Good Gardening

Can you identify this caterpillar for us?

What does it mean to be a good gardener? The idea of what it means to be a person that 'cultivates the land' runs the gamut from those who engage in habitat restoration to the blue-ribbon flower grower. At the very beginning of our workday yesterday it was just Annie and I picking up trash along PRG. This pause gave me a few minutes to think about this spectrum of what it means to 'cultivate the land', and it made me really proud to be a part of Pennsylvania Street Gardens. All of our volunteers bring a different perspective and energy to the gardens, and it is a privilege to work with them to cultivate our little corner of San Francisco. Many thanks to everyone who makes these gardens possible!

After a little bit we were joined by Jackie, Nate, Eliot and Jenny, so I organized the group for different tasks as the workday continued. After Annie was done weeding at PRG, she joined Matt for the remainder of the workday on a special project of putting in some additional Agaves in at the northern end of PRG. Meanwhile, the rest of the group set about to rid the southern end of PRG of fennel, and Jackie came across a really cool caterpillar. If you know its proper name please comment or send me a note (emily@psgsf.org). Jenny patiently hand watered from the corner to the start of the redwood fence, giving the Salvias and other non-cactus/agave plants in the garden a well deserved drink; they've made it through the dry summer, and are ready and waiting for some real rain.

Nate, Eliot and Jackie making the triangle
garden look extra nice

After a brief discussion about how we feel like we've neglected the triangle garden a bit lately, we walked up the hill and weeded there, and then our roving band of weeders moved to PSG. Nate and I tackled some massive Malva neglecta and cleared leftover brush from the dog area while Jackie and Elliot weeded by the french drain. After cleaning up a nasty mess by the shed of shoes and unmentionables, I went to PRG and Jenny and I packed up the hose and thanked everyone at Fregosi for letting us use their water. Meanwhile the rest of the crew made sure everything was put away at PSG. We definitely had a full workday and then some, so we finally called it quits and went to lunch.

Summery Post-Summer Workday

Leslie and Amanda in position to reclaim
the path from the Helichrysum

The temperature gauge on my car read 72F when I left the house for the garden workday today with no wind and bright sunshine. Annie was out and about this weekend on horse business so it was my turn to setup the watering for the trees.   Leslie was the first to arrive for the workday and we started by weeding out the blackberry and some of the ivy along the pathway  - and were soon joined by Amanda and Mary! We worked our way along the path, mostly weeding, and also pruning the dry and dead Helichrysum petiolare. The path was now much easier to navigate and the Helichrysum will fluff out again after the first good rain.

Mary and Amandy tidy the border

Next, we weeded the front border and cleaned up the Gaillardia, sweeping the sidewalk and keeping everything fairly neat and tidy. Keyvan joined us and set about picking out all the tricky grass from in among the plants in the border and then made quick work of the variegated Mint that always takes over in front of the middle back bed. The ladies fanned out in the garden, giving the Glaucium flavum a much needed cutting back and taking out the dried up annual Marigolds from along the pathway.

Pull weeds like pesky sorrel
 now before the rains hit!

The temperature was climbing above 80F now and the time was nearing noon, the end of the workday. Amanda and I went down to PRG to pickup trash and put away the watering. I made a note to spend more time at the next workday at PRG to keep it looking good. After putting away the gardening supplies we enjoyed the shade by the bench at PG and called it a day. What a lovely post-summer summery workday!

Mint in the pathway begone,
 Keyvan is here!

The many gardens of our organization

Everyone's busy
 at Pennsylvania Railroad Garden

Given the recent press coverage by NBC Bay Area, I thought it would be good to post a quick overview and hopefully answer any questions our reads may have.

We are very fortunate to be able to garden in San Francisco and have created a few public gardens that we invite you to visit. All of the gardens are publicly accessible, open all hours, and are collectively managed by volunteers from the community. Our mission is to create beautiful, accessible public green spaces in our neighborhood, Potrero Hill, in San Francisco.

Volunteer Team from The Presidio Group
at Pennsylvania Garden

We'd love to see you at our next workday, which is always held the first Saturday of the month from 10am to noon, and our next workday is Saturday  here. We've also held workdays for interested community groups and businesses, so if you have a large group that would like to volunteer many hands make light work and there is always plenty to do!
October 5th. You can find more information about workdays

You can also donate directly to the garden and don't hesitate to contact us if you have some exciting plants or other things to donate.


