Weeds for Every Season

Be careful on the stairs for now

I love Summer; I enjoy all the seasons in their own way, but there is a magical combination of puffy clouds, extra hours of sunlight with warm days and slightly cooler breezy nights that summer... OK I am recalling the summers of San Jose where I grew up but you get the idea. Today it felt like Summer to me, as I was able to get home early and get myself and my dog Bentley to the garden before dark.

Unfortunately for Pennsylvania Garden weedy things like blackberries, ivy, and fennel also love summer and have started to gain a foothold in certain areas of the garden. I spent a bit of time

Linaria, Yarrow, Digitalis and Lychnis
creating some nice May color

getting rid of some bindweed among the various succulents in the middle bed (it loves to hide in there!) and some neighbors stopped by with their very sweet dog Grady. Meanwhile my woofy ill-behaved dog Bentley was barking at me from the bench area, so I changed tasks and took him on walk through the garden to survey how things are going.

Please note that at the bottom of the steps two steps need to be fixed - and we're on it! I talked with Gary who helped install the steps, and he may be able to coordinate with Ryan soon to get them fixed. I also bet Annie and Matt will be there to help as well, so rest assured, it will get done, by someone, soon. So just be careful when using the steps for now.

Better to dig out weeds now

Another thing I noticed that I could deal with today was some canes of blackberry branching out from above the cacti at the bottom of the stairs. Partners in weedy crime were nearby fennel and ivy, so I grabbed a shovel and dug out the blackberry and fennel roots, and pulled quite a bit of ivy. This  area is still a work in progress, as by this time my dog was getting woofy again so it was time to take him home.

Plant profile: Alstroemeria (Peruvian Lily)

Dusty Rose - meh

Latin name: Alstroemeria ("al-stro-eh-MEER-ia")
Common name: Peruvian lily, Lily of the Incas, Ulster Mary
Originally from: south America - mostly central Chile, and eastern Brazil.
Blooms: From early spring through summer.
Light: Full sun to light shade
Water: Rain is plenty. No summer water needed.
Drainage: Excellent
Height x width: A clump will grow to 3'-4' tall and wide, spreading by rhizomes. Plant them about 1' apart.
USDA Zones: 6-10
Where to find in P. Garden: We had a few come in by accident and they seem to have spread - mostly in the front border, brights bed and left bed.

This is another one of those plants I didn't appreciate at first, but which has come to be quite useful! Initially, the ones that showed up by mistake at the garden where just the type of dusty pink color I dislike - that, coupled with their flower's golden throat (bad combo!) and floppy habit made me recoil. I asked Matt to remove them from the front bed but they just laughed at him and multiplied rapidly.

Third Harmonic - fab!

Noting their toughness, I picked up some of the cultivar "Third Harmonic" which is orange and gold (better combo), and they are coming along nicely.

Now, tough can = invasive, and since they spread on rhizomes you may want to watch where you plant them.

They have weird looking roots - sausage-like water storing structures suspended from the rhizome by large roots. The above-ground shoots that pop up may be very short in some alpine Andean species (a few inches tall) or up to about 5 feet tall in other species. Each year (more often in some hybrids) up to 80 new shoots are produced from the rootstock and each ends in a group of 3-10 flowers. So - lots of flowers for your buck!

A funny thing about Alstroemeria is that the leaves are resupinate - they twist from the base so that what appears to be the upper leaf surface is in fact the lower leaf surface. This very unusual botanical feature is easily observed in the leaves on cut flowers from the florist.

Alstroemeria is named after the Swedish botanist Klas von Alstroemer (1736-1796), who was a pupil of the great botanical classifier Linnaeus. Since then, many hybrids and about 190 cultivars have been developed, with different markings and colors, ranging from white, golden yellow, and orange, to apricot, pink, red, purple, and lavender. None of them have much of a scent, but they're very popular in the cut flower industry thanks to the fact they look good in a vase for about 2 weeks.

The most popular and showy hybrids grown today result from crosses between species from Chile (winter-growing) with species from Brazil (summer-growing).  This has resulted in plants that are just about evergreen and flower for most of the year, thanks to  trials that began in the US in the 1980s.

Grow this plant in among other plants that will hold it up - we have ours in with Agapanthus, and they stop the Alstroemerias flopping. Deadheading? Don't bother - just pull the entire stem out with your hand when the flowers fade. More stems will be on their way!

