Don't steal our flowers!

The flowers at P. Garden are for the neighborhood. For everyone. Nobody should be taking flowers from the garden, except volunteers who are deadheading, or doing other tasks that involve removing plants with flowers that are done flowering.

If you see someone at the garden picking flowers, please remind them that the flowers are for everyone, and they are stealing from us all if they take them home for their own personal enjoyment. Some plants won't flower again if their flowers are removed. Some could even die.

It's also worth noting that  there's a law in San Francisco against damaging or stealing plants or trees in public gardens.

SEC. 4.06. - REMOVAL OF TREES, WOOD, ETC.

No person shall remove or take away any tree, wood, bush, turf, shrub, flower, plant, grass, soil, rock, or anything of like kind from any park without permission of the Recreation and Park Department.

SEC. 4.07. - PENALTIES FOR VIOLATION OF SECTION 4.06.

(a)

Any person convicted of a violation of Section 4.06 of this Code shall be punished by a mandatory fine of not less than $50 nor more than $500 upon a first conviction, by a mandatory fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500 upon a second conviction and by a mandatory fine of not less than $150 nor more than $500 upon a third or subsequent conviction.

(b)

The court shall, in addition, impose a civil penalty of an amount necessary to reimburse the Recreation and Park Department for the value of the tree, wood, bush, turf, shrub, flower, plant, grass, soil. compost, rock, water or other material removed as well as any labor expended to replant or otherwise restore the area affected. Any revenue collected as a civil penalty pursuant to this Section shall be credited to the Recreation and Park Department.

So please: don't hesitate to protect the garden and prevent flower theft. I'm not going to hesitate to call the police and have someone cited for stealing from our garden.

Save the date!

Another missive from Julia at SFPT - if you've ever wanted to become a San Francisco Street Park Steward, this is your big chance! Massive fame, constant adulation and wads of cold, hard cash-money await you!*

Please mark your calendars and save the date for the next Street Parks workshop, scheduled for Saturday, July 24th from 9:30 am – 1:30 pm. The workshop will provide you with helpful tools for creating and maintaining environmentally responsible street parks, as well as giving you the opportunity to network with other creative and talented Street Parks Stewards like yourself!

Expect to receive more details about the workshop in the near future!!

Get hold of Julia if that sounds good to you:
Julia Brashares
Program Manager - Land Stewardship
San Francisco Parks Trust
Tel: (415) 750-5110
julia at sfpt.org
http://www.sfpt.org/

* Darnit, another blatant lie from me. Sorry - did you fall for it? You should know better by now!

Hot, in fact

Yes, today was, in fact, hot. Which was nice consider the last week has been uncharacteristically chilly even for San Francisco. So out I went and did about 4 hours of work:

• Watered front bed, steps area, bamboo/back fence area and left beds with the new sprinkler.
• Trimmed the Cordylines that live in the wine barrels at the front, and watered them (needs to be done more often!)
• Filled water jugs so that midweek Center Hardware strip garden watering will be easy.
• Removed 4 wheelbarrows of corn marigolds and poppies from the front bed - they are done, and the rest need to be pulled out.
• Chatted with David G, and Gary 
• Cut back the Kangaroo Paw that is looking pretty dead....
• Deadheaded roses, Kniphofias, Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia)
• Potted 12 Mexican feather grass babies up for the fall plant sale.
• Removed all the floppy leaves from the cardoon - it's going into flower mode - and put them in the compost bin.
• Noticed that the Cannas had been deadheaded too - must have been Miyuki! 

Whew - I am beat. And there is SO much more to do right now - I started making a list and it got so long I began to wonder if it was all possible! One thing that takes too much time is watering. I spend a lot of time moving the hose and adjusting the sprinkler, which I could be doing more important things.

This is the year we find out if once weekly watering is enough though. And some plants are not going to like it - mostly ones donated by neighbors with wetter gardens. This means I'm going to be digging up some plants and preparing them for the fall sale...