Here is a quick overview of the gardens
Pennsylvania Garden - the first garden,

Dogs are welcome to visit all of the gardens

started by Annie in 2008, is now a lush collection of beautiful plants that thrive on this sunny hill. This garden is in partnership with SFPA, DPW and Caltrans and is located on Pennsylvania Avenue at 18th.
Pennsylvania Railroad Garden - the newest garden, which runs the entire 100 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, and features exceptionally drought-tolerant plantings and 23 street trees. This garden is in partnership with SFPA, CCG, PUC and DPW.
Mariposa Center Garden - What was once an illicit entrance to the railroad tracks is now a cute garden featuring mostly

Nate and Paloma tidy up
 the Pennsylvania Triangle Garden

native plants across from Center Hardware.
Triangle Garden - this lovely triangular shaped garden was designed and installed by the Potrero Hill Garden Club, and it is now maintained by us - it's just across the street from Pennsylvania Garden.


Hope to see you around the garden soon!

Tags begone!

Christian zaps tags

In the last week one huge black grafitti tag on the redwood fence at Pennsylvania Railroad Garden turned into a dozen - the entire length of the fence was covered. So disappointing... though not unexpected of course.

Today after I set up the hoses to water the trees and picked up all the trash on the street I was joined by the wonderful Jackie and her husband Christian and all their power tools. Together we spent a couple hours buffing the tags out. Presto - magically clean fence!

Jackie and Christian

The next step is to plant some of the millions of Agaves John and Matt got in Healdsburg this week, all along that fence. There's nothing quite like getting stabbed in the shins to make the average tagger give up, in my experience at PG. Natural urban blight repellant, thy name is Agave.

So, dear taggers - take note: we're going to be removing your tags; why not come to a workday and contribute something meaningful instead?

NBC Bay Area, volunteers and lots of agaves

Yesterday's volunteer day was hot hot hot - what a weekend of roasting weather!

Some of our core volunteers came out to play: Emily, Nate, Carlin, Keyvan, Anna, Mary, John, Eliot, Amanda and I worked up quite a sweat doing lots of tasks.

The Amaryllis belladonna and Chasmanthes were cut back by Carlin, Nate did some twig border work, Anna sprayed vinegar on weeds to kill them, Mary deadheaded Agapanthus, John turned the compost and lots of weeds were pulled garden-wide. I cut back some Watsonias and Agapanthus too.

Oh yeah - and NBC Bay area was there to film it all! I got miked up for the workday and had to try not to swear as much as I usually do (!) while being followed around by the lovely Garvin and Claire from NBC. It was sort of fun!

The spot airs a week on Tuesday and I'll post a link when it's online. They came down to my house after the workday to do an interview too - as a result of preparing for that our house is now nice and clean, so at least there's that...

In the meantime John and Matt were in Healdsburg collecting Agaves and all sorts of goodies from a garden that was being demolished - how tragic. They came back around 3pm with carloads of amazing things. Huge Agaves, stunning Puyas, gorgeous Yuccas - such cool stuff. Among them:

Dyckia - a ground cover type
Agave americana "Lemon Lime"
Agave angustifolia 
Agave pachycentra (mislabeled?)
Agave "Rosa Gorda"
Agave salmiana "Butterfingers"
Agave weberi (maybe)
Puya alpestris (maybe)
Puya - some kind of giant, silvery one
Yucca aloifolia "Marginata"
Yucca elephantipes "Variegata"

Mental! We planted a few right away and today Matt planted some more. Awesome haul guys!!!

Pity

Taking pity on the extremely dry garden today, Matt and I set up sprinklers on a few spots for a couple hours. While the parched soil soaked up the dampness, we went around trimming, pruning, weeding and deadheading.

The Philadelphus got pruned, some Cotyledon orbiculata and Achillea got deadheaded, some Chasmanthe and Crocosmia got cut back. All good in the hood. Except that the shed's lock was melted off and clearly someone had been rummaging in there... not much taken that I could see, but we need a new lock. Sigh.

Random Verbascum

Salvia "Limelight"

Aloe ferox

Aeonium blushing

Midsummer trim

Aloe tomentosa

Today's volunteer day attracted a core crew of people: Matt, Carlin, Nathan, Jackie, Anna, Mary and Keyvan.

