Divide and conquer

genus: Silybum
common name: milk thistle
target destroyed!

Growing up I remember my Grandma saying, 'divide and conquer', which basically meant any complex problem, when subdivided, would be easier to solve. I often apply this maxim to many different things - everything from scientific investigation to well, most recently, getting rid of this spiny thistle covered in its own fluffy seeds (genus Silybum; no joke!)

I first cleared my working area, cutting back the Centranthus and ripping out any offending weeds. Then, I lopped off the tops of the thistle so it was about waist height. Finally, I ripped out the smaller stalks. This would have been nearly impossible if not for the white leathery gloves in the shed - many thanks to Annie for keeping the shed so well stocked. After the larger stalks dry up, it will be much easier to rip the base out. Yay!

de-thistled

The garden had two guests while I was working, Lucky and Trisha, visiting from Portland. I asked if they had any questions about the garden, and they proceeded to tell me what a 'great find' it was on their trip, so full of beautiful plants and with a nice shaded bench. I had to agree!!!

After weeding the back middle bed a bit I was out of time and energy. I will be back later this week to continue weeding, and am looking forward to the volunteer workday this Saturday. I hope to see you all there!

Plant profile: Cytisus scoparius (Scotch Broom)

Latin name: Cytisus scoparius ("sigh-TISS-us sko-PAR-ee-us") 
Common name: Scotch Broom, Common Broom
Originally from: The UK
Blooms: Covered in yellow flowers in spring.
Light: Full sun to part shade
Water: Rain is plenty. No summer water!
Height x width: 3' to 9' tall x 3' to 5' wide
USDA Zones: 5-9
Where to find in P. Garden: One appeared in the brights bed.... and flourished.

As a legume, these shrubs fixes nitrogen in the soil by a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria. When their leaves fall they improve the quality of your soil, which helps other plants to grow. How nice, you think!

Sadly, not everyone is happy to see a broom growing. Cytisus scoparius has been introduced into several other continents and is classified as a noxious invasive species in California and the Pacific Northwest in North America, in Australia, New Zealand and India.

It is estimated that it is responsible for $47 million in lost timber production each year in Oregon. In New Zealand broom the species estimated to cost the forestry industry NZ$90 million and farmers NZ$10 million. Biological control for broom has been investigated since the mid 1980s with a number of species being tried out, like the broom twig miner (Leucoptera spartifoliella), the broom seed beetles (Bruchidius villosus) the broom gall mite (Aceria genistae) the sap-sucking broom psyllid (Arytainilla spartiophila) and recently the broom leaf beetle (Gonioctena olivacea) and the broom shoot moth (Agonopterix assimilella).

All with limited success.

Several cultivars selected for variation in flower color, including "Moonlight" with pale yellow flowers, "Andreanus" and "Firefly" with dark orange-red flowers, and growth habit, including "Pendula" with pendulous branches. Our one is the plain yellow type - nothing fancy.


UPDATE: Sadly this plant died after 5 years of drought. It was darn tough though! 

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: It didn't die! It grew back the next year... wow.

Stop to sniff the flowers

Before getting into the work that was done at the garden today, I want to point out how awesome and tireless Annie is! The work that Annie and Matt did over the weekend is awesome, I went today and checked it out. Also, did anyone else catch the name of that Optunia they put in - I'll post it again - Opuntia bigeloveii (Teddy Bear Cholla). Wow, what a moniker!

The cardoon always grows back

Today Bentley and I headed out to the garden and weeded the corridor along the brights bed and middle bed. Well, I weeded and he laid under the bench. After I trimmed back some Agapanthus and Cardoon that were blocking the paths he had something to sniff.  During my weeding I noticed some Dahlias, despite getting no care, were coming back this summer. This got me thinking about how many amazing survivors we have at Pennsylvania Garden - plants that despite given conditions just on the edge of whats considered possible for that plant, are able to thrive and create a beautiful environment. We are so lucky!

Meeting with DPW

Andrea Alfonso, our landscape architect, Emily and I went to meet