Frilly

This iris is pretty frilly.

Today Matt and I went out to water the trees at PRG, then did some odd jobs at PG. I put 3 tubtrugs of weeds in the compost bin while Matt repaired one of the bin lids. Only 2 more to go! Then we repaired to holes in the PRG drip lines and voila: 2 hours well spent.

Green Benefits District Meeting & Survey

If you haven't heard about it yet, there is a strong movement in the neighborhood led by many great many wonderful thinkers/organizer/gardeners, to create a Green Benefits District for Dogpatch and Potrero Hill. PSG and PRG would be part of this district, so I'm reposting the invitation from Janet that was recently put up on the DNA website to make sure those that are most interested don't miss it.

They are also collecting feedback in the form of a survey, so please take 5 minutes and fill out their survey if you are at all interested in the green development plan for our neighborhoods!

Join the Dogpatch-Potrero Green Benefit District info session at Homes on Esprit, 850 Minnesota St. Tues. May 21, 6-7:30 pm. Ask questions or fill out the survey there, or fill out online.

Time: May 16, 2013 at 11am to May 22, 2013 at 11pm Location: online and/or come by info session at Homes at Esprit, 850 Minnesota St.6-7:30pm. Ask questions/fill out the survey Organized By: Janet Carpinelli/Callista Shepard Smith Event Description: We need your opinion! Please take 10-15 minutes to fill out this online survey and help us know what you, the neighbors, would like to see in more and better green spaces in our neighborhood! http://www.phdgbdsurvey.org/wix/p8379560.aspx This is the first and very important step! Following survey results, if positive, we will send out a petition to property owners and have them vote on a self assessment for theGreen Benefit District (GBD).Green%20Benefit%20District%20for%20Dogpatch-Potrero.pdf See more about the GBD and process here: http://www.phd-gbd.org and you can drop by an info. session at Homes at Esprit community room on May 21, Tuesday, 6-7:30 pm, 850 Minnesota St. Call 415-205-5584 at door.

Self-mulch in place

Aloe maculata and
Festuca glauca

Today I went up to PG intending to weed the back half of the middle front bed, and ended up doing so much more in the course of 4 hours.

First I wanted to empty our compost pail so opened the two left bins, overstuffed with weeds last week. They'd both melted down a bit, so I decided to turn some of bin 2 over into bin 1, and water it. As I was pitchforking the contents over I noticed puffs of white - steam! I felt around and the pile was indeed very hot and composting away with abandon. Bacteria and worms FTW.

We've had slow results on the compost because we usually only turn it once a month, and in the past haven't had the correct ratio of green to brown contents. Recently I bought a bale of rice straw to add, and last volunteer day we turned the bins, added straw and watered them. Result!

Cordyline mulch

Then I got to work in the middle back bed - our dampest spot, and place where weeds have great fun. Noticed the Salvia "Limelight" I'd transplanted there recently was looking better than expected, the Leonotis worse than ever (it hates damp and wants to move) and the tallest Cordyline about to drop it's skirt-full of lower leaves.

As I weeded away an idea struck me. I'd recently been too lazy to move cut off cardoon leaves to the compost bins and instead arranged them at the base of the plant as mulch. No weeds there! Since Cordyline leaves are too fibrous to compost well, it hit me they might make great mulch too. So I yanked off all the lower leaves from the Cordyline and put them over the freshly weeded dirt. It doesn't look as nice as wood chips, but it should work, and will be covered by the plants there soon.

Cardoon mulch

Matt showed up and got to work cutting back the Salvia leucantha in the left bed, and weeded away too. I pulled weeds from the front of the middle back bed, and opened up the path on both sides.

After 4 tubtrugs hit the second compost bin, we decided to excavate the remains of the third bin. Great compost in there! We took two tubtrugs out and spread them on the garden - black and crumbly and lovely - and put the rest on the top of the now-full bin 2. We threw some water on top of bins 1 and 2, locked up and called it a day.

Walking down to PRG we picked trash as we went. Everything's looking lovely.

