Bumping up 2007-8/#5

Sarah, David and John came by and we continued to bump up and we fixed existing pots. Our plant numbers are at 125% of our goal of 1,100. We would have finished off our list, but a few plants just we not ready. We probably won’t have our final plants ready until a few weeks. David again graciously volunteered to come by and check on things over the next few weeks.
We started this work day later in the day to account for the continued frosty weather; and low-and-behold everyone was very happy about starting later. mmmmm this only took me 4 years to figure out! The seed flats had been under the frost cloth for 2 weeks, and they looked AOK. This looks to be promising technique. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Frozen Work Day

The Seed flats were frozen, so no “bumping up” to containers was done. Paul, Nanci, Sarah and Ranger Barbara came by. We covered the seed flats with frost cloth, after they had thawed out. According to Ranger Barbara there’s been frost for the past few days. So until the weather breaks, the seed flats will remain covered. We did a mini-restoration in drainage ditch with about 30 mule-fat sticks. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Bumping up 2007-8/#4

Volunteers today were Sarah, Nanci, John, Paul and David. We bumped up 106% of plant goal, a total of 1,170 restoration plants. These container plants are put in potting soil from Tree of Life Nursery, have slow release Scotts Ocmocote fertilizer added, and are mycorrhizae inoculated. The Nursery is filled with plants for park restoration. See slideshow for more pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)
The Dec 8 work day was cancelled. How come? Two species have taken longer to mature, and once we bump them up, we're essentially done: Monkey Flower, Mimulus aurantiacus, and Spiny Rush, Juncus acutus. Not included in the restoration count are the 350+ "other" plants we've done.
This may be our most bountiful year, but is unquestionably the record time: 3 months. The work days have been fun and "work" I look forward to. I am reminded that I work best with competent people.
I’m waiting for the frost cloth to get here (long story), as the temperatures in Aliso Viejo are in the 40’s, which means the Nursery is in the 30’s.

Bumping up 2007-8/#3

Sarah, David, Paul and John volunteered. This is our 3rd work day to bump up seedlings from flats, and our day's work brought our total of restoration plants to 846, or 77% of our 1,100 goal. Very good progress.
Our potting rate is about 38 pots/hour/person, or 2 flats/hour/person. We are only 254 plants short of our goal. At this rate, we should hit our goal in as little as 1 more work day. But most likely it will be 2-3 work days, as I'd like to have more plants than promised.... "just in case". We just can’t stop at the Restoration plants. We’ll have a few hundred of trial and “just because” plants. Click below to see G-rated video.

More bumping up

David, Nanci and Anne helped today. Together they bumped up 324 plants: 30% of our goal today; moving us up to a total of 54% of our goal. Started new seed flats for White sage, Purple needle grass and Goldenbush.

First “Bumping” Up 2007/8

John, Greg and David volunteered. We bumped up our first plants, about 325, or 30% of our goal of 1,100 plants. Not a bad days work. We worked on CA fuchsia, Goldenbush, and branching Phacelia. We’re getting initial growth on narrow-leaf milkweed, and looks like we just might have Indian milkweed. We’ll have to start another seed flat for White sage, Goldenbush and purple needle grass. See slideshow for pictures. (Click any pic to enlarge)

Seed Flats II

Tom, David, Nanci and John volunteered. We created remaining seed flats, as remainder of seed was delivered Thursday. David filled in for watering during the week; seed flats can not dry out, else the germinating seeds will die. We won’t do more seed flats unless the seeds we’ve used are not viable or there is some problem.
We reviewed “bumping up” for our next work day: when to do: after 1st set of true leaves, potting soil from Tree of Life Nursery, slow release fertilizer (Scotts “Osmocote Plus”, 8-9M, 15-9-12), pots to use and labeling.
Santana Winds are due the first part of the week: hot and dry with temperatures expected in mid-90’s F. David will come by twice a week to check/water seed flats the first week. I’ll do the 2nd week.

Plant List 2007/8

Seed Flats 2007/8

Today we did initial seed flats for the year. When we get remainder of the seeds, we’ll finish off the seed flats. Today we had help from Nanci, Sarah, John, David, and Wendy and her daughter. This year tried a new strategy of mapping the flats before the work day… worked OK, but with some of the seed missing this plan was not too great. Also new was measuring seed before starting flats, a good idea, but probably should have been done before this work day. All equipment was sanitized with 10% bleach solution. We are again doing alternate seed flats to be kept away from Nursery… in case of trouble. We also did set of pots of Milkweed. All told: 9 flats using 23 seed lots and 4x32 pots. See slide show.

First Work Day 2007/8 Plant Year

Today was our first official work day of the season, and what a busy day it was: cleaning, arranging and working with seeds. Volunteers included Nanci, John, Sarah, David, and Paul.
To get things started we moved the hutches out, which had been on their side protecting the oaks and dudleya. The seed cleaner, which we don’t know how to use, was moved out too. Nanci bumped up and planted a few remaining oak trees. All this to make room so we can work under the poly-film roof… in case it rains.
Sarah and David cleaned out and organized storage bins after 4 years. Paul and John cleaned and sanitized seed flats (15). Also Paul filled one of the cisterns with city water… in case we don’t get rain.
Finally David, Paul, John and Nanci helped do seed cleaning from this summer.

Next work day we’ll be able to focus on getting seed flats ready, so we can meet our goal of having container plants ready by the end of February.

