Mimulus Memo California Native Plant Society — Kern County Chapter November/December 2008 President’s Message This will be our last Mimulus Memo of 2008, and I want to thank Stephen Cooley for being such a competent editor, and to also thank all of our contributing writers. This is the first year in my memory that we have had six issues, instead of four, a goal that was encouraged by several people, and carried out by Stephen. So thank you. Editor! This fall we supported CAL-IPC by sponsoring their 2008 Symposium on invasive weed management with a donation of $200.00. We could participate locally in the Kern County Weed Abatement group that meets in Tehachapi every third month if we had a volunteer willing to attend their meetings. Are there any Tehachapi area residents interested in doing this? This group works all over the county to protect our native flora, and it would be appropriate for us to participate once again. I am hoping that many of you are planning to attend the CNPS Conservation Conference in Sacramento in January. This is happening due to a huge effort by many groups working together. There will be so much to learn about strategies and methods being used and tested by various public and private entities, some being local chapters, just like us! It should be an inspiring event that will charge us up to expand our work in Kern. And, finally, I am encouraging every member to come forward and offer to take on an office on our Board. I am not going to be running for President next year, but plan to participate as the Conservation chair, if no (continued on page 2) WELCOME NEW MEMBERS Kimberley Duncan John & Suzanne Nind Peter Green Deborah M Olson Robert T Owen Teri Vellutini Lela Owen Pratt Michael Regan Doug & Beth Schauzenbach KERN CNPS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Officers President Lucy Clark Vice President Debby Kroeger Treasurer Harris Morris Secretary Laura Stockton Committee Chairs Field trip Chairs Yvonne Turkal Don Turkal Newsletter Chairs Stephen Cooley Linda Cooley Membership Chairs Linda Cooley Clyde Golden Plant Sale Chairs Debby Kroeger Bonnie East Program Chairs OPEN Hospitality Sasha Honig Publicity Debby Kroeger Web Master Stephen Cooley Plant Identification Denis Kearns Conservation OPEN Rare Plants OPEN Plant Communities Mary Waiters DID YOU KNOW that you can renew your CNPS membership online using a credit card? As an option, you can set it up to renew automatically year after year. It is quick, easy, convenient, and reduces the cost of mailing renewal notices. www.cnps.org Click on the JOIN button 1 President’s Message (continued from page 1) one else wants to. We have not have anyone involved with conservation, and it is just going to become more and more important. I enjoy reading and writing letters, and hope to improve my speaking to commissions and councils. We also have had no Coordinator of Rare Plants. We will have an organizational meeting in January to which all will be invited, to work out our leadership positions, with an election to follow. WE NEED YOU! And it is fun to participate, meet new friends, and learn new things about California’s native plants. Lucy Clark PROGRAM COMMITTEE A Call for Volunteers Along with a new officer or two in CNPS next year, we are looking for a few volunteers to form a small program committee for 2009. If a few of us work together, we can share the responsibilities, thereby making arrangements smoother and more efficient. The best part of the job is to find SPEAKERS who have a passion for plants, wildlife, and the environment. Working as a committee, we should be able to brain storm ideas for our meetings. Thanks to the work of Yvonne Turkal, we have a new venue, at the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Building on L Street in downtown Bakersfield. She will rent it every month for us, so we won’t have to worry about that! Next, we will need program descriptions for our Mimulus Memo newsletter, and for Debby Kroeger’s public relations contact list. Our speakers will give us a brief description of their talk, which we can use for these purposes. Last, but not least, there are always a few final details and arrangements to keep in mind, such as AV equipment, maybe a dinner beforehand, and any other last minute details. Overall, program work is very satisfying! You meet good people, you become inspired, and you are connected to a larger mission. If you would like to be involved with the committee, please contact me at lucyg391 ©gmail.com. (This was adapted from an article by Julie Becker in the Redbud Newsletter of the Foothill Chapter.) Lucy Clark CNPS Conservation Conference The CNPS Conservation Conferenee Silent Auetion Committee seeks donations to help raise money for CNPS’ eonservation