Live Oak Changemaker Lesson with Fieldtrip

Lecture in progress

School was different when I was in the 2nd grade. We didn't have an Alemany Farm to visit for one thing, and we certainly didn't have our own School Learning Garden and afterschool program that involved cooking and sharing food we grew at school. Clearly the teachers, parents, and as I learned, the students at Live Oak, are motivated and capable! The end result is what seems to be a great learning environment full of happy people. I had a great time meeting Carla, Nick and Booka (thanks for sending the photos!) and all of their 2nd graders for a classroom 'Change Maker' lecture followed by a field trip to PSG and PRG.

Free exploration time

First up was the lecture. All those years getting a PhD have finally paid off,  I now feel slightly capable of putting together a power point presentation for 2nd graders! Ok I'm kidding around, but really, I think that it is a big honor for Annie and I to be asked to give a teaching lecture for kids, and I was really glad that I could take time off work to go. Following the 'Change Maker' lesson guidelines from the teachers, I basically framed our organization along these lines:

Hmm, that's not an example of Dadaism

What do you want to do?
Why do you want to do this, and how does it affect others?
How do you make it so you get to do what you want?

The kids seemed pretty engaged during the lecture and I was surprised at how excited they all were when they saw the photo of my dog Bentley on one of the slides (note to self: include photo of Bentley in next presentation at work...)

After the lecture we went to the gardens, and started off with some free exploration of the garden, followed by a Q&A, and then a walk through of both gardens. Unfortunately someone had dumped a TV set at PRG, but it did make for a good teaching moment as we talked about what it means and takes to create a safe and beautiful place. It was a great afternoon, and it was a privilege to be able to share the garden.

Summery May workday

Today's volunteer day had a great turnout from One Brick, a volunteer group that gets people in the area out to enjoy social volunteering efforts.

Thank you for coming out guys - what a difference you made!

The One Brick folks - about 15 of them including Grace, Ying, Carnley, Scott, Rebecca, Aakash, Dean, Lindsey, Amanda, Elena, Julia and Thomas - and some local regulars (Carlin, Nate, Karl and Matt)  worked on a few projects in the toasty sunshine and got a lot done.

First up the dog area got a thorough weeding (begone convulvulus!) and a big strip of carpet installed under a solid 6" of mulch to prevent weeds coming up again. Nate remade the twig border along the bed at the top there too, which had recently been torn apart by persons unknown.

Carlin performed delicate weed extraction duty in the middle back bed, which I took a team to the outside borders and we weeded them completely, and added compost.

Karl took a team to the triangle garden and pulled dying California poppies out from around the yarrows (Achillea) planted there to give them more space.

Many, many tubtrugs of weeds were carted to the compost bins, where Matt and his crew were hard at work. First the emptied one bin completely so that neighbor Jim can line it with hardware cloth to prevent rats.

In doing that, they disturbed a family of rats. I'm pretty soft-hearted so that gave me some pangs of remorse but we left the babies in a nest of straw covered over and hope the parents will remove them. Yes, they're just rats but the other option was what? Leave them to die in the open? No.

Next Matt and team wheelbarrowed lots of compost from our black plastic bags (left to heat in the sun and kill weed seeds, we hope, for the last month) to various spots in the garden and spread it.

Then they refilled the bags with half-done compost for more cooking, and filled the remaining two bins with weeds and straw and watered them well.

All in all another lovely sunny volunteer day with lots of fun stuff going on!

Weeding - it's what we do

Lush bed

If you don't like weeding, you shouldn't get involved in gardening: it's 80% of the job! Luckily there's something wonderfully rewarding about all the parts of weeding: sitting in the sun, removing offending plants, beautifying the plants you like, and turning the fruits of your labor into compost. All stages are total win!

This evening I went out for an hour of weeding, and pulled three tubtrugs full out of various beds while noticing all the changes in the garden recently. The Kniphofias, Watsonias and Irises are flowering.

Watsonias

The vine on the entryway arch, Dipogon lignosus, is flowering too, and smells great. And the Echium simplex right behind it is flowering for the first time since we planted it in May 2009 - a tall tower of white flowers. At last.

I started getting bitten by mosquitoes so I left but it was a really nice quiet time in the garden.

PRG receives an award

As many of you know we received an award from the Friends of the Urban Forest last week. The Most Greenified Block award for 2013!

We had a little event at PRG which FuF organized, and they brought coffee, pastries and lots of supporters. Plenty of PSG volunteers came too - as it was really an award for them, I was delighted people came to get recognition for their hard work.

