Rainy volunteer day

Our volunteer day today had rain in the schedule, but really it was a light mist so no big deal. Matt and I planted three Agave parryi ssp truncata and I weeded... something we're all going to need to do a lot more of soon! 

Chris joined us and planted five Artemisia "Powis Castle", and then worked on removing an Agave salmiana that had flowered. It was a big job and he was mostly successful! completely successful in freeing it from the dirt, although the darn thing is so heavy we're going to need help moving it from that spot.

Matt and I then went down to PRG and planted five Agave parrasana and seven Muhlenbergia capillaris - a lovely grass with fluffy pink flowers in the fall. Sarah joined us and cut back some Salvia leucantha that really needed it on one of the BRC's too!

Checkup and propagation

Matt and I went to PRG on Sunday to harvest some plants. Our Cortaderia selloana "Gold Band" and "Silver Comet" plants are very hard to come by because California has banned the sale of pampas grass. Why? Well it's a  horribly invasive plant and very difficult to get rid of. However, these variegated hybrids are sterile, meaning they don't produce viable seeds - not a single one in all these years! So if we want more, we have to dig up parts of the plants and propagate them.

After we were done wrestling with the sharp-leaved plants, I chatted with Joe who is always out weeding and picking trash. PRG would not look like it does today without his help! What a guy,

I spent some time cleaning up trash at PG after that, and weeding a little, and then it was time for lunch. On the way home I called in the dumpster that has been sitting on the street at PRG for many months to try and get Recology to take it away. I also called in the pile of trash I found at PG and brought to the curb. Lots to do. We also have loads of plants to go in the ground at our next volunteer day: come help!

Plant shopping expedition

Matt and I took a trip to wholesale plant joy purveyors Pacific Nurseries in Colma at lunchtime today, to shop for plants for PRG.

Over time, plants can succumb to the hard life on the streets. In this case, we were looking for plants to replace the dozens killed when a homeless encampment set fire to an area down at PRG. We got a nice load to start us off:

6 Santolina chamaecyparissus (Lavender Cotton) - awesome plant. if you remember to prune it back hard in winter. Ahem...

5 Phlomis lanata (Woolly Jerusalem Sage - pictured) - a new species of this genus that does so well for us

10 Euphorbia characias ssp. wulfenii

3 Agave parryi - a new kind for us - we have the A. parryi truncata everywhere, but these have longer leaves

5 Agave palmeri subsp. chrysantha - another new species, and one that pups a lot. Meaning: lots of freebies fir us!

We'll plant these next weekend. Can't wait.

Happy holidays!

Matt and I ran to the garden today to plant some plants! We put in three Santolina chamaecyparissus (Lavender Cotton) and ten Lychnis coronaria (Rose Campion) at PG. I grew the latter from seed this year, and I'm really hoping they take off as they are such pretty plants. We also cut back the dying (dead?) Cherry Plum tree and I used the branches to make some border edging.

After that we headed down to PRG and planted three Yucca filifera plants. Lots more to new plants come this winter, but it was great to get these in ahead of the rain. I also cleaned up some trash and put in a 311 request to pick up the pile.

Happy holidays friends! I hope it's relaxing, warm and rejuvenating.

Another great GROWTH Project day

I met the team from UCSF's GROWTH Project today to work at the gardens, and while we were supposed to spread mulch at the Triangle garden, we ended up planting at PRG instead because the mulch delivery truck died.

We weeded and picked trash up, and then spent some time clearing dead or damaged plants from a stretch of PRG first. Looks like someone set a big fire down there and a lot of plants were damaged... always sad to see. Now I have an area about 30' x 5' to replant.

After that we planted a Eucalyptus gunnii "Silver Drop" which was donated by Mat McGrath of Farallon Gardens recently. Exciting new plant for us! And we put in three new Yucca filifera as well - the ultimate ankle biter (aka plant that's very good at protecting areas of the garden). The ground was nice and moist so I feel like all these plants will do really well.

