Ceanothus season is here in force. One of the local stars is a species with the unfortunate common name of “warty-stem ceanothus.” Neither is its Latin name of Ceanothus verrucosus especially glamorous. But hopefully you can see how cool a plant it is in these photos.
If my weekday desk had a window I’d look out on a the head of a little canyon that’s a mixture of introduced eucalyptus and a partially restored snippet of coastal sage scrub habitat. A couple hundred yards away in the re-wilded area are several of these ceanothus that have been glowing white for the last month with their clouds of flowers.
Last November these ceanothus were stemmy but gracefully-branched shrubs. Adapted to survival for many months without water its leaves are tiny and sparse. Still you could easily walk past them.
If you stopped to look at the plant, you’d easily see these interesting “warts” that give the plant its name. The warts are actually leaf-bases (stipules) that remain on the branches long after the leaves are gone.
By January the formerly sparse looking plants were responding to the rains with swelling flower buds.
And a month later the plants were going at it big time…
California could be the evolutionary epicenter of the genus ceanothus. Of the approximately 52 ceanothus species in the US, 46 are found here. Of those 46 about 38 occur only here.
That’s a lot of competition for precious space and water in a nursery, but several native California specialists in southern California offer this plant. You can see that this could be a choice addition to a dry garden where you want an airy, graceful shrub that’s 7-8 feet tall and about 10 feet across. As I struggle with ceanothus from outside my immediate area, I keep thinking I should use more selections that are better suited to what I have to offer them.
I love this plant, warts and all. But people in the end seem to buy the name and the image as much as they buy the plant. Just rebrand the plant with a friendlier (but more trite) horticultural name like “Cloud Blossom Lilac” and just stand back as everyone snaps it up.
March 07 2010 | Categories: plant profiles | Tags: Ceanothus verrucosus • native plants | 5 Comments »
The origin of Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo’ reads a bit like a horticultural soap opera: A California native species, Ceanothus thyrsiflorus, crosses the Atlantic for Europe, where it meets up with another ceanothus, this one from the East Coast of the US, Ceanothus americanus, or New Jersey tea. Loose on foreign soil the two get romantically involved, with Ceanothus ‘Autumnal Blue’ being one of the children. One of the plants of Autumnal Blue moves to Ireland, where its tolerance for moister garden conditions and good cold tolerance makes it quite popular.
(Edit, March 4, 2010: A quick trawl through David Fross and Dieter Wilken’s terrific resource, Ceanothus, reminded me that the story is even more twisted than this. The parents of ‘Autumnal Blue’ include the two species mentioned above, but also the Mexican and Guatemalan species, C. caeruleus. The plot thickens…)
There, in Ireland, growing on the grounds of Fitzgerald Nurseries, one of the branches suddenly throws a mutation, where the normally green leaves are instead a dramatic dark color, something between dark chocolate, inky black and maybe just a little grape thrown in. Pat FitzGerald notices the strikingly different branch, and begins a propagation program in earnest. His nursery lists several other near-black plants, including the dramatic Phormium cookianum ‘Black Adder.’ Eventually the plant crosses back to the other side of the Atlantic, for California, where it was released in limited distribution last year.
The almost-black leaves of Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo.’
That’s when I met this totally unique looking ceanothus and decided I wanted it for my garden. I brought a little gallon plant and located it where I wanted a dramatic six-foot shrub, expecting that it would be a quick-growing screen plant. Almost a year later, though, the little plant remains a little plant, and hasn’t really grown. Even though I watered it all last year as you would most new plants in the garden, my guess is that I failed to give it enough water through the 146 consecutive days without measurable precipitation that San Diego experienced, the third-driest rainless time in our record books.
To the plant’s credit, it didn’t die. And now the rains have saturated the soil, it’s showing some interest in putting out some new growth. But I felt like I needed some guidance in doing a better job growing this plant. Who better to ask than the person who probably has the most experience with this plant? Why not contact Pat FitzGerald, its originator?
