More bumping up

Anne, Nanci, Greg, and David "bumped up" Giant needlegrass, Monkey flower, Sticky Cinqfoil, Deer grass and Golden yarrow. Also Supervising Ranger Sweet (not pictured) came by and kept us company and shared his insights. A good day all around.

Bumping Up

Nanci and I worked Friday, Nov 24, and Sunday, Nov 26, it was Sarah, Paul and myself. Nanci and Sarah bumped up the remaining Scrub Oak and Coast Live Oak acorns into 4” tall pots, Quercus berberidifolia and Quercus agrifolia respectively. The rats/mice eat the tops off early, so the hutches laid on their sides provided convenient caging until the oaks get at least 8” tall. Nanci and Sarah did the oaks. Paul did all the Purple Needle grass, Nassella pulchra, and jointly Sarah and Paul did 3 flats of Giant Needle grass, Achnatherum coronatum. I did two flats of Encelia californica. Very productive weekend! See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Nursery Video Tour 2006

Nix Center Opening

The opening of the Nix Center in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park was attended by over 1,000 people. The Nix Center’s initial planting was 1,600 California native bunch grasses grown the Laguna Greenbelt’s Nursery. See OC Register article which mentions the Nursery’s native bunch grasses being planted. See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Planting Grass at Nix

Time to get 1,600 grass plants, propagated at the volunteer Nursery, into the ground at the Nix Center at Laguna Wilderness Park. Kimberly, Elliott (not pictured), Barbara and Francisco were the catalyst… with a prison crew from Casper’s coming to help over the next few days. The plot you see is about 400 square yards, or about 13 flats… we have 50, so there’s a lot of grass to go around the Nix Center. See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Farewell to Native Grasses

We watered and fertilized 1,600 native grasses the week before they are due to be planted in the Laguna Coast Wilderness Nix Nature Center. Next year’s container plants are in either seed flats or containers. Each seed flat and post is has been inoculated with mycorrhizae.
See complete plant list. See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Seed Flats & Oaks

Tom, David, Sarah and Nanci helped plan, prep, label and prepare seed flats for this year: 15 species in seed flats and 2 species of oaks. We topped the flats with vermiculite to deter fungal gnats. Each species was paired in the flat with a dissimilar plant.
The group also de-bugged oak acorns being stratified and “bumped up” the ones with tap roots into 4” tall square pots.
See complete plant list. See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Starting Oak Trees

Ranger Barbara, Kimberly and Winter jointly collected acorns: Coast Live Oak, Quercus agrifolia, and Scrub Oak, Quercus berberidifolia. Tom and David cleaned acorns, and placed them in polyethylene bags with moistened medium, germination mix. The bags, slightly open, were placed in dark container…. “stratification”. Once the acorns produce a tap root, in 4-6 weeks, we’ll put them in 4” tall pots. We’ll have to cage these pots after the first leaves show as rats will gnaw off the stalks.

Seed Collecting

Robert, David and Tom back from seed collecting CA Everlasting, Gnaphalium californicum (?), to be used for restoration seed mix. Seed collection is for both restoration by seed and for container plants. We’ll be starting seed flats at the end of September: 30th. Reviewed seed collecting by educational groups with Kimberly.

Fixing rain collection system

Today Nanci and I watered the 1,600+ grasses for the Nix center. The original delivery was for August 1, but the un-official reschedule date is November 4, which also appears unlikely. This is frustrating as the grasses are stressed and not in containers for prolonged care. We’ll just have to do our best.
Francisco, and new volunteer Paul, helped fix the rain collection system. The unique design by Ranger Larry, that combined the roof-end and the gutter got separated due to the screws snapping. This time heavy-duty screws were used... "screwed down for life".

Seed Collecting

Matt, Dale, Marilyn and Ranger Barbara helped collect seeds from Indian Tobacco, Nicotiana quadrivalvis, Bush sunflower, Encelia californica, and Hollyleaf Redberry, Rhamnus ilicifolia. We collected around Big Bend and worked our way back on a very hot day. The Bush Sunflower we will use for container plants and seed restoration. See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Nanci poses with Nix Center grass seedlings. Note the size of the stand of white sage! Many other changes you might note: 3 new benches and new signage. I capped the screened top of the rain collection cistern, as weather is forecasted to get hot. Last year lost 25+ gallons to evaporation. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Restoration Site Survey

Ranger Barbara arranged for Trish Smith from The Nature Conservancy to come along to help articulate restoration site. Anthony’s Restoration Learning Cluster from Soka University also came along. We did soil samplings, invasive and native plant inventory, site description and talk on site challenges. See slide show for more pics and details on the grass plants for the Nix Center. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Soka Restoration Class Planting