Volunteer days - October and November

Just like that October is over! And we have a volunteer day at the garden this weekend, but I still haven't blogged the last volunteer day.

Well, what happened? We went down to PRG and weeded a lot - we also cleaned up the pathways (Bill helped me and we sheared back anything hanging over the path. Also looks like Bill really got into it. I'm a bit scared... :P ) and picked up trash. There's always a lot of trash down there. 

Then Chris took some pups off the huge Agave "Green Giant" at the bottom end, and we replanted them in various places. You can see from the photo that this is work that brings Chris joy and contentment. Also who the heck is cutting the leaves off bigger Agaves? Kindly knock it off - you're ruining them!

We probably did a whole load of other things but I can't remember them now.

The following week we had a new volunteer group come by. The GROWTH Project is a UCSF program and we had about a dozen participants and two group leaders come by PG to help. We weeded (always!), turned compost, cut back Salvias and deadheaded Echiums. The team were great - and we got lots done. They're coming back monthly to help us out, and I'm excited for that!

But, enough - come down this Saturday from 10-12 and help us prepare for winter. It's gonna be a great day to get some fresh air!

Fencing complete

A while back someone down at PRG had a bonfire that involved the wood fence on top of the retaining wall. 20 fence boards and their supporting structures were burned, and a number of plants were damaged as well.

Last weekend, Matt and I replaced the boards. Not perfect, but solid and will last... until next time they get burned down? At least that long.

While we were working a security guard down on the railway tracks stopped and told us we shouldn't be removing the fence. We explained who we were and he watched us for a while... then got bored and left. Glad someone said something, at least.

I picked up all the trash I could find at PG while we were there, and noticed that someone has been weeding along the edges of the path on the street side - thanks!

Then we went up to PG and watered the plants that were recently put in. The whole garden looks very dry early int he season this year - it's going ot be a long tough summer for some plants.

Oh! What a little rain can do!

It's been a minute... um, actually several month since I posted an update. Why? Boring old work and more work and a bit more work. But we have been at the garden. There have been workdays. In fact we have another coming up this weekend - please join us! (Saturday 10am!)

What have we been up to? Weeding like maniacs! You can see from the pictures here that our amazing volnteers have been working hard to get ahead of what's going ot be a big year for weeds after our early storm.

We have also been planting lots of things! In the last months a slew of plants have gone in, among them the following:

3 Euphorbia mauritanica 

3 Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)

6 Santolina chamaecyparissus

3 Agave cupreata (at PRG) 

3 Artemisia "Powis Castle" 

1 Ficus benjamina tree that outgrew it's pot at home and will make a great street tree, if it survives...

Several various Agaves in various places, and probably some Yuccas too!

We've also been removing yucca flowers. Why? Well someone has made it a habit to go to the garden and cut the flowers off the yucca plants, presumably to eat. Yes, you can eat the flowers - deep fried or in an omelette or in lots of other ways.

Unfortunately, whoever has been taking the flowers has not been thoughtful - they go through and break down branches or whole trees just to get one flower, which you can see in the image left. 

Yes, eventually we can replant the branch and the tree will resprout from the base, but at least for the next couple of years that plant will look bad.  Not cool, and very selfish, when we are working so hard to make this area of the city look better. So we are removing the flowers before someone steals them and trashes the garden more.

In other news, the tool chest got broken into and a big mess was made - Matt took it apart and reinforced it thoroughly this time, so hopefully these ridiculous acts stop happening. We don't leave anything valuable in there but there's a limit to the capacity of our truck so bringing EVERYTHING back and forth from our house every work day isn't doable.

Someone also decided to dump the contents of their weed growing operation at the garden, making a mess we had to clean up. Not the first time this has happened - we always have piles of trash to remove each workday, when we'd rather be gardening. Well, if you ever wonder why there are weeds now you know - we have to clean trash or pull weeds: there's not always time for both!

Multi-agency work at PRG coming up

Today at 7.30am Matt and I had a meeting with 7 representatives from Caltrain, PG&E, BBII, and JPB (two construction companies) that are working on installing the low-voltage direct current (DC) third rail system at The PS-1 site (right next to PRG.)