Matt turned and watered the compost, and spread aged compost in the garden. Keyvan weeded and trimmed, which he has been doing a lot of recently, and Anna and Mary planted a whole tubtrug of the bromeliad Fascicularia pitcairnifolia on the Triangle garden, deadheading the yarrow "Coronation Gold" too.

Jackie shears

Nathan cut back the monstrous Salvia gesneriifolia "Tequila" which is done flowering and needed a haircut. That thing is about 15' wide and almost as tall. Golden Gate Park Arboretum, where I bought it,  weren't kidding when they said it was big... anyway, it seems very happy with zero water, so if you have a large area to fill with drama, I'll give you a cutting.

Santolina before/after

Jackie and I went down to PRG and Jackie ably buffed out the graffiti tag left on the fence, once again leaving it pristine. I pulled weeds and picked up all the trash, and started shearing all the Santolinas along there, since they are done flowering now and need a trim to stay compact. After a while Jackie took over and pretty soon the whole lot were done. Nice.

False alarm

Sad Ficus

This morning Matt and I were up early to connect the hose from Fregosi Paints to water the trees at PRG.

We went about our business while the trees got water on this very hot weekend, then came back to weed and deadhead the plants on the street. Noticed a Ficus benjamina (house plant) that's been planted at PRG, randomly enough - it might not survive the transition from indoor plant to outdoor plant in this heatwave, but good luck...

Happy cactus

I also noticed that some of the cacti down there are sprouting new tips - a good sign! Some of the cacti took the transition poorly, but many are doing well, just as we'd helped. This one came from a giant cactus in the Haight that John helped Matt and I dismantle and relocate way back in July 2010 - a really tough, prickly, painful job but worth it in the end.

Later on, as I was about to go switch off the water, Alert Neighbor Adolfo sent me an email about a man at the garden, apparently tidying up. naturally I was up there in a matter of minutes and say Keyvan (hope I spelled that right!) weeding. He's a keen local gardener so of course I was delighted to show him what needs to be weeded and give him a pair of pruners. And some cuttings :)

Tough Santolina

On the way back down to PRG I decided to water as many of the plants as possible, and while doing that I noticed butterflies at the garden. A cabbage white, a swallowtail and then one I've never seen; all silvery blue-gray with a bight orange spot at the base of each wing. Google says it's a Gray Hairstreak and fairly common, but very pretty nonetheless. I also noticed that the Santolinas that someone apparently stood on, or sat on, are rejuvenating from the base. Hurrah for tough old Santolinas :)

Volunteer Workday Next Saturday

A happy group of volunteers
with a fluffy dog too!

Next week is the 4th of July holiday and if you are in town you are invited to come to our monthly volunteer workday! As usual it's on the first Saturday of the month from 10-12 and we meet at Pennsylvania Garden by the bench. All of the necessary tools and training are provided, with cold drinks afterwards. Annie and I will be there and it is always a lot of fun.

We get stuff done

During the June volunteer day we had a great group of co-workers from The Presidio Group that chose to spend their volunteer time with us, and we chronicled their amazing work in the workday post. They sent over some great photos so I've included them in this post. Come to the next workday and you can  make the front page of the blog too.

Hope to see you all at the workday next Saturday and be sure to visit the gardens and enjoy this heat wave

A little bit of work goes a long way

Santolina going for broke in yellow
and the dry grass Nasella winding down 

Both gardens are looking great, with some plants like the Santolina Annie just profiled going like crazy for Summer, while other plants like the Nassella tenuissima, a grass, going into the dormant part of its cycle. It's a beautiful mix, exactly how we like it!

Annie is away on vacation so I watered the trees, and overall had a lovely time talking with neighbors and doing chores around both gardens. Right as I was getting started with the trees, two of my neighbors came by that were using the route down along PRG to get a coffee from Front and walk their dog - one of my favorite activities (!) - and we chatted while I setup everything.

Nate powering the sound system by bike

On Thursday we were invited to the SF Parks Alliance Love Your Parks Party, where Ryan and I met up with Nate. Nate agreed to take a turn on the bicycle powering the speakers, and garden on Saturday (Ryan agreed to neither). So while waiting for Nate I updated our kiosk with new flyers and doggie bags, weeded the beds by the benches, cut back Centranthus by the arch and transplanted a Knautia macedonia out from under a Ceanothus to the middle back bed by the Plectranthus. I've had the Knautia in other gardens and it goes like crazy with flowers for most of the year, but we haven't quite found a place it enjoys at PSG yet. This new spot was still very wet from the brief run of automatic sprinklers on Friday night, so I know it will get more water in the new location and by not being buried under a Ceanothus more sunlight, so maybe third times the charm?

