Early Summer

When retirement gets too stressful I take my camera and sit in my garden..... listening and watching, taking in the activity all around me. The birds, the breezes, the myriad variety of insects energetically buzzing about or those quietly and patiently waiting for a meal to stop by. On this sunny early summer day with all that was happening I was wondering. How does the biodiversity of a native plant garden compare with a typical urban garden? Seems to me that this would be an interesting study to quantify the overall diversity in various types of urban landscapes. But my thoughts on this were quickly diverted by the fascinating diversity here in my own garden and here are photos from my garden this early summer day.

Click on the photos to view them larger and with their captions.

Leptosiphon montanus (mustang clover) - Regen boxes from Salt Creek seed

Mustang clover seed heads May 2015

Early summer is also seed collecting time for many of our annual species. In my December and April posts I wrote about my project to regenerate seed of mustang clover (Leptosiphon ciliatus) a native species which is not yet in cultivation. The plants flowered profusely and by May I was collecting seed heads.

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My home process to extract the seeds from the heads is to use screens and a vibrating sander to thresh the seeds out of the heads and a small bowl to winnow the seeds from the chaff. As noted here.

Just completed this month was the harvest of the Farnsworth jewelflower fruits. These seeds with the mustang clover and speckled clarkia will be used in this autumn's reintroduction plots which I will be planting out on our property in Three Rivers.

This year after a a two year absence at our Three Rivers property I was quite delighted to see a good crop of Brodiaea elegans (harvest brodiaea) coming up and flowering. Pushing the seasonal fire safety limits I cut the grass leaving the brodiaea plants to finish flowering and go to seed. This selective process of being mindful of what and where to cut has allowed several local native species including several oak seedlings to start making a come back on our property.

Lastly for this post while sitting in my Hemet Garden I discovered several seedlings of our local Boechera californica (California rock cress). When I planted out some plants two autumns ago which I had grown from seed I collected locally I also cast some extra seed out and this year they are coming up. Being a local native this species is doing exceedingly well and I am happy to have it in my collection. Maybe some of the local insects and birds will be as well.

I will end this post with a photo I took of the early summer flowering of my sand verbena, the hybrid red flowering buckwheat, and the lovely orange desert mallow. It was a nice place to be today.

Wherever your garden is - get out and enjoy it.