They had informed me that they would need to dig up parts of the garden to add trenching for power, and naturally after many years of inter-agency fusterclucks at the garden resulting in huge damage and even obliteration of certain sections with zero warning, it made me nervous.

However, the scope of this part of the project is smaller - and involves moving a few plants and taking down one large Malva shrub in a two week time frame.

Crisis averted so far...

Above is a picture of Agaves damaged by a homeless person's fire last week at PRG. Sigh.

The weeds tho...

Matt and I headed to the garden to do some planting last weekend. For me it was more of a "point where I want it" as my knee is still iffy, but Matt was up for that.

We put in 6 Leucophyta brownii (syn. Calocephalus brownii)  "Silver Stone" which I grew on from plugs and 4" plants to this 1 gallon size over the last 6 months. I have 6 more at home that need to grow a bit more, too. This is a nice, super drought tolerant plant from Australia that we have had in the past - not very long lived but good for a few years.

We also put in two 15 gallon Yucca guatemalensis down at PRG which we grew from cuttings (on the right), and an Austrocylindropuntia subulata - the lovely Eve's Needle cactus that grows so well for us (on the left). More spines, less trouble, in my experience - at least, less trouble with theft, damage and destruction. More trouble with weeding, I must confess...

We watered the new Cussonias and pondered more planting. Loads more plants are waiting to go in at home, but lots of them need to get bigger before they can withstand life at the garden where people stand on them, let their dogs pee on them, and generally abuse them!

African tree bonanza

Happy new year! We decided to kick off 2021 by planting some new trees from Africa from one our favorite genera, Cussonia. It was a bit of a soggy volunteer day but John, Chris and Bill helped Matt and I get the plants in and it was satisfying.

I had ordered 6 Cussonia paniculata from one of our favorite suppliers (Flora Grubb) a few months ago, expecting to receive six lovely blue-gray leaved plants described as "a large evergreen shrub or small tree" topping out around 10-15' in height and native to South Africa. We have one at home and it's lovely - one trunk, small poofball on top. Yep - we have lots of room for things like that.

However, what was delivered looked suspiciously different. Greener leaves, multi stemmed in some cases... and a trip to the Flora Grubb retail location caused more suspicion: they had the same 5 gallon plants but labelled Cussonia transvaalensis.

Nothing wrong with that. another blue-green leaves plant that tops out around 16'. A quick email to Flora Grubb's people and they confirmed the mixup - these are C. transvaalensis. Except... are they? The leaves are very green... and the multi-stemmed look is worryingly like Cussonia spicata, a bit sprawly monster going close to 50' tall!

Well, too late. They had to go in the ground so we will soon see what we get. Three went in at PRG (at the north corner, and two along the fenceline), three went in at PG  (in the middle back bed, on the terraces, and up at the very top of the garden by a loquat) And we also planted two Yucca filifera and two Yucca guatemalensis at PRG.

Matt fixed the tool chest with a new hasp from Chris (thank you!), and the new plants got some water (the ground is bone dry past the first 2" still...) and off we went home. Good job, chaps!

Big agave transplant

Today Matt and I dug up and moved a nice big Agave weberi “Arizona Star” to PRG from our house. This replaces one of the ones that flowered there this year and subsequently died, as they do. Big job but great result I think. 

We will need to find another large agave to go in the other bio retention cell at PRG where an "Arizona Star" flowered... but I think we will recover from today's effort first ;)

We also moved a large Agave “Sharkskin” from home and three others from the bottom of PRG into a group halfway up the street. Not bad! Previously there were three Agave impressa there, but they failed to impress. One died right away and the other two were looking extra ropey. We brought the survivors home to see if they can be rehabilitated.

Lastly at PG we rescued a pot of Gaillardias someone left there, and some Agave vilmoriniana bulbils I had hoped would grow bigger on the stalk, but someone cut it down instead. Ack! At least I found the stalk and saved the small babies. 