programs. The silent auetion, drawing, and live auetion will take plaee January 18. What ean you eontribute? There are no restrietions! Just think about what you might like to buy - artwork, books, photos, seeds, garden tools, anything niee! Perhaps you belong to a wine elub and ean provide a superb limited reserve bottle. Maybe a book signed by Ledyard Stebbins himself? What about an annual pass to our national parks and forests? Other ideas: a gift basket full of items produeed loeally, a week or weekend in a vaeation home, binoeulars, airline tiekets, eamera, a garden design by a landseaper, garden serviees, a lovely vase or pot, or a quilt with a plant theme. You ean find out more about donation ideas, the eonferenee and CNPS at this website http://www.cnps.org/cnps/conservation/conference/20Q9 You ean also donate direetly by going to http://www.cnps.org/cnps/conservation/conference/2009/auction.php I will be happy to eolleet donations from our area and take them to the auetion in Saeramento. Please eontaet me if you have questions or donations: Raehel Hutehinson, rahutchinson(ggmail.com (NOTE: I will not be able to piek up items outside the greater Saeramento area) 2 ^fumk/^au/I Trips to get sale plants from Native Nurseries Mimulus pictus Name Tags Laura Stockton, Bonnie East, Dorie Giragosian, Lucy Clark Trip to Tehachapi for meeting on landscaping of new Veterans’ Cemetery Laura Stockton Clyde Golden Plant sale set-up Debby Kroeger, Bonnie East, Harriet Morris, Stephen Cooley, Clyde Golden, Lucy Clark, Don and Yvonne Turkal, Laura Stockton Hospitality Debby Kroeger, Karen Meeks, Audrey Cochran, Dorie Giragosian, Susie Nind, Lucy Clark, Linda Cooley Plant Sale Bonnie East, Debby Kroger, Harriet Morris, Laura Stockton, Eve Lager, Kristin, Clarice, Marcy Hudlow, Lucy Clark MEMBER MEETINGS Sunday, NOVEMBER 23 - CNPS Annual Potluck 1pm at the home of Eva and Gordon Nipp (If you need Eva & Gordon's address, please email the editor: MimulusMemo@bak.rr.com ) SPEAKER: Mike Stockton of the Bitter Creek Wildlife Refuge . USFAWS Mike will bring us up to date on the status of the refuge established to provide habitat for California Condors. Those of you have been there know what a gorgeous place it is, located between the Carrizo Plain and Wind Wolves Preserve. It is a connecting link for Condors from the Carrizo to the Tejon Ranch, and on into the Sierra Nevada. Many other native species use this land also. Mike and the USFAWS hope to restore the land to a native flora in the future. The Nipps have again graciously agreed to host our Potluck Dinner, for which we thank them. Their home is reached from HWY 178, near the mouth of the canyon, uphill on View. Please join us for our annual social event, and bring your favorite dish/es to share. We have scheduled this event in the afternoon so that our members who live outside of Bakersfield can carpool, attend, and start home before dark. Hope to see you there! DECEMBER We will not have a meeting this month, but will start in January of 2009. Enjoy your holidays! NATIVE PLANT EVENTS Growing Natives: Celebrating California's Beauty in Dry Times March 28, 2009 - Lafayette Community Center, Lafayette March 29, 2009 - Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Berkeley (Co-sponsored by Pacific Horticulture, CNPS and the Friends of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden) We are pleased to present a 2-day program of talks and workshops exploring the possibilities for creating beautiful waterwise gardens with plants native to California. For more information, please visit www.nativeplants.org www.cnps.org www.pacifichorticulture.org 3 Golly, Through November Take The Time To See Wasp Galls At Their Busiest In The Kaweah Oaks Preserve. Need to get away from your every day routine, take time to see nature at work. Galls are seen in abundanee at the Kaweah Oaks Preserve and you only have to walk a short distanee on level ground to the pienie area to see them. Onee you arrive be eareful where you walk as the jumping galls may be around your feet. Carefully break open a gall to find a mature wasp ready to emerge. Directions to the Kaweah Oaks Preserve located 7 miles east of downtown Visalia: From Freeway 99, take Hwy 198 east towards Sequoia National Park, Turn north on Road 182 and Preserve parking is 1/2 mile north. Park your vehicle in the parking lot and walk over to the information sign. Notice the trail map, visitor hints and current policies. Enter the oaks preserve through the fence opening (cattle-proof) just to the left of the information sign A Gall is an abnormal growth on plants often seen as a rounded swelling. They ean form on roots, stems, leaves, and even flowers and seedpods, and range in size from tiny to enormous. Most