Mimulus Memo California Native Plant Society — Kern County Chapter March - April 2008 President’s Message Today it seems as if spring is here! The foothills are as green as England, and the Popcorn , Blue Dicks, and Fiddlenecks are up and blooming. A Phacelia we have not seen for about 7 years has appeared. We are not sure if we beat the bunnies to it this year, or if the rains came at the correct time for it. Looking closely we can see the beginnings of Bird’s Eye Gilia and Gold- fields, and it appears that this will be a great year for the Calico Monkeyflower, our logo. It does not seem to matter that we have seen most of these plants every spring since we bought our 40 acres (without a mule) 17 years ago; it is still a thrill to see the plants in bloom! It has also been a thrill to have so many people volunteer since the first of the year to help our chapter of CNPS move forward. Sasha Honig will be our Hospitality Chair, and will see that refreshments are provided for our meetings. Bonnie East has offered to help Debby Kroger with the extremely large work load of our Plant Sale. Don Turkal offered to write an article on garden plants for the newsletter. And Vonnie Turkal has organized us with a calendar of chapter events which you will see in this issue. Kern CNPS can only do what our members suggest, and help us to do, and I so appreciate all the help we are receiving from each of you who give your time. If you have a spare moment, let us know! Please join in all of the activities planned for what is going to be a great spring! — Lucy Clark WELCOME NEW MEMBERS Diana AUerman Don and Emily Diggles Betty Wiggens Jeremy Wiggens AND WELCOME BACK TO ALL OF OUR RENEWING MEMBERS! THANK YOU! Debby Kroeger- for leading Kern CNPS through a successful plant sale David Germano at Cal State - for use of their wonderful facility Debby Kroeger, Jeremy Kroeger, Karen Meeks, Laura Stockton, Bonnie East- for hauling plants Karen Meeks, Laura Stockton, Jeremy Kroeger, Clyde Golden, Ellen Cypher, Lucy Clark- Friday setup Laura Stockton, Debby Kroeger- Friday lunch for volunteers Harriet Morris, Karen Meeks, Lorraine Unger, Laura Stockton, Marya Miller, Debby Kroeger, Linda Cooley, Denis Kearns, Stephen Cooley, Nathaniel Cooley, Eve Lager, Bonnie East, Rhonda Germano, Lucy Clark- for working Saturday Stephen Cooley- for funding our website kerncnps.org for its first year Sasha Honig and Linda Cooley- meeting refreshments 1 Desert Tortoise Natural Area My name is Melissa Nicholson and I am the new Preserve Manager and Office Administrator for the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee (DTPC). The DTPC was awarded a Wildlife Habitat Conservation Program (WHIP) grant in 2005. This grant provided funding for fence construction at a newly acquired property, Camp "C", in the eastern expansion area of the Desert Tortoise Natural Area. The WHIP grant also provided funds for restoration of the area. Camp "C" was previously owned by the city of California City and was historically used by OHV recreationists for riding and camping. Over the years of use the area experienced severe degradation. The soil of Camp "C" is highly compacted and is now almost completely devoid of vegetation. The DTPC began the restoration of the first five acres of the 32 acre property. Now the DTPC is beginning to plan for the next five acres of restoration and we need your help. I am reaching out to CNPS chapters with two requests. First of all, I would like to know if you or anyone in your group would be interested in attending seed collecting parties. We will not be setting a specific date for these seed collection events at this time. I plan to monitor the blooming and seed availability as the spring progresses and then make an announcement about seed collecting events. I am also looking for any suggestion about streamlining this process. We will only be able to use seeds collected within a 30 mile radius of the Desert Tortoise Natural Area. Secondly, I am looking for an area to grow some desert plants. Specifically, we want to grow plants in the desert so they will not experience a shock when they are planted in the restoration area. I was hoping/wondering if you have any growing facilities for this purpose or if you could direct me to any interested parties who have these facilities available. I would appreciate any insight, information, suggestions in regard to the above request. Additionally, I have attached an invitation to the DTPC's annual Spring Work Party which is scheduled for March 29 th and 30 th . Please feel free to e-mail dtpc@pacbell.net if you are interested in participating. Thank you for your time, Melissa Nicholson, Preserve Manager Read more about this by downloading their Winter 2007 Newsletter at: http://www.tortoise- tracks.org/newsletter/ttwinter2007.pdf MORE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES Friday, March 28 A.P.E.S.