if the unat- tractive shrub with scrawny leaves barely covering the stems, and the small, ruffled disc flowers, was like an ugly duckling denied a place in the plant palace. As I watched, a mockingbird came flying at full speed with an aggravated scrub jay in pursuit! I don’t know what their griev- ance was, but the mockingbird dived right into the brickellbush, thwarting the jay’s advances. I found it amusing that the scrub jay was foiled in its own shrub domain! Brickellbush was first described by professor of botany, Stephan Elliott of Georgia, and named after an early naturalist and physician, Dr. John Brickell, who came from Ireland to Georgia in 1770. He is not to be confused with another Dr. John Brickell, also a naturalist and physician who came from Ireland in 1729, and settled in North Carolina and wrote the book, “The Natural History of North Carolina,” published in 1737. by Rex Burress Brickellbush is such a nondescript, poorly flowered skinny shrub that even the famous shrub expert, Lester Rowntree, left it out of her book, “Flowering Shrubs of California.” Naturalist Walt Anderson of Sutter Butte expertise did have a single paragraph on Brickellia californica, that he calls “a shaggy rounded bush with disk flowers that few people notice, even as they step over or around it.” He remarks, “Poor old Dr. Brickell of Georgia has been remembered by a plant no one sees.” The words, ‘shrub’ and ‘scrub’ are very similar, with shrub often applying to a bush larger than scrub. I don’t know which name the jay would prefer, as often they sit at the very top of the tallest plant or even a tree! Someone stuck the bird with scrub and so it is. Scrub is more applicable to sage brush or small desert bushes. But the bird drama emphasized the importance of shrubby bushes in providing cover and sometimes a food source for small birds. Even the most scrawny bush can not only help hold the soil together, but provide a refuge for small animals and nesting sites for birds. In fact, shrubs and small trees are vital to habitats whether on a hill or on the desert flats. There’s more uses of a plant than the blossoms! Small shrubs hanging together on poor soils fill a niche with chaparral that would seem to be the salvation of that particular environment, but unfortunately the dense cover is prone to wildfire should a flame start, and the fuel-like nature of the ‘brush’ has caused it to be widely condemned in California as a fire hazard. There is often an effort to destroy shrub communities, especially in landscaping around homes and parks. Lakeside Park in Oakland once had a handsome collection of shrubs throughout the park that was a delight for the quail and other birds as well as providing flowering beauty, but they were all taken out - not so much as a fire hazard, but they were obscuring the view for police patrols! Not only fire can ravage brush land, but many other modern fac- tors, such as climate change, urban sprawl, and agriculture, as described in a California Native Plant Society “Fremontia” booklet, pose a troubled future for abundant wildlands. According to the study, about 40% loss of scrublands will occur by the end of this century. Lands paved or housed are permanent soil and habitat losses, whereas most shrubs can grow back in time after a fire. Thus I was down by the riverside near the Sewim-Bo Trail one day, where not only brickellbush grows down over the embankment, but scattered in the adjoining grassland are several “island” stands of buckbrush, or Ceanothus cuneatus. The stiff-stemmed, thorny white branches are a great haven for the various birds that feed on the seeds in the adjoining meadow. How quickly they darted into that protective cover when a Cooper’s hawk swooped over. On the Missouri farm of my youth, the bottomland was dense with “buckbrush”too, though it was actually a coral berry with a softer character, but served the same salvation purpose that all shrubs provide as a haven for wildlife. Look