galls are eaused by parasites (organisms that feed and live on the plant), ineluding animals, sueh as eertain wasps and worms; fungi, sueh as smuts and some rusts; plants, ineluding eertain mistletoes; and various baeteria and viruses. The gall-eausing agents produee ehemieal substanees ealled phytohormones, whieh stimulate plant eells around the agent to multiply and beeome abnormally enlarged. Abnormal growths resembling galls also may form as the result of a genetie defeet in the plants produeed by erossbreeding, ineluding aprieot, lily, tobaeeo, and tomato hybrids. These tumors are thought to result from an imbalanee of phytohormones. Some galls and the agents that eause them ean seriously damage plants. For example, a speeies of worm ealled the rootknot nematode eauses galls in potato, eorn, and many other plants. The worm feeds on the plant roots, and the galls divert nutrients from the rest of the plant. Other galls benefit plants. For example, galls or nodules formed by Rhizobium baeteria on the roots of legumes (plants in the pea family) help supply life- giving nitrogen. Rhizobium eonverts nitrogen gas from the air to nitrogen eompounds the plant ean use. Studies of crown gall have led to the development of improved plants. (Large woody galls at soil line give name to erown gall.)This gall is eaused by Agrobacterium tumefaciens, a baeterium that infeets many kinds of plants. Upon infeetion, the baeterium transfers some of its genes to ehromosomes of the plant. Using genetie engineering, seientists ean alter the baeterium so it transfers genes that give the plant more favorable traits. In this way, researehers have developed disease-resistant varieties of erop plants. Gall information contributor: Clarenee I. Kado, Ph.D., Professor, Head Davis Crown Gall Group, University of California, Davis. 4 Submitted by Yvonne Turkal In September, our ehapter meeting, "Gardening for the Birds", foeused on attraeting birds to your yard through the use of native plants. Marya Miller and Terri Gallion explained all the elements. To maximize the attraetion of your yard, provide: food, water, shelter, perehes, nesting materials and safety. Food sourees should be provided year-round. The greater the plant diversity, the greater number of avian speeies you will attraet. Berries attraet the greatest number of birds. The two best plants: poison oak and elderberry! Water should be moving, not stagnant; a drip or a mist is best. A pond needs to be kept elean and a bird bath should be on a pedestal. Perehes and snags provide plaees to sing, preen, to eourt and to guard their territory. Cats are the number one killer of songbirds. Plaee/ hang feeders in plaees that are inaeeessible to eats, and elean them well and often. With all this in mind, now eonsider the eonditions of your yard. Plan your garden by grouping plants by their needs and maintenanee requirements. Marya and Terri provided sample groupings with some plants that would be available at our sale. They did a terrifie job; their program was greatly appreeiated by all who attended. A time of questions, referenee eheeking and refreshments followed. Thanks, Marya & Terri. Plus a speeial thanks to Luey & Lora for gathering the plant materials. - Debby Some Pictures from Our Plant Sale There are some plants left over. If you were not able to eome to the sale, or would like more plants a list ean be seen on our website: seen on our website: www.KernCNPS.org Interested buyers ean eontaet Debby at home: deeav@att.net 5 Havilah Resident Publishes Land Stewardship Handbook (from Richard Cayia Rowe) One of the member of the Kern River Valley Garden Group f http :// groups. yahoo, com/ group/KRV gardengroup/ t is Ron LaRosa who lives in Havilah, California (East of Bakersfield, North of Tehachapi & South of the Kern River Valley). I'm a friend of Ron's and he is very much involved in our local garden group. He'll do some kind of demonstration during the Living Green in the KRV event I'm organizing for March 27-30, 2009. Ron has just published a handbook trying to help people figure out how to better deal with their Kern County properties, rather than to hire a dozer to scrap it and start over trying to plant things that won't grow well here. It was printed in late June at Lee's Printing in Bakersfield. Ron asks for a $5 donation to the Kern County Chapter of the Delta Foundation to pay for reprinting the handbook. More information, as well as an EXCERPT and ORDER FORM ean be found at: http://krvr.ora/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135<emid=1 SOIL, WATER, PLANT & NEST SITE CONSERVATION WRITTEN .AND ILLUSTRATED BV RONALD La ROSA CNPS — Kern County Chapter 7o Stephen Cooley, Editor MinnulusMenno@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