* at SANDRIDGE 9am to 11am (This is for Retirees, the Un-employed, and Hookey Players!) Sahara Mustard pulling at the Sandridge Preserve. Bring gloves, plastic bags, dress in layers, bring snacks and something to drink. Rain cancels. Meet at the Taco Bell on the south east corner of Hwy 58 and Weed Patch Hwy at 9am for weed pulling and visiting. We will car pool to the beautiful preserve, that slowly is being over taken by the invasive mustard. We can protect the unusual desert plants there by removing their competition, the Sahara Mustard. [* Alien Plant Eradication Society] Saturday April 5 Panorama Vista work party 9am to noon We'll weed grass around our young sycamores and chop down small tumbleweeds. Bring a lunch for a picnic along the river. Meet at the white swinging gate on the Roberts Lane extension to the east of Manor Dr. This is on the north side of the river. To learn more about the Panorama Vista Preserve visit www.panoramavista.org . For more information email Andy Honig at andvm5@bak.rr.com . 2 Calendar of Wildflower Walks for 2008 and Activities Mark your calendars and bring your cameras Enter the 2008 Wildflower picture contest. Take lots of flower pictures while enjoying your field trip and send your favorite flower pictures along with their names (not yours) to the mimulusnnenno@bak.rr.conn . Everyone will enjoy seeing what’s in bloom in 2008, plus you might win a prize. We will have someone without CNPS connections judge the pictures from the website. The rules are simple, there are none. The prize will be awarded at the end of our Wildflower Walk season. We will then announce the winner on line; and the mystery photographer will have to come forward so we can post your name by your prize photo as the 2008 Flower Power Winner. Join the fun in experiencing, and learning the plant life we find with each trip. Your check off list of items to always bring Camera Insect repellent Sunscreen Field glasses Lunch and /or snack Water Hand lens Pencil/pen/paper for Hat making lists Wear comfortable shoes and layer clothing for weather changes. Please leave pets at home. CNPS insurance rules prevent us from assigning car pools, but we do encourage ride sharing from meeting locations. Parking space is usually limited, and we want to save the air. March (Easter is March 23) 25 PROGRAM: Stephen Cooley, Native Plant Propagation 28 A.P.E.S. at Sand Ridge (see notice on page 2) 29 FIELD TRIP: Kaweah Oaks Preserve (7 miles east of downtown Visalia). Take a leisurely, self-guided walk around three different trails: Grapevine, Swamp, and the Sycamore. This Preserve contains undisturbed riparian habitat. Check out the www.kaweahoaks.com for a peek into the area. Trail brochures will be at the March 18 CNPS meeting. Meet at Denny’s at Hwy 65 and Merle Haggard (7 th Standard) at 8am. It is time for the election of chapter officers. The following people have agreed to serve another term. Please participate by voting! KERN CNPS BALLOT FOR 2008-2009 President - Lucy Clark Treasurer - Harriet Morris Vice-President - Debby Kroeger Secretary - Laura Stockton Please circle the names of your choices, cut off this ballot, and mail to: Stephen Cooley 4820 Mecca Place Bakersfield, CA 93308 3 April 5 PANORAMA VISTA WORK PARTY 9 am to noon (see the notice on page 2) 5 NATIVE GARDEN TOUR Save the date, and watch for your postcard with the particulars! 