Hard to imagine this was full of weeds!

Meanwhile Debbie and Nels were taking a walk throughout the garden checking out plants that may work well in their garden and we chatted about a few lovely candidates, including the Agave attenuata, they are posing with in their photo. I made sure to point them to the great plant profiles that Annie writes for information, and they were glad to have the garden and our website as a resource. Yay!

Savvy gardeners Nels & Debbie

Once Nate arrived at the garden we started by cleaning up the cardoon, Cynara cardunculus, removing all the dead leaves still attached to the plant and the large dead ones that had already fallen. We did crinkle the leaves to make a 'mulch' of sorts, which looks more like 'mulch' then dead branches fortunately -  so we'll see how that works out in a few weeks! After some more weeding it was time to stop the water at PRG, so we went down to weed a bit more and pickup all the trash... there is always so much trash! I hand watered a few plants that are having a hard time making it (a few Stachys and Convulvus) which out of 700 plants is only a small handful, so I'm grateful, and we packed up the hose and headed out to a late lunch.

Plant profile: Santolina (Lavender Cotton)

S. chamaecyparissus

Latin name: Santolina ("sant-oh-LEE-nah")
Common name: Lavender Cotton, Holy Herb, Ground Cypress
Originally from: the Mediterranean
Blooms: From early spring through summer, hundreds of cream to bright yellow balls appear on thin stems above the plant.
Light: Full sun
Water: Rain is plenty. No summer water needed unless very dry.
Drainage: Excellent
Height x width: 1-2' high and wide.
USDA Zones: 5-11
Where to find in P. Garden: We have a couple on the steps, and one in the brights bed. The real stars are the many groupings of these at PRG down the street.

S . rosmarinifolia

Santolina was a genus first mentioned in 1550, and became all the rage during the Elizabethan era in their formal knot gardens. They're still a great plant for edging your herb gardens.

I didn't think too hard about for a while, but I've come to appreciate them for their truly drought tolerant nature, silvery foliage, compact form and cute little sulphur-yellow flowers. Their foliage also smells great.

Holy Herb is one of the common names for this plant, derived from sanctum linum, or holy flax - an old name for the plant.  In the past it was used to cure round worm in Scotland, thanks probably to the alkaloids it contains.  Another common name is Ground Cypress, from the species S. chamaecyparissus, from the Greek chamai (ground) and kuparissos (cypress.)

S . rosmarinifolia

The first one we got was an S . rosmarinifolia -  aka S. virens (Green Santolina) which is very happy in the brights bed. We planted 8 more at PRG and I think it prefers things slightly less xeric than PRG so far. 

We got four S. chamaecyparissus var. nana (Dwarf Lavender Cotton) from Digging Dog in Mendocino, and they are planted on the steps area. The regular S. chamaecyparissus (Gray Lavender Cotton) is one we planted a ton of down at PRG and they look amazing so far.

S. chamaecyparissus "Lemon Queen" lives down on PRG in a group of 8. So far we have lost 3 and I think they need more water in that spot.


Lastly the two S. virens "Lemon Fizz" we have on the steps aren't doing quite as well - I think they need a tiny bit more water to look good.

Santolinas need little care - a quick shear when they're done flowering to tidy them up - perhaps a shear in very early spring if they are looking scraggly too. A great plant for your dry garden!

UPDATE June 2016:
What a tough, drought-proof plant! The  S. virens "Lemon Fizz" and S. chamaecyparissus "Lemon Queen" are less rugged, but so lovely - just pick a less arid spot for them.

Grassy weeds

Cotyledon orbiculata
var. oblonga

I like weeding as a rule. You pick a spot, clear out all the weeds, and generally there's a clear reward for your work. You can do it for 5 minutes - no need to commit to hours. You can sit down to do it. At the end you have a bucket of compost fixins' to add to the pile. It's all good!

One thing I dislike weeding out though is grass, when removing it from an ornamental grass, or grass-like plant. That's a pain.

Today I weeded the front of the middle back bed which has several grass-like plants infested with actual grass. URGHHH!!! Well not anymore.

I also did some weeding in the left bed and futzed with the compost a bit. Deadheaded all the Kniphofias down at PRG. It was a pottering around sort of day. Then the weather suddenly turned windy and overcast and that was my signal to leave.