kindly to the shrub, and save it where you can. “Earth’s crammed full of heaven, and every common bush afire with God. But only those who see take off their shoes; the rest walk around picking blackberries.” -- Elizabeth Browning Brickellia californica by John Dittes 8 . The Pipevine November 2013 ANNIE B’S COMMUNITY DRIVE SUCCESS Congratulations and Thank-you! J anna Lathrop reports, As a result of our participation in the 2013 Annie B’s Community Drive through the North Valley Community Foundation, Mount Lassen Chapter received total of $2309.36 to add to our general fund. This includes an 8% match of $171.06. The MLC Board of Directors thanks each of our 33 donors that contributed to the success of this year’s drive. This is the fifth year that we have participated and are gratified that each year turns out to be more successful than the one before! HOSPITALITY THANKS YOU by KarroLynn Yells Hospitality Chair M ANY THANKS go out to the previous CNPS MLC bakers for 2012 & 2013. What is so amazing is these bakers are so very busy helping the chapter in many ways and they took time to bake up a storm. Thank you so very much to: Janna Lathrop, Catie Bishop, Hesh Kaplan, Cindy Weiner, Ellen Copeland, Letha Albright, Susie Cunningham and even KarroLynn Yells. In November Ron Coley is letting his wife Kathy bake cookies. Thank You for being so kind and such good bakers! Keep up with MLC Activities on our website and Facebook California Native Plant Society, Mount Lassen Chapter and LIKE US mountlassen.cnps.org facebook. Officers & Chairs ELECTED OFFICERS (530) President SUELLEN ROWLISON suellen@garlic.com 897-0226 Past President PAUL MOORE pmoore@csuchico.edu 343-4287 Vice-President ANGIE TILARO angiechico@gmail.com 896-1882 Secretary JIM BISHOP cj bishop 1991 @sbcglobal.net Treasurer Members-at-Large JOHN MEEHAN 894-5339 johnmeehan64@gmail.com CATIE BISHOP cj bishop 1 991 @s beg lobal.net HESH KAPLAN heshelak@gmail.com MARGO LUND margolund@gmail.com 961-9407 CHAIRS MARION WEER weerhere@sbcglobal.net 872-8575 Conservation WOODY ELLIOTT woodyelliott@gmail.com 342-6053 Education OPEN Invasive Plants SUSAN MASON smason908@gmail.com 892-1666 Field Trips Co-chairs WES DEMPSEY wdempsey@csuchico.edu 342-2293 GERRY INGCO genaroingco@aol.com 893-5123 Membership / Hospitality KARROLYNN YELLS KarroLynnY@att.net 534-3551 Horticulture PAULA SHAPIRO 343-7440 paulashapiro49@gmail.com Newsletter Editor DENISE DEVINE dsrdevine@hotmail.com 345-8444 Programs Co-chairs JIM BISHOP cj bishop 1991 @sbcglobal.net WOODY ELLIOTT woodyelliott@gmail.com 342-6053 Rare Plants RON COLEY rcoley64@comcast.net 533-1238 Publicity CINDY WEINER 342-7645 wildflowermaven@comcast.net Sales Co-chairs JOHN MEEHAN johnmeehan64@gmail.com ELLEN COPELAND copeland el 2@yahoo.com 894-5339 Vol. Recognition / Chapter Council Delegate CATIE BISHOP cj bishop 1 991 @s beg lobal.net Events JANNA LATHROP jlathrop4mlc@comcast.net 636-4547 Yahi Trail STEPHEN OVERLOCK 892-0635 stephenoverlock@sbcglobal.net CCNC Gardens CLAIRE MEEHAN meehanclairel @g mail, com The Pipevine November 2013 9. MOUNT LASSEN CHAPTER CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY P O. BOX 3212 CHICO, CA 95927-3212 RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Chico, CA Permit No. 553 Time Value NOVEMBER 2013 issue NOV 6 Pipevine Phyllis would say Join Today ! MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY I wish to affiliate with the Mount Lassen Chapter new renew Name Address City State Email Zip Phone L Send Membership Application to: CNPS 2707 K STREET, SUITE 1 SACRAMENTO, CA 95816-5113 mountlassen.cnps.org Student / Limited Income $25 Individual $45 Family / Library $75 Plant Lover $100 Patron $300 Benefactor $600 J Calendar 2013 October 27 - Maidu /Upper Bidwell Park November 2 - Ten Mile House Hike 2 - PLANT SALE Harvest Festival 6 - General Meeting VOTE 19 -Old Plant Station Walk 20 - Ex Board Meeting 21 - CSUC Tree Tour December 4 - General Meeting NO Ex Board Meeting