12 FIELD TRIP: Ridgecrest Maturango Museum Wildflower Show (actual dates of event are 11-13) Open daily 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Exhibit room and art gallery: Free to members; $5.00 for adult nonmembers; $3.00 students, seniors, military; Children under 6 free. Meet on Saturday at Taco Bell at the SE corner of Hwys 58 and 184 (Weedpatch Hwy) at 9:00 am. Otherwise meet us at the Maturango Museum at 100 E. Flores Ave., just off China Lake Blvd. (Across the street from a looming Home Depot). (760) 375-6900 14 Board of Directors Organizational Meeting 15 PROGRAM: David Schwartz, Xeric Ferns of Mediterranean Rock Gardens 19 Bakersfield College Garden Festival Volunteers are needed for one or two hours to run our educational booth and the sale of our remaining plants. Contact Lorraine Unger to help, then tour the festival afterwards! 20 FIELD TRIP: Mimulus Pictus Picnic and Moon Watch. Join us for our annual picnic to see and photograph our CNPS chapter logo flower, and enjoy socializing with others passionate about native plants. Bring your picnic dinner and drinks to dine on the granite outcrop overlooking the valley. If you have time, stay to watch the full moon rise. Meet to car pool/caravan at Denny’s at Hwy 65 and Merle Haggard Drive (7 th Standard) at 3:30 pm to drive to Clyde Golden and Lucy Clark’s home in the foothills. Rain cancels. 26 Earth Day at CSUB 30 - May 6 Kern River Valley Spring Festival Kern River Preserve and Kernville Circle Park 9 am - 5 pm May (Mother’s Day May 11 and Memorial Day May 26) 3 FIELD TRIP: Ferns of the Southern Sierra Nevada with David Schwartz This field trip is a follow-up to David’s program on Xeric Ferns last month. We will look for characteristics of the local ferns we saw at his program, and practice IDing them. Meet at the Tuesday Morning parking lot at Fairfax and Auburn at 7 am for car pooling. Moderate hiking will be involved. Return time is estimated to be 3 to 4 pm. One Of My Favorite Garden Natives Philadelphus lewisii Pursh Wild Mock Orange This is a plant I purchased from one of our Native Plant Sales many years ago. It has grown slowly and steadily beneath the light shade of a pecan tree. It has developed an arching habit with long branches growing up and then bending back slightly towards the ground. Each year, just after the leaves have come back out, Philadelphus lewisii fills itself with racemes of pure white, four-petaled, one- inch flowers . As evening approaches the flowers give off a light, sweet perfumey odor (This is how Philadelphus gets its name “Mock Orange,’ but I’ve never smelled anything called Mock Orange that smelled like Orange blossoms). It gets a bit of deep irrigation in the summer and is shielded from the hot summer sun. 4 - Stephen Cooley UPCOMING MEETINGS Tuesday, March 25 Propagation of Native Plants Speaker: Stephen Cooley Place: Lake Room, Beale Library, 701 Truxtun Ave, Bakersfield 6pm Plant identification Workshop 7pm Propagation of Native Plants Stephen will give us an overview of the many ways you can multiply your native plants. Both sexual and asexual methods will be discussed. Though all aspects of propagation will be presented, the focus will be on those methods that the ‘hobbyist’ is most likely to use - mainly seeds, cuttings, and division. Monday, April 14 Board of Directors’ Organizational Meeting 6:30 pm Debby Kroger’s home, 3116 Bank Street, Bakersfield All members are welcome to attend our Board of Directors meetings where we organize our short- and long-term projects and activities. We always appreciate new ideas, and look forward to getting to know you better in a smaller group. This is HIGHLY informal, with cookies or fruit served. This is a new step for us, to try to set a specific date far enough in advance so we can alert members to this opportunity to help shape our future as an organization. We are looking forward to seeing YOU there! Tuesday, April 15 Xeric Ferns of Mediterranean Rock Gardens Speaker: David Schwartz Place: Lake Room, Beale Library, 701 Truxtun Ave, Bakersfield 6pm Plant Identification Workshop 7pm Xeric Ferns of Mediterranean Rock Gardens David will give us a world wide tour of Xeric Ferns, which he calls an oxymoron! (And it is true, most of us think of ferns as growing in a moist habitat.) He will circle the globe and bring us back to the southwest, then to the dry land ferns of Kern County. This program will be of interest to the gardeners among us, as well as those who like to see their plants in the wild! David will lead a follow-up field trip to see the xeric ferns of the southern Sierra on May3 rd . OTHER EVENTS OF INTEREST WINDWOLVES — Future