PRG was looking lovely thanks to the cleanup efforts of the day before, the sun was shining brightly, and the mood was just as bright. Jay Murphy of FuF gave a speech, I gave a speech,  Mohammed Nuru of DPW gave a speech.

And as a special surprise for us Mohammed had a cleanup crew out there spiffing up the West side of the street as the celebration happened. They stripped all the trash and weeds and graffiti out of there in record time!

Lots more pictures can be see on FuF's photo stream, by clicking here.

I must say, the street has never looked better :)

Like locusts, but in a good way

The weeds don't stand
a chance against this crew!

On Saturday we had an extra mid-month workday to prep both of the gardens for the FUF awards ceremony. Annie and Matt were already hard at work at Pennsylvania Railroad Garden with the watering setup and all the tools ready to go when Josh and I arrived. One of the 'Lucky 7' AP Biology teenagers needed additional volunteer hours, so despite having worked in the pouring rain to put in the street trees back in December, he decided it was still worthwhile and came back to volunteer again. what a trooper! Our immediate task at hand was to clear all of the weeds and trash, and we worked our way northward across the street park.

Like locusts, but in a good way, it took us a little over an hour to make a good clean pass of the street park. During that time - and I hope I have everyone's name right here - we were joined by Debbie, Bob, Janet, Jessica, Maulik, Jackie, Ashley and Jennifer. Janet even brought a nifty tool for removing difficult weeds, sort of a trowel axe combo, that I wish I

A cleaned path is a beautiful thing

had a photo of! It is a great tool, I hope Center Hardware sells them. Buckets of weeds and trash were hauled away and the crew moved to Pennsylvania Garden.

Up in the dog area there were some odd make-shift structures someone (not us!) had made, which Matt and I removed along with a load of trash. In general much weeding, pruning, brooming and cleaning up was done by all. I've never seen the front walkway and entrances to the garden cleaned so quickly and with such energy, and it was done solely by Bob in just a short while.

Mysteries Revealed and You're Invited

Who knew they also give out awards?

So that special event Annie wrote about a few postings ago... we can now confirm, drumroll please... Pennsylvania Street Gardens is getting an award!

Our organization, Pennsylvania Street Gardens, is being honored with an award from the Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF) this Sunday at 11am at Pennsylvania Railroad Garden. So many people have come together as a community create PSG and you are all invited to attend the awards ceremony put on by FUF and enjoy a lovely morning in the garden. Annie and I will also be giving 'formal' tours of both gardens, a fairly rare but not unheard of occurrence!

You can read the full press release from FUF here; http://www.fuf.net/news/press-releases/2013-press-releases/citys-most-greenified-block-pennsylvania-street-gardens/

To make the gardens extra-special for the event, we're having a volunteer workday on Saturday from 10-12 that you are invited to attend as well. Work one day party the next? Hope to see you all this weekend!

Plant profile: Geranium maderense

With an Echium behind
it, appropriately

Latin name: Geranium maderense ("jer-AY-nee-um mad-er-EN-see")
Common name: Madeira cranesbill
Originally from: the island of Madeira, where it is uncommon.
Blooms: Early spring is the time to see this plant go berserk, covered in pink flowers.
Light: Full sun to light shade
Water: Rain is plenty. No summer water needed.
Drainage: Excellent
Height x width: 3'-4' tall and wide
USDA Zones: 9-11
Where to find in P. Garden: One in the dog area - soon to be more I am sure as they self seed freely.

Pink! Pink! Pink!

This is not your grandma's geranium. In fact your grandma might find this one a little shocking due to its size and unseemly display of flowers! This plant hails from the island of Madeira which is located off the coast between Portugal and northern Africa - it's a remote and autonomous region of Portugal that's got quite a few interesting native plants - lots of Echiums, Dracaena draco and so on.

Technically a biennial, you can treat it as a perennial by cutting the plant back after it declines in late summer. And technically an understory plant, it might prefer light shade and less windy conditions than the spot it's living in at PG. We shall see!

With lovely fern-like foliage even when not in flower, and deep red stalks, this plant is nice looking even when not in bloom. The lower leaves on each stem gradually turn downwards and help to prop up the plant to protect it in high winds. And since it seeds freely you should be able to share it with friends.