Agave rearranging, mega weeding achieved

Matt and I popped out to Potrero Hill on Saturday morning to meet Kris of Rhode Island Street who wanted to donate some tools to the gardens. We were delighted to get lots of good tools and some tree watering bags which will be super useful. Thanks Kris!

We headed to the garden and watered a few plants probably for the last time this year. Then we rearranged some of the Agaves behind the wrong way sign. That area has been a “pup farm” where we let small Agaves grow on. Now it’s time to make sense of it all. 

We made a group of five “Green Giants", moved an Agave tequilana “Sunrise” and laid out six or seven Agave lophantha as well. We pulled out a few somewhat shriveled looking pups to grow on at home, and weeded a bit. 

And yesterday Tomas and co were back to do some weeding at PRG. They removed some big Agaves that had flowered and cleaned up the path - a whole day of work for two people that has made a huge difference.

Fennel plants were cut back, grasses tidied,  litter removed, tree branches and leaves cleaned up, and the whole place just looks 1000% better.

Thanks to Josh and Tomas for making it happen.

Plant Profile: Acacia baileyana

Latin name: Acacia baileyana "Purpurea" ("ah-KAY-shah bay-lee-AH-nah pur-pur-EE-ah")
Common name: Purple Fernleaf Acacia, Cootamundra Wattle
Originally from: southern New South Wales, Australia
Blooms: Covered in fragrant bright yellow pom-pom shaped flowers in late winter to early spring.
Light: Full sun.
Water: Winter rain is enough.
Height x width: 20' x 40'
Zones: 8 - 10
Where to find in P. Garden: Several are planted at PRG

This is a great street tree: fast-growing and evergreen with weeping branches. silvery blue-gray, feathery leaves that look somewhat purple when they're young, and give the whole tree a purplish look. That is, when it's not dripping with bright yellow flowers! It's low litter (doesn't drop stuff all over the ground) and won't get tall enough to damage overhead wires either.

Plant this tree in full sun to light filtered shade; once established it is frost tolerant and very drought tolerant too.


Like a lot of Acacias, it is relatively short lived for a tree but for 30 years or so makes a dramatic statement in the garden as a trained-up street or patio tree or left with lower branches as a large shrub or low branched tree.

This tree won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit in 1993. It has a very small range in the wild, only seen in areas around Cootamundra in southern New South Wales, Australia where it is commonly called the Cootamundra Wattle.

The species is named after Frederick Manson Bailey (1827-1915), Australian botanist and son of colonial botanist John Bailey (1800-1864). The species was first introduced into California by Dr. Franceschi (Fenzi) in 1903. Naturally occurring purple leaved plants in the wild have been noted to have varying degree of purple in the new growth and the cultivar name "Purpurea" was registered by the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority in 1994.

MOAR WEEDING

Today, Tomas and his helper attacked the weeds at PRG again in a concerted effort to clear the pathway of fennel. Josh organized it all, and the results are amazing.

Last weekend, we had 10 volunteers working for 2 hours - that's 20 person-hours of work. But, you have to understand that for us, volunteer weeding is meant to be fun, so it's not like we crack the whip and work like machines. Well, some of us do ;)

However, Tomas and co are paid, and they started at 8am and worked til 3pm - 2 x 7 hours is 14 person-hours. But they DO work like machines. And they have some serious drive! So they plowed through the weeds and swept and leaf-blowed and raked and made everything gorgeous for us. Wow.

While I was at home sipping tea and eating Welsh cakes, the team weeded the BRCs, and destroyed fennel and other Really Bad Weeds like it was their job. Ahem.  See for yourself!

 

  

 

Impromptu workday at PRG

Marcella and Mikey

I texted a few of our garden regulars to hold an impromptu workday today, as PRG has become such a weedy mess it's actually alarming.

Much to my delight, a crew of masked workers (a total of 10 people) showed up and after we identified who they were from a distance (kidding!) we got down to business and weeded out an absolute mountain of weeds.