volunteer events are on the following dates: Mar 15 th , Apr 19 th , May 17 th We look forward to seeing you here! David Clendenen, Wind Wolves Preserve Manager (661) 858-1115 = Office (661 ) 858-4505 = Fax KAWEAH OAKS PRESERVE ( www.seauoiariverlands.org ) Mar. 22 9:00-11:00 am Guided Walk: Farming in Cooperation with Nature Apr. 19 10:30 am - 3:30 p.m. Demonstration: Native Basketweaving at Kaweah Oaks Preserve Jun. 28 7:00-9:00 pm Demonstration and Guided Walk: Owls at Kaweah Oaks Preserve with Burleigh Lockwood 2008 NORTH AMERICAN BUTTERFLY ASSOCIATION BIENNIAL MEETING, KERNVILLE The next North American Butterfly Association Biennial Meeting will be held in Kernville, Thursday- Sunday, June 26-29 2008. see http://valleywild.org/NABA.htm 5 Excerpts from: Warehouses Nibble on Edge of Giant California Ranch By TERRY PRISTIN New York Times February 20, 2008 view the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/realestate/commercial/20ranch.html LEBEC, Calif. — Anyone who has traveled between Los Angeles and San Francisco along Interstate 5 has driven along the western flank of Tejon Ranch . . . Occupying about 270,000 acres, or 426 square miles, Tejon Ranch, named for the Spanish word for badger, is the largest contiguous parcel of privately owned land in California ... In recent years, however, as executives of the publicly held Tejon Ranch Company have sought to diversify the ranch's economic activity, three giant warehouses have sprouted near the freeway. The largest, with 1.7 million square feet, serves all of Ikea's furniture stores from San Diego to Vancouver . . . The latest addition is a 606,000-square-foot warehouse built in partnership with the Rockefeller Group Development Corporation of New York, a subsidiary of the Mitsubishi Estate Company. Completed last week, the warehouse is being marketed to permanent tenants. Two residential projects are also in the pipeline. Tejon Mountain Village, a resort with a golf course and 3,400 luxury homes, is to be developed with DMB Associates of Scottsdale, Ariz. Farther to the south, in Los Angeles County, where one-fifth of the ranch is situated (the rest is in Kem County), the company is working with a group of home builders to develop a much larger residential project, called Centennial, which will eventually have 23,000 homes. Environmental impact reports on both projects will be submitted this year, ranch executives said. The executives say they have no further plans to carve up the ranch for development. And in 2003, they agreed to set aside 100,000 acres of wilderness, an area a little larger than Yosemite Valley, for preservation. "That was our effort to say, 'We care, we've been good stewards, and we are prepared to make a commitment to conservation,' " said Joseph E. Drew, a senior vice president. But many environmentalists say the agreement does not go far enough to protect a fragile landscape, where several distinct ecological regions converge. They have also raised concerns about air quality, the availability of water and the prospect that Centennial will turn into a bedroom community, extending Los Angeles's unmanageable sprawl to the Tehachapi Mountains ... the ranch is home to about 80 rare or endangered species, including the bald eagle, the California spotted owl and the California condor ... The Sierra Club has made conserving as much of Tejon Ranch as possible its top priority for the state . . . "It offers an unparalleled and irreplaceable connection between the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Ranges and the high desert." . . .The ranch's management has the support of the Trust for Public Land, the national environmental group that worked on the 2003 agreement to preserve the 100,000 acres, including a 37,000-acre condor habitat and a 39-mile hiking trail . . . “The reality is," Mr. Hibbard said, "if you're trying to put up a one-million-square-foot building, there aren't that many places to do that in California." CNPS - Kern County Chapter % Stephen Cooley, Editor mailto:mimulusmemo@bak.rr.conn INTERNET EDITION The mission of the California Native Plant Society is to increase understanding and appreciation of California’s native plants and to conserve them and their natural habitats through science, education, advocacy, horticulture and land stewardship. 6