Thankfully, Pat was generous with his time in responding to my questions. Here are some excerpts from the advice he sent my way.
Regarding dry conditions yes I would expect slow growth. Have you prunded your plant. I noticed from the picture on your blog it had very long un-pruned branches. Like a lot of shrubs in dry conditions I think thought needs to be put into helping the plants in the first year get depth of root penetration so that during dry spells its taking moisture from a depth. I suspect if you can give moisture to Tuxedo during the first year of establishment to help it along and prune next spring you will see dense growth establish…
I highlight moisture retention as a lot of people harp on about using water and drought but often forget you can condition your soil to retain more of that valuable moisture. There are so many recycled composts to be purchased or that the householder can make now that you can work into the soil to make pockets 3 X 3 feet around newly planted shrubs or even mulch to give them that start in life. The cure to drought and slow growth in dry areas is more often what you do before you plant than after as I am sure you well know but it needs repeating and repeating to the public…
Tuxedo will behave differently depending on soil density so in heavy soil I have seen plants exhibiting a shorter more compact nature to their growth. If planted in shade and especially in a lighter soil Tuxedo will certainly stretch as it seems to much prefer full sun for sake of both colour and flowering. In our more moist climate I think the plant can get to 8 feet as can many many shrubs here in our temperate climate…
I think the one comment I would have is that simply Tuxedo is for me more than a Ceanothus with deep dark foliage. Tuxedo is an evergreen foliage plant and once established in the garden hardy to minus 12 celcius in our experience but possibly minus 15 celcius. This is an achievement for me as I cannot recommend hardly any evergreen with such dark foliage with such winter hardiness.
Tuxedo is also a good plant for training on a trellis or wall in our climate at least. There is no doubt in my mind that Tuxedo will benefit from occasional pruning but no more than once per year.
I just hope in time Tuxedo contributes some way positively to Californian gardens. While only part native its still is a nice feeling as a plant breeder to have a plant go back to its homeland and be accepted into people’s gardens.
After reviewing Pat’s advice I’ve decided to not only give the plant more water and mulch around them for added water retention through the critical first year or two after a plant is freed into the soil. If I use an organic mulch it will break down over time and enrich the soil.
A common thread you read with many California native plants is that they detest rich soil. In fact Greg Rubin of California’s Own Native Landscape Design spoke to the local native plant society of planting large numbers of short-lived colorful plants between the large structural species so that the temporary plants could “burn up” the excess nutrients in the soil, particularly in a situation where the soil was formerly a heavily-fertilized lawn. But ‘Tuxedo,’ with parents from moister parts of California and the East Coast, sounds like it would benefit from being treated differently.
Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo’ with chalk dudleya in the foreground.
For me, growing Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo’ will be a little more work and water than growing many other ceanothus would be. But I think it should be worth it. In fact, I saw more of them in the nursery again and picked up a second gallon plant. Here you see it planted as a background for the silvery foliage and eventual orange flowers of chalk-leaf dudleya, Dudleya pulverulenta, and California fuchsia, Zauschneria californica ‘Route 66.’
Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo’ with California fuchsia in the foreground, which will bring orange flowers to the end of summer.
Wish me and the plants luck. Not every plant is perfectly adapted to your growing conditions, but a little effort can help make them thrive. And the reasons that make ‘Tuxedo’ a little trickier in the driest parts of California might make it a good candidate for moister parts of the state, or other parts of the country where ceanothus might be marginal. This year the plant is in wide circulation and should be widely available.
Ceanothus in New York or Little Rock? This might be the one.
March 04 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden • plant profiles | Tags: black • Ceanothus Tuxedo | 15 Comments »
The rain last weekend cleared out long enough for us to install the shade panel we’d constructed.
The fence you see faces north by northwest. Anything growing in the bed is in total shade for several months. About this time of year, though, the sun swings north, and things start to get sun exposure in the later parts of the day. We removed the termite-munched patio cover that shaded the delicate plants last fall—it had to go—but suddenly time was of the essence in restoring shade.