Photo shows the lupine planted yesterday. One thing that really helps plants at P. Garden get a good start in life is a well made basin around the base: the plant ends up at the bottom of a bowl with sides about 6" high, which helps funnel water into the root area. It's very important that our plant get set up like this, since the sun is so fierce, and slope so quick to drain.

New hardware

After a somewhat poopy week, weather-wise, today was all sun and breezes.

I got to the garden around 1pm and noticed something new! Ron, the Iron Maverick, had been by and put up the new community signpost backing! I've ordered an enclosed corkboard to be attached to it, and there's also room for the brochures Matt designed when we get those printed. It matches the design of the arch so we have a look going. I'm super pleased with this! And it was all funded by the plant sale we had back in May.

I watered the left bed, and planted a Yellow Bush Lupine (Lupinus arboreus) in the place where we cleared out the Vinca recently. I think that should be a big improvement. I also watered the potted plants and noticed the sprinklers are doing a good job. They don't cover all areas though, sadly.

Leah dropped by with some Dietes for the Center Hardware strip garden, and later on I was joined by Miyuki and her husband Nick who came to help. They really helped, too! They weeded all the nasturtiums out of the front bed, lots of mint from the middle back bed, and even helped me water the strip! Many hands = light work, once again. Thanks guys!

Video of Community Clean Team event

Shannon sent us the link to this YouTube video of our big day - check out all the hard workers in action!

Dumping

Rob and another neighbor for 1025 17th St yelled at a guy attempting to dump mattresses on the newly cleaned street last night. The guy took off, but someone else dumped some wood on the opposite side of the street.

Today I put up 3 "WARNING: DO NOT DUMP" signs. I have more (from DPW) but I need more zipties to fix them.

Product review: Ray Padula The Pulse™ Brass Pulsating Sprinkler on "H" Base

The garden has been extremely dry recently - the rains have stopped, and if you dig down, the dirt is dusty dry all the way to the rock underneath. H'm. We have our automatic sprinklers going on on Friday nights, but when we're in the garden we like to give some plants a little extra water. So we were excited to get a sprinkler recently. Specifically, a Ray Padula The Pulse™ Brass Pulsating Sprinkler on "H" Base.

This looks like a quality product - it got great reviews online, and it's mostly made of brass (except the base) so we know it's going to last forever. It has a hose attachment on both sides of the plastic base so you could connect other sprinklers together I guess. Two in a row would really get the job done fast!

I tried it out in the garden recently. After I figured out how to adjust the distance of spray and the diameter of the pattern, I was able to leave it alone while I did other gardening tasks and it covered a really large area. We have ridiculous water pressure at the garden, being on city water, and with the water turned all the way up it sprayed too far. This wouldn't be a problem on a large lawn though.

It worked best at the top of the steps, angled downwards (propped up with a brick) so it sprinkled all the way from the Brugmansia to the Pittosporum on the other side. It does seem like this style of sprinkler would be best on lawns or other flat areas, but the great thing about it is that it waters gently, so there's no runoff. Runoff has been a problem on the slopes at the sides of the steps - some of the bulbs there have been uncovered - so this prevents that happening until the yarrows and other plants there get established.

The downside of the size of the arc is that it takes a while for the water to penetrate our dusty-dry dirt. This is something to switch on and forget about while you do other tasks, for sure. I was able to weed and compost the bamboo area, and reorganize the plastic pots while it sprinkled. I do love to multi-task!

If you are looking for a pulsating sprinkler, I'd recommend this one - it seems well-made and I expect it will last a very long time.

More ideas!

A great deal of ideas for the 17th and Penn area were talked the at the street cleanup on Saturday.  Mostly focusing on the HIGH cost of a retaining wall, but the real need for it as a means of flattening the slope at the North end of the street and making it inhospiotable to those who'd like to sleep, camp, start fires and do drugs there.