Soka University’s Restoration Class doing a work day at Nursery. Anthony Mazeroll’s class pumped out 1,944 2 ½ pots of purple needlegrass, Nassella pulchra, for the Nix Nature Center. This completes the goal of a total of 2,000. Hard working group. We also did field trip up to one of the naturally occurring grass area’s. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Nix Center Planting 1

Nanci, Julie, Edinam, Anne, Anna and Eric all helped make 556 of the 2,000 seeded pots of Purple Needle grass, Nassella pulchra – 28%. We had many challenges, the biggest was running out of seed! But Trish came through with enough to finish out the planting. We also collected some more within the park, which is hopefully ripe for use. Hard working group of folks! See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Nix Center Planning

Ranger Larry, Ranger Barbara and I met with the Nix Center project manager, Ernie Seidel to review initial planting and commitment Nursery could make. The Nursery group will deliver 2,000 Purple Needle grass, Nassella pulchra, in 2½” tall containers, grown from seed collected from seed we collected within the park. The plants will be ready August 1, and will be used at the Center's entrace area, called the "Stipa Meadow".
Since the area around the Nix Center is landscaped and about an acre, we agreed the area should have irrigation. It is unlikely volunteers can get this many plants in the group quickly (minimally 10 hours for group of 10 people). Also the plants will need to be fenced against rabbits until the plants are at least 6 months old. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Help with Soka Ecology Class

We helped Chie and Sabrina with their Ecology Class final project. March 19 we planted 40 plants and on April 7 they did seed flat and bumping up. Both days we did general Nursery clean up: clear plants, weed and stack flats and pots. Other good news: 400 gallon rain collection is finally full! See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

4th Planting

Another planting day with Edinam, Chie, Greg, Francisco and myself. Nanci is “bumping up”, but not pictured. We planted 288 plants, in 244 square yards, at a planting rate of a whopping 25plants/hour. It helped that we did not have to water, and the soil was already saturated. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Soka Planting

Soka Ecology Class, instructor Anthony Mazerol, came to help Nanci and myself, along with Ranger Barbara. One half the group planted 144 plants, White Sage and CA Sagebrush, at 12 plants/person rate... very well done. The other half bumbed up 9 flats, 144 plants, of Monkey Flower, Goldenbush and CA Sagebrush. Great day to be working at Nursery between rain days. About 1" and we got 50+gallons in rain water. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

3rd Planting & Seeding

Nanci, Sara, Emily, Katie, Julie and myself planted 170 plants: Phacelia ramosissima. 4 days of consecutive frost and no rain. We managed a respectable 10 plants/person/hour rate. Later Ranger Barbara, Sara, Emily and myself seeded a 200sy plot cleared earlier. The seed mix we collected last year and included Mycorrhizl Inoculum AM120. Each plot had about the same square yard footage, with the planting taking 3 hours and seeding about 15 minutes. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Willow-stick planting

Drainage channel was dug by Francisco, and the willow will help make this permanent. Rained a bit today and forecast has more tonight. Scott explains to group how to plant the willow-sticks with the flow of water, kinda laying down rather than just straight up. Ranger Larry and I collected these cutting from down in Emerald Canyon in November. After about 1.5 months, they began to root, click picture to enlarge to see roots. The expectation is to use willow cutting from regular trail clearing next time. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

1st planting

Ranger Barbara asked for a plot showing CA native grasses. So Nanci, Sara, Emily, David and Robert planted the 100 sy plot. We were also working out details effective with groups.
We planted Giant needle grass, Achnatherum coronatum, Purple needle grass, Nassella pulchra, and Juncus pantens. 188 plants, 1.75hrs, 5 people = 22 plants/person/hour.
The technique we used: water plants, dig hole, fill hole with water and allow drain, place plant in hole and fill with dirt. Plants are placed roughly 1 yard apart. Its important to keep the flow of people with plants and water going so as not to trample the work you’ve done. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Nursery 2006 plant inventory

What a great volunteer effort this planting year: nearly 1,500 plants. Three times the number of plants promised! Granted we still need to get the plants in the ground, but we have bountiful progress so far. Might I remind the reader that all seeds for these plants were collected by the same volunteers. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Nursery bobcat patrol

Ranger Barbara sighted this bobcat, estimated at 30lbs, which she believes is the reason there are so few rabbits or squirrels in the Nursery area. (Click any pic to enlarge)

"Bumping up" work day

Monkey Flower: Emily, Nanci and Sara. CA Sagebrush: Sarah and Ramsey. This wraps up getting plants ready....planting season begins soon. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)