This is where a few shade denizens live in the bed…
…along with John’s collection of orchid cactus, Epiphyllum, that he’s amassed over the years. We also have a small assortment of hanging tillandsias and some tropicals, including a few surviving orchids from my rabid orchid-growing days two decades ago.
This weekend has turned rainy again, filling many of the holes in the shade screen with water. It’s slowed down moving the plants to their new home, but I won’t complain about the water we’re getting.
We’re already two inches ahead of the entire rainfall for last season (July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009). And last month’s rain accumulation alone, 5.4 inches, came close to the 5.5 total for all of 2009. Still we have a couple inches to go before we can even claim an average rainfall year.
This season’s rain is filling up vernal pools after several years of disappointments. Friday I stopped by some pools with a biologist to scope out a potential field trip for the local native plant society. Vernal pools are among the most threatened habitats locally. The occur on our mesa tops, areas that prove irresistible to developers because they’re flat and require less soil preparation than canyon bottoms or slopes.
Young plants were everywhere, including those of San Diego mesa mint (Pogogyne abramsii), a plant on several endangered species lists. If the rains keep up, it looks like it’s going to be a great year for them.
February 28 2010 | Categories: gardening • landscape • my garden | Tags: endangered species • hardscape • San Diego mesa mint • shade • vernal pools | 4 Comments »
It’s almost never too rainy to garden, and of course it’s never too wet to blog. But some outdoor projects have had to be put on hold temporarily.
Yesterday, when it was still dry, we started to construct a shade panel to begin to replace a patio cover we tore down last fall. Many of the plants on the patio are shade plants, and we still have some shade plants hanging in the shade of the greenhouse. As the weather warms and the sun begins to burn hotter in the sky many of the plants are starting to need some cover.
We got this far on the panel project yesterday. It’s a ten-by-four foot frame of aluminum, with an inset of perforated aluminum mesh. The diagonal cross pieces are for both structural support and what I hope will be a level of coolness.
And then it began to rain: Light mist now and then yesterday, and occasional rainsqualls this morning. Not safe weather for operating electric devices outside, but nothing to stop me from pulling some weeds and then stopping by my favorite local nursery, Walter Andersen Nursery. There was a bald spot out front and I needed a plant to fill it. One plant.
But the nursery was oozing green life force that proved irresistible and I came home with three instead: white flowering currant (Ribes indecorum), Route 66 California fuchsia (Zauschneria california ‘Route 66’) a second plant of Ceanothus ‘Tuxedo’ to go with one I purchased last year. I’ve resolved to plant at least fifty per-cent California native plants, and I think I succeeded. The first two qualify, and the last gets partial credit. (I have a post in the works describing why.)
Of course for me rainy days turn into opportunities to collect more rainwater for the prima donna bog plants that detest the water that comes from the tap. At this point I probably have several months’ supply in buckets and barrels. And the ground will hold its moisture and require minimal watering for several weeks. I wouldn’t want to force our county’s golf courses go without water, would I? (Well, yes, actually, I would. Yet another blog post…)
February 20 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: collecting rainwater • rain • shade | 8 Comments »
For my first attempt at participating in Pam at Digging’s Foliage Follow-up Day I looked under the grapefruit tree for inspiration. As the leaves fall from the tree they go from green to brown to gray before they finally become part of the compost that enriches the top of the soil. That last stage produces some gorgeous artifacts, where what’s left is mostly the thicker veins of the leaf. Even as the leaf tissue between the veins becomes compost or is consumed by the little critters living in the mulch, the structure of the leaf still remains.
Here’s a series of photos of those last recognizable traces of formerly-living leaves. Most of the below take advantage of the fact that the shadow can seem much more substantial as the thing itself. Maybe it’s a metaphor for the lasting power of a leaf that is about to become compost? Something about the cycle of life?