One idea that came from Stephen was putting boulders in the spot, inestad of a wall. This would accomplish our goals for a lot less cash. We'd also use rocks to create a barrier to cars parking on the street getting up onto our sidewalk. Here is a very quick and dirty sketch of both a side and front view (click for a larger version):

We could then plant the area with cacti and agaves to create a Southwestern feel - perfect for the very dry spot and in keeping with our nickname for the street when we moved in - the Wild West!

What do you think?

6 hours in the sun

Today, Matt and I picked up Leanne at 9am and headed over to Leah's to pick up some Dietes she donated for the Mariposa Center Garden. We headed right back to the strip and started digging holes in the rocky dirt for the plants. This was Leanne's first time digging the dirt there and I felt bad - it really is rocky and hard!

Pretty soon we were joined by Arum and she brought drinks and snacks for us. Her ginger scones are like crack to me (I ate 5 in 2 sittings in the last week) so you can imagine my delight at seeing her.

We worked Leanne and Arum to the bone, and we got all the Dietes planted, and watered the entire strip. Good job, guys.  We also met Deputy Sheriff Mike McVay who is part of the Transit Police Bureau. He complimented us on the garden, and asked us to give him a call if we see naughty youths tagging in the area, and especially coming through the hole in the fence in the strip garden.

Then Leanne went home for a well-deserved rest, and Matt, Arum and I went up to sit on the Pennsylvania Garden bench to rest for a while too. Ron and Tank joined us for a relaxing chat.

We'd set up the sprinkler to water and after Arum left, Matt reorganized the tool shed area while I took cuttings to propagate for the next sale and trimmed and rearranged plants in the left bed a little.

Emily, Ryan, Bentley, and Emily's parents showed up just as we were leaving, and so did Gary. We felt bad rushing off, but it was about 3pm and we'd had no lunch. Yikes!

Street cleanup day a success!

We had an astonishing turnout at the 17th and Pennsylvania Urban Renewal (SPUR) project's first official clean up today! We enjoyed homemade cupcakes and scones (baked by Claudia and Arum), as well as coffee and sodas, and more sodas, water and baseball caps from Fregosi Paints, and afterwards a BBQ put on by DPW! Regent Cab let us use their parking lot, Brickley Production Services loaned us tables and chairs and Hilti their deck, and Fregosi their bathroom.

Who else was there? Too many to list! (And to remember... my feeble memory - someone help me!)

Emily, Elliot, Matt, Eddy and Maile, Gina and Ron, Ben, Jan, Stephen, Jo, Janet, Alison, Jeff, Shannon, Cat, Stacey, Tony, Steve, his dad and nephew, Melissa, Meka, Renee, Maya, Kuzauri, Anne, Eddy, Jan, Leslie, Will and Claudia, Monisha, Marie, Eric, Malia, Nathan, Alisou, Theo, Shannon, Rudy, Jeff, Oliver, Marie, Bruce, Rodney, James, Steven, and ALL the awesome folks from United Playaz!

And from DPW we saw Sandra, Mike, Ed, Larry, Mohammed and the team who made it all happen: thank you guys!


We also collected vital pledges from the volunteers. We need 25% in matching contributions from the community in order to get the Community Challenge Grant, and today we secured a great deal of our match from you all generous people.

All in all, an extremely successful day: thank you all SO much for all your hard work: you made a real difference. I am so excited about what's to come!

Today!

9am-11.30am - street cleaning at 100 Pennsylvania! Come on down!

Quick strip trip

Today at lunchtime I helped the ever efficient Emily with her Mariposa Center Garden project. And we did it in record time! We managed to drive to Bay View Green Waste Recycling, fill 5 big bags with mulch, drive to the strip and spread them out in just 45 minutes.

Half the strip is mulched (the bigger "half" actually) - we just need 4-5 more bags of mulch to complete the job. I double dog dare you to try and beat our time. Who's up for it?

Pics show the first of the flowers on the Lavatera assurgentiflora (Island Mallow) (top) and Emily spreading mulch on the strip (bottom).