Seed collecting

Went seed collecting today to refresh the Nursery’s seed bank, especially for this years plants: CA sage brush, monkey flower, mountain mahogany, golden yarrow, goldenbush, piney-leaf goldenbush, and Juncus patens(?). The CA fuchsia was a bust… looks like it didn’t even bloom. The mountain mahogany seeds were scant, as prior years the tree’s looked like featured boa’s.

The Willow-Laurel loop is really a treasure chest of plants (thank you Sarah for this observation). Along Willow so much was dried up together, it was very difficult to determine identify plants.

The oak trees: scrub and coastal live, have acorns ....on the trees that were bearing. What determines if an oak will bear is a mystery. I saw at least 5 scrub Oak loaded with acorns. The acorns will be ready to harvest when they start to turn brown, and are easy to pull from the cap… probably in 3-6 weeks.

Scrub oak acorns:

Coastal live oak acorns:

Getting ready for the 2007/8 year

Met and talked with Meg Jones, our new Executive Director of the Laguna Canyon Foundation. We talked about the need for planters in March/April timeframe and the need for a meeting about restoration logistics: plots, methods, and followup. Meg made a strong commitment that the Restoration side of things would come together this year. When the number of planters and days, then we will have a better idea of number of plants we should do for the 2007/8 year.
The pictured 5 gallon pots are an experiment using recycled soil. Also this is a test to see how well plants can hold up to environment with only watering every two weeks. Pictured are scub oak, Quercus berberidifolia, and mountain mahogany, Cercocarpus betuloides. The final test is putting them in the ground when the rains start. This may be what we do with our tree-like plants.

Many thanks to Francisco, Rick and Fidel for helping with checking and cleaning rain collection gutter. This is very hard to do by oneself.

Welcome the 2007/2008 year

Let us welcome the new year for the LCWP Nursery. We’ll start our seed flats at the beginning of October, in anticipation of our plants being ready for planting in March/April 2008. We’ll begin with an introduction session, so everyone can meet each other, we can cover any questions, and the plan for this year can be discussed.

Year End Thanks 2006/2007

Thank you all who have come and volunteered through out the year either with plants at the Nursery or collecting seed.
The goal for restoration plants was 600, and we only hit 400. However we can say that the additional bumper crop of chalk and lancet-leaf Dudleya made up for things: over 200 each! We were hit very hard by the dry winds coupled with days of ‘teen weather – destroying over 50% of the 2 major planting days we had. Thank you again to those that helped out: Nanci, Anne, Sarah, David, Tom, Paul, Greg, Kimberly, Barbara, Francisco and Larry.
Seed collection goal was 3 lbs, which we met handidly: 3.3 lbs of LCWP Nursery “Party” mix: 80% CA buckwheat, remainder about 4% each: CA everlasting, golden bush, deer weed, E. californica, and purple needle grass. Many thanks to those who helped collect: Anne, Sarah, Dale, Marilyn, Matt, Brad, David, Tom, Ranger Barbara, Francisco … and especially Kimberly by incorporating collection into her educational classes (she also totted around family with un-named CA State Park ranger to collect acorns).

Wrap up day, plants at Nursery

This was last work day at Nursery for this season (Oct-March). Thanks to Nanci and Anne for helping bump up remaining plants: oaks and Dudleya, general all-around work and final seed cleaning. Much of the remaining Nursery plants will be put in the ground at the Nix Center in March by a Soka University Horticulture class.
The cleaned seed mix was turned over to Ranger Barbara for safe cool keeping and “use as needed”… she mentioned use at Rattlesnake Canyon. 3.3 pounds in total.
Stay tuned for newly posted work schedule, which will begin in June timeframe. I’ll send out email when I’ve posted it, but most likely won’t be until April.

Seeding at Nix and Nursery

Sarah, Ranger Barbara, Tom and David helped prep and seed about 1 acre directly around the Nix Center. We roughed up about ½ area with McCloud’s.... not easy work, as much of the ground was very compacted from the original construction. All we need now is some light rain.
Meanwhile back at the Nursery, Nanci worked with Boy Scout's troop for a project to "improve mammal habitat" for a merit badge. They helped re-seed remaining oak seedlings, clean up after freeze/dry damage, and bump up from seed flats.

Dudleya planting at Nix Center

We planted over 200 Chalk Dudleya along the “rock way” to the Nix center: Anne (with broken collar bone), Sarah, her sister, Scott and family: Julie, Guy and Bridget. The plants were started in October, and interesting enough the seed came from plants recovered from the toll road construction. Thank you to Ranger Barbara for watering the area for this planting. The weather forecast of showers for the next few days is just what these new plants will want.

Frost damage, make-up day

We lost 30-50% of our potted plants due to repeated days of freezing weather and dry winds…. guess they were “freeze dried”. Thanks to Greg and Nanci for their earnest help salvaging what they could, especially for our first planting in 2 weeks. It is too early to tell what the status of the oak seedlings are now… they’re not dead, but not too lively looking… so consensus was “wait and see”. Without the oaks we have over 600 plants… small and battered. The remaining seed flats are a mixed bag, but the Dudleya was unfazed!
Oh.. on Wednesday Ranger Larry, helped (read, he “did”) replace the cistern valve that broke in the prior frost. Much thanks for the help!

2007-Jan-14 Frozen Out

The work day was called off due to “everything” was frozen: rain cisterns, all hoses, city water line, seed flats, stratifying oak acorns and all potted plants. This is first time this has happened in 3 years. Ranger Larry Sweet said it was 26 degrees (F) at 7:30am. The cistern valve broke… probably trying to get it to work after it was frozen. Sarah, Paul, David, and Nanci showed up to work…. Click here for video.