February 16 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: compost • grapefruit • leaves • mulch | 18 Comments »
I was looking at my blooming Agave attenuata and noticed something for the first time. The flowers on its spike have been opening asymmetrically, with the south-facing buds opening a few days earlier than the ones on the shaded side. I guess it’s the agave equivalent of moss growing on the shaded north side of a tree trunk. As I looked at all the agaves in the neighborhood, I was noticing the same thing: All the south-facing buds open first. It makes sense, I guess, with the sun-warmed buds developing sooner than the ones growing in the shade. There must be a botanical term for this—I’ll see if I can’t look it up sometime.
Something else I noticed the other week was that two of the little rosettes growing underneath the growth producing the big spike are also blooming. They’re nice, but the blooms get pretty lost in the foliage.
And compared to the big main spike, which must be something like twelve or more feet from base to tip, you can see how it’d be easy to overlook the little pups…
In the photo above you can make out this big red aloe in the background, Aloe arborescens. The clump began as a one-gallon plant in the early nineties. Now it’s probably six feet tall and twelve across.
February in Southern California is a busy month for flowering plants. Here’s a selection of what else is blooming in the garden.
This raised planter of Oxalis purpurea is the first part of the garden that visitors encounter as they head up the front steps. Dozens of white flowers and a lone pink one in the front. Oops.
Verbena lilacina, greened up from the rains, beginning to hit its stride.
One of several plants of Nuttall’s milkvetch, Astragalus nuttallii, that I raised from seed last summer.
Snapdragon-relative Galvezia speciosa ‘Firecracker,’ never a prolific bloomer for me, though mine’s a young plant.
The pink-flowered, purple-leaved form of Oxalis purpurea.
Carpenteria californica, a California plant that reminds me a lot of sasanqua camellias in its simple contrast of stamens against broad petals.
First flowers on Phlomis monocephala.
February flowers on a yellow crassula that I’ve forgotten the name of…
The final blooms of the season on another crassula, your basic jade plant, Crassula ovata…
The fragrant Solanum parishii, a widespread California native, doing battle on the slope garden against iceplant, Algerian ivy and Bermuda buttercup.
Freeway daisies (Osteospermun) below, with black sage (Salvia mellifera, prostrate form) above.
Keeping up the daisy theme, Arctotis acaulis hybrid…
Another actotis, ‘Big Magneta’…
…and a final photo, a final arctotis, shown against a piece of garden art made from glass, steel, and concrete.
As always, my thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. Even with snow on the ground many places up north, there’s still plenty in bloom today in warmer, more southern locations, and on windowsills and greenhouses around the world. Check them out [ here ].
February 14 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: Agave attenuata • flowers • Garden Bloggers Bloom Day • gbbd • native plants | 32 Comments »
White Oxalis purpurea closing up for the evening.
Detail of white Oxalis purpurea thinking about some shut-eye.
Purple-leaved Oxalis purpurea closing up in the late afternoon shade.
A lot of the flowering plants in the garden don’t bother opening their petals until the sun’s up and then shut their flowers as soon as the light begins to fade and temperatures drop in the afternoon. Over the weekend I was noticing this going on with my oxalis plants and, less dramatically, with my arctotis.
There must be a name for this behavior, I thought, and so off I went looking for an answer. Before long up pop three interesting words: photonasty, thermonasty and nyctinasty.
According to one of the sources, the Textbook of Botany by Chhatwal and Singh, photonasty happens when a plant senses light and reacts to it by opening or closing its flowers. Because of this, morning glories open in the…well, morning. Then there’s thermonasty, where flowers react primarily to temperature. Tulips will open with a rise of 2-3 degrees Celsius, while a crocus will zip open when the temperature rises just a half degree.
And then there’s the more complex phenomenon of nyctinasty, which “is influenced by the intensity of light and also temperature differentials, the former stimulus being more powerful and effective. The foliage leaves and also the floral leaves in many species of plants…attain different positions at day time and at night viz during the day, the leaflets remain open or spread up in case of Oxalis, clever beans, alfalfa, etc., while by the onset of darkness they close down. This is also known as sleep movement.”