Andrea

Josh, John, Chris, Aditi, Mikey and Marcella worked away for more than 2 hours, starting where Josh, Tomas and crew left off last week. Each person chose a nice distanced spot, and masks and gloves stayed on.

At one point a neighbor pulling up in their car asked if we wanted help. OH YES! Andrea and her partner Patrick got stuck in right away, and made a big dent in the weeds.

John, slacking as usual!

I took some before pictures, but forgot to get afters. However, lots of pics of our intrepid volunteers enjoying the warm and sunny spring weather.

I also picked up lots of trash, as did others - always a problem at PRG, but now including discarded masks and gloves. Good people of San Francisco, WTAF is wrong with you? I am not shocked though - I have cleaned up more used needles, dirty diapers, used condoms and canine and human feces than any unpaid volunteer should have to over the last 11 years...

JOSH!

One thing that really cheered me up was Andrew and Rufus dropping by with baked goods. Baked goods always cheer me up - and in this case they were delicious Welsh cakes with cardamom and cranberries.

Each Welsh cake is made by showing a lump of lard a photo of some flour and sugar, and as a result contains about 15,000 calories of pure culturally appropriate bliss for me, so I ate two.

Chris

Later on, when Andrew offered me the remainder to take home instead of demurely/wistfully declining, I snatched them out of his hands like a rabid monkey and hid them in my car. I think he was a bit shocked.

Next week, Tomas and co will be back to do more paid weeding at PRG - focusing on digging out fennel along the path, and Josh will be there to work with them. 

Small Aditi, huge weeds

Hopefully that gets rid of the majority of the weeds - it's unfortunate to have to pay someone to do this as a volunteer run garden, but at the same time it's good to be able to pay someone who needs the work.

PRG receives emergency haircut

Josh (L) and me (R)

I hadn't been down to PRG due to oh, global pandemic and things like that, but we went on Saturday because Josh alerted me to the fact that weeds were taking over. It was bad. It was like we'd never weeded there in our lives. Actually it was more like The Day of the Triffids.

Not the "greatest science fiction novel of all time" version from 1952, not the cheesearriffic 1962 movie, but the UK TV version from 1981 in which poorly dressed and somewhat hirsute persons are blinded by a meteor shower and awaken the next day to discover giant mutant plants are walking around killing and eating people.

Wasn't there a path once?

Yes. Just like that. We weeded for two hours on Saturday and barely made a dent. Ugh... something had to be done.

Happily, we were able to hire magical Tomas and his friend, thanks to Josh, and today Josh spent the entire day with them weeding the Triffids out of the garden.

They must have removed a metric ton of weeds. I can't begin to tell you how much joy this brings me, but I want to all to get down on your knees next time you see Josh. It is sure to go to his head, but there you are. Look at the pictures. I don't know what to say.

 

  

 

 

VIPKid makes a difference

Go team VIP Kid!

On Friday we had a really wonderful VTO day with the outstanding team from VIPKid. Based in SOMA, they zipped over to help us prepare PG for winter.

I was joined by PG regulars John, Carrie, Matt and Josh as my volunteer coordinators, and we got a LOT done with so much help: go team!

Tasks we dove into included cutting back Salvia leucantha, Salvia canariensis, Leonotus leonurus, Chasmanthe and all sorts of plants that will spring back as soon as we get rain.

Timber!

One volunteer even cut down a dead Pittosporum tree, which was fun to watch. We will need to remove the branches over time, but at least that dead tree is more or less gone. And no we can replace the tree with something much, much cooler… maybe a Cussonia?

Thanks to all the work done at PG this year, very few weeds are in evidence there, but we still managed to fill a dozen big paper bags with green waste, and a few big plastic bags of trash too. John led a team at PRG to pick trash as well, an area that seems to collect a lot of waste.

Loads of green waste for 311

At the end of the day I’m always shocked at the impact a group of volunteers can make on the gardens: we cannot maintain the gardens without the help of these groups, so if your company want to join us, or even better you want to come to a Saturday workday, remember we’re out there rain or shine on the first Saturday of every month from 10am-12pm.

Thank you VIPKid: you rocked it!