visiting crestridge

For today’s Gar­den Blog­gers’ Bloom Day I’m doing some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. My gar­den looks a lot like it has in recent posts, so I thought I’d take you along on a tour last week­end of Cre­stridge Eco­log­i­cal Pre­serve, in San Diego County, a lit­tle over half an hour from the coast. The flow­ers were out in force.

One of the inter­est­ing nar­ra­tives of this place is how a land­scape responds to being burned. This pre­serve and many of the homes around it burned intensely in the big 2003 Cedar Fire. A lot of the homes nearby with their new tile roofs and crisp, new stucco look like they’ve been rebuilt out of the ashes.

Same goes for the plants. The Engel­mann oaks that help define the char­ac­ter of the pre­serve burned. But many are bounc­ing back. Really, if it weren’t for the burned snags it’d be hard to guess that this area was cin­ders seven and a half years ago.

The Pre­serve fea­tures a small vis­i­tor kiosk designed by James T. Hubbell, the county’s best known pro­po­nent of organic archi­tec­ture. Wood post-and-beam con­struc­tion with straw-bale infill makes up the walls of the one-room space. Floors are a mix of flag­stone and tile mosaics. Very groovy.

Around the kiosk is a native plant gar­den funded by a grant by the local CNPS chap­ter. Unlike the land­scape around it, this gar­den receives some irri­ga­tion to keep it look­ing more garden-like. But today the gar­den extended seam­less into the sur­round­ing landscape.

The flo­ral high­light of the trip is the the preserve’s stand of the rare Lake­side cean­othus, Cean­othus cya­neus. It’s vivid, dark color and big flo­ral heads make it what must be one of the most spec­tac­u­lar of the cean­othus species. It’s not par­tic­u­larly gar­den tol­er­ant, but given per­fect drainage and no water once estab­lished, it might hang around for a few years and stop traf­fic pass­ing by your garden.

On this trip we saw this lilac, as well as late-blooming exam­ples of the much more com­mon but less spec­tac­u­lar Ramona lilac, Cean­othus tomen­to­sus, and some inter­grades that look like they’re the love chil­dren of these two species.

Below is a lit­tle gallery of the visit. Hover on any image for a label of the plant. Click to see the entire image.


Check out what’s hap­pen­ing in gar­dens around the world in the other Gar­den Blog­gers Bloom Day posts hosted by Carol, of May Dreams Gar­dens. As always, thanks, Carol!

May 15 2011 10:42 am | Categories: landscape • places | Tags: • • • • • • • •

13 Responses to “visiting crestridge”

  1. Gayle Madwin on 15 May 2011 at 11:01 am #

    Beau­ti­ful pic­tures! I can see why the archi­tect is well known. Also, it’s amaz­ing how dif­fer­ent the Erio­phyl­lum con­fer­ti­flo­rum looks from its close rel­a­tive in my gar­den, Erio­phyl­lum lanatum.

  2. ryan on 15 May 2011 at 1:50 pm #

    That’s a heck of lot of bloom pho­tos. I really like the build­ing. Groovy is exactly the right word for it. I hadn’t thought about, but that kind of archi­tec­ture is for peo­ple like myself who appre­ci­ates things being groovy.

  3. Nell Jean on 15 May 2011 at 4:08 pm #

    Amaz­ing how burned-over places can return so well and so quickly. Cean­othus is one of those lovely plants that I can only see in pho­tos as it does not thrive here. Thank you for the photos.

  4. Janet/Plantaliscious on 16 May 2011 at 5:29 am #

    What a beau­ti­ful place. I always enjoy a vir­tual wan­der around your gar­den, but I’m glad you took us to the nature reserve instead this month. The cean­othus is spec­tac­u­lar, and I love the way the more “gar­dened” bits fade grace­fully into the wild sur­round­ings. I’ve really enjoyed look­ing at all the pho­tos, too many to com­ment on! Thanks for the tour.

  5. maggie on 16 May 2011 at 6:11 am #

    That cean­othus is stun­ning; its color is just right for its sur­round­ings. I heart straw bale build­ings and this one is groovy but also care­fully detailed and refined. Thanks for the lovely photos.

  6. SwimRay on 16 May 2011 at 6:00 pm #

    The Amer­i­can Hor­ti­cul­tural Soci­ety head­quar­ters here have built a meadow. Every three or so years the AHS ‘burns it to the ground’ to pre­serve it as a meadow with wild­flow­ers and grasses. Oth­er­wise, the hard­wood tree saplings would mature and the meadow would revert to for­est. Burn­ing pre­serves it.

  7. ricki on 17 May 2011 at 9:50 am #

    Won­der­ful ram­ble through sur­round­ings so dif­fer­ent from ours (Pacif NW). Thanks!
    A trip through Yel­low­stone soon after a big burn demon­strated to us how ben­e­fi­cial it is for the wildflowers…never had seen any­thing quite like it.
    LOVE the organic kiosk.

  8. Jean on 17 May 2011 at 3:51 pm #

    James, What beau­ti­ful flow­ers. I don’t believe I have ever seen Cean­othus before; it’s spec­tac­u­lar. Nice to see the land­scape bounc­ing back after the fire; it’s a good reminder to us that many ecosys­tems are fire-adapted.

  9. George on 17 May 2011 at 6:32 pm #

    What a nice cat­a­log of pic­tures. One might sus­pect you have some expe­ri­ence in that occu­pa­tion (cat­a­loging, that is) :-]

  10. hb on 22 May 2011 at 1:13 pm #

    I love the tawny blonde grass of California’s dry sea­son. Very spe­cial “bloom day” post–enjoyed it a lot–thanks!

  11. Arleen Webster/Camissonia's Corner on 24 May 2011 at 8:17 pm #

    Great pho­tos, James! Our chap­ar­ral habi­tats are amaz­ingly resilient in the wake of a dev­as­tat­ing wild­fire. The Cedar Fire was a mon­stros­ity and doesn’t even seem that long ago (how time flies), but the plethora of wild­flow­ers in the after­math is truly amaz­ing! Is that Heartleaf Pen­ste­mon (Keck­iella cordi­fo­lia) I see in the mix?

  12. David C. on 01 Jun 2011 at 8:44 am #

    Just now fin­ished this post — amaz­ing what one sees in the chap­pa­ral when we get out of our cars for a cou­ple of hours! Great diver­sity in species and visual interest.

  13. [ Lost in the Landscape ] » petals and parasites on 21 Jul 2011 at 5:33 am #

    […] I vis­ited Cre­stridge Eco­log­i­cal Pre­serve last May the rock roses (Helianthe­mum sco­par­ium) were announc­ing them­selves assertively. […]

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