Yesterday afternoon was pretty bright, but cool. The oxalis barely opened before shutting back up. So it requires both heat and warmth to open fully. So nyctinasty makes sense. The arctotis seemed to open more fully, earlier in the day. My guess is that they respond more simply, mainly to light, which would mean that they exhibit photonasty. (What’s truly going on could be lots more complex than this and really might only be solved by experimentation, a point made in an article, “Flower opening and closure: a review” by Wouter G. van Doorn and Uulke van Meeteren in the Journal of Experimental Botany. Read the interesting text [ here ].)
Next I need to find out what “clever beans” are.
In my web trawl it turns out I’m not the only garden blogger looking at this phenomenon this week. Tilthy Rich took a quick spin around nyctinasty [ here ]. Maybe he has the same plants blooming, making him ask the same questions…
Flowers of Arctotis acaulis ‘Big Magenta’ beginning to fold up for the night.
Another clone of Artotis acaulis closing up in the afternoon: Photonasty? Thermonasty? Nyctinasty?
February 08 2010 | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: arctotis • flowers • nyctinasty • oxalis • photonasty • thermonasty | 12 Comments »
Ever wonder what your garden would look like if the human caretakers just vanished?
Maybe I’ve been inspired by all the disaster flicks like 2012 or the History Channel’s Life After People series. But envisioning gardens after gardeners is an interesting intellectual exercise that might help us answer that pesky question: What is a garden?
Would all the invasive species take over? Would the native plants reclaim their turf? For how long would you still be able to tell that a garden existed in a spot in the first place?
I looked at parts of my back yard and tried to imagine what would happen.
Within the first month, in Southern California’s dry climate, most of the potted plants would perish for lack of water. Some of the succulents might hang on longer, but without an extensive root system in the ground, they’d be doomed.
This little frog would be staring at a bog garden where all the bog plants have died back, once again for lack of water.
Within two or three months the fishponds would be dry: no waterlilies, no cattails, no sedges, no water for the local birds.
This pathetic patch of grass would go through boom and bust cycles, turning green with the rains, dying back to brown other times of year. Seeds of other plants better adapted to the conditions would eventually take hold. Maybe some plants from the local canyon. Maybe some hardy exotic or invasive species.
Behind the back fence of the house is this slope dominated by rampant iceplant. The the neighbor behind me and I haven’t been able agree on what to do with the space. I’ve planted a small collection of native plants to help stabilize the slope. These are species that with only once exception can be found within a five mile radius of the house, and include plants like this nightshade, Solanum parishii…
…and Del Mar Manzanita, Arctostaphylos glandulosa ssp. crassifolia, an extremely rare plant that’s on the Federal endangered species list. The neighbor, however, loves their iceplant and can’t imagine of a slope without this gawdawful invasive species clamoring all over it. The local chapter of the California Native Plant Society has prepared a great pamphlet on getting rid of iceplant that you can view [ here ]. It goes into some great reasons to get rid of the stuff:
Planted on hillsides of thousands of homes in San Diego, it has since crawled off the original site and into neighboring Open Space parks, endangering unique plants by smothering them. Iceplant provides little habitat value compared to the plant community that it is replacing. Compared to the native shrubs, iceplant has very shallow roots that do not hold soil well; close inspection often reveals gullies underneath the twisted mat of vines. After rain, Iceplant engorges with water, substantially increasing its weight. As a result, iceplant can cause the deterioration of steep hillsides by encouraging slumping – potentially endangering the house above.
For people in suburbia, “habitat value” might mean plants that harbor scary wild animals and bugs, so that’s not always the most compelling reason to go native. The fact that iceplant might endanger their property values could be more persuasive.
So, returning to my main topic, the iceplant would probably overrun most of the native plants in a very few years and form a deep pile. Once we neglected the slope for a few years and found that the mat of iceplant was starting to push the back fence over. Within ten years the fence would begin to fail and the iceplant would begin its descent into the lower garden.
These plants along the back fence would stand a chance of surviving without water. The yucca, palm, protea would be tall enough to survive an onslaught of marauding iceplant from behind. They’re plants that don’t require much maintenance, and this wall of foliage would probably look unchanged for a number of years. But the lower aloes and other succulents would likely be smothered by the iceplant.
This apricot against the back fence never looks great without summer watering, but it survives. It’s tall enough that it would probably survive the iceplant invasion. Some of the adjacent native plants do great with the natural conditions. They might not cope so well with the marauding iceplant.
The neighbor on the side has Algerian ivy that requires constant clipping to keep it next door. Within two years it would begin to establish itself in the back yard. Taller plants that might survive the iceplant invasion might have ivy crawling up and smothering them.
This raised bed near the house is where veggies and irrigated plants live. Most of the exotic plants wouldn’t make it without water. The Dr. Hurd manzanita, the bougainvillea vine and maybe the Garrya elliptica would probably hang in there, however, maybe for decades, maybe for much longer.
Fifty to seventy-five years out the house would start to fail. Plants might begin to move in. The surrounding garden space would be overgrown with the hardiest drought-adapted species. I almost never plant in rows, but the mixed origins of the species—South Africa, South America, Europe, as well as from all over California, not just local species—would clue an investigator into the fact that a garden existed on the site. The relationships between the plants would be dictated by nature, not a gardener preserving order between plants with mismatched levels of vigor.
Chances are excellent that one hundred years out, maybe two hundred or more, the most persistent invasive species would still be here. Iceplant and ivy, plus fennel and black mustard that have invaded the local canyons, would feature in the neighborhood landscape. But while many invasives bask in the newly disturbed earth of a garden or the re-engineered grades around roads, they don’t always do so well long-term. Biologists have suggested that many native plants would return to a place where they’re not being pulled out or constantly mowed. My yard might be colonized by the local Mexican elderberry, or toyon, or lemonade berry, or prickly pear. And maybe some of the plants I’ve already introduced to the yard will persist and reproduce. The restoration of nature might spread from my house and from the wild edges of nature just a few houses away.
Even after nature returns, the occasional hardy exotic plant surviving amidst the natives, along with some of the neighborhood’s plantings of trees and shrubs in rows will make it obvious: There used to be gardens here.
February 02 2010 | Categories: gardening • landscape | Tags: drought-tolerant landscaping • iceplant • invasive plants • native plants | 25 Comments »
I realize that I’m dating myself when I reveal this, a long shelf of vinyl LPs, one of several in the house. I never listen to them, but I don’t know what to do with them. There’s a lot of common trash in the collection—Does the world need to preserve the billionth pressing of an indifferent rendition of the Pachelbel Canon? Then there’s music so bad that you can’t bear to part with it. Case in point: The Liberace Christmas album, in which Lee recites “The Night Before Christmas.” So badly done it’s a camp classic.
A few holidays ago I decided on a few truly trashable discs and recycled them into flowerpots. It’s one of those craft projects that you can find lots of instructions for out on the web. While visiting John’s aunt last month I saw one of the examples of my handiwork, with a small potted poinsettia set inside the craft project from hell.
Here’s one of the prototypes here at home, holding a potted plant. The hole in the disc for the spindle makes a great little drainage opening. This is more of a tray than pot, but I finally worked out a way to make something that had a nice pot shape to it.
I ended up using two ceramic pots as forms, a small 4-incher and a larger one, around 6 inches. I’d place the disc and smaller pot on a cookie sheet in the oven, with the hole of the disc centered on the hole of the pot. The temperature was set at a low but vinyl-melting temperature, something in the high 200s if I remember correctly. When the disc reached the melting point and began to just sag, I pulled everything out of the oven, placed the larger pot on top of the disc, and these pressed down gently. The disc would assume a nice pot shape and form some attractive crinkles in the space between the two pots. Just let the disc cool a minute and you’re ready for the next one. The fumes from melting vinyl can be pretty intense, unpleasant, and probably not good for you, so this isn’t a project I’d tackle in an unventilated house during the dead of winter. Also, remember that plastic is flammable! Be careful.
Last month John gifted me this USB turntable for transferring vinyl into sound files that I might actually listen to. Now all I need to do in my copious spare time is sort through several hundred discs and decide which few I want to keep, which ones I want to convert and recycle, and those that can be turned into flowerpots right away.
So…
- Original Sargeant Pepper first release: keep…
- Liberace Christmas album: convert but keep (was there any question on that?)…
-
Alternative TV (a British avant-garde rock duo’s album that I bought after reading a glowing review): flowerpot…
- Pierre Boulez conducting Debussy’s La Mer: convert and recycle…
- Anything Barry Manilow: flowerpot (what was I thinking?)…
A similar technique can be used on 45s as well as 12-inchers. Here’s a little Rolling Stones candy dish, for example…
January 30 2010 | Categories: gardening | Tags: craft projects from hell • LPs • pots • recycling | 7 Comments »
On my last little outing to my city’s largest open-space park, before the recent rains, while I wasn’t busy looking at sycamores, I was heading up the trail to Fortuna Peak, one of the highest point in the city limits. At 1291 feet in elevation and with good trails all the way, it’s no serious mountain climb, but the view from the top gives you views from the ocean to the west to the first ranges of real mountains to the east.
Many of the local wild parks have signs warning you about the dangerous fauna in the area—mostly rattlesnakes. Here the sign cautions hikers about the mountain lions that live here on the park’s more than 5000 acres and in the adjacent open space.
I’m used to being the top predator almost wherever I go. Even confronting a sign like this, I still manage to don that cloak of invincibility stitched through years of never confronting anything that might challenge that sense. I’m also a pretty statistics-driven person. I might think about how you’re many times more likely to meet your end by lightening strike on a golf course than hiking through land like this. Many more people die from smoking than they do through mountain lion attack.
For me, knowing that there are mountain lions in the vicinity adds to the adventure. Somehow this park feels more authentic, more alive, more complete because of it.
It brings to mind the only solo backpacking trip I’ve taken through Utah’s Cedar Mesa backcountry. Five minutes after entering the wilderness area I encountered the only human I was to see for the rest of the trip as he was leaving. Ten minutes into the trip I was crossing a stream bed still moist from an afternoon thunderstorm. As I stepped into the sand I noticed one immense, perfect paw print next to my boot. A mountain lion had passed this way in the last few hours. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a quick stab of fear at that moment. Welcome to the wild.
Maybe that’s a bit too much macho posturing on my part. If I were attacked by one of these cats, the first thing the authorities would do is to go after it. People would demand it. My recklessness would lead to the destruction of one of these elusive creatures. But I’m not a mountain lion’s favorite food, and these signs always seem like a park authority trying to limit their liability. Really, what are the odds of suffering any harm?
The wilds today didn’t offer anything so dramatic as mountain lions. A few other hikers were out, some of them totally fit and practically running, others looking like they were there because of a New Year’s resolution. Almost nothing was in bloom, but white-flowering currant (Ribes indecorum) provided bright accent marks along the trail to the top.
Once on top the view expands all around you. Look north and you see open chaparral and the runways of Miramar Air Station several miles away. Military installations may take up a certain amount of a city’s land, but they often manage to preserve open space in ways that suburban sprawl doesn’t.
Turn a little east and there you begin to see the ranks of foothills leading up to the Cuyamaca and Laguna ranges that divide the county, coastal region on one side, desert on the other. Yerba santa and black sage provide the foreground.
After I returned home from the hike I finally opened up the latest issue of Orion Magazine. One of the pieces, “Spectral Light” by Amy Irvine, describes a city family that has moved into a area in the Southwest as they come to grips with living in an area that is wilder than they ever imagined. Definitely got me thinking. It’s worth picking up the January/February 2010 issue to read it, or you can listen to the author read her piece or download the podcast [ here ].
January 25 2010 | Categories: landscape • places • rambles | Tags: Mission Trails Regional Park • mountain lions • Orion Magazine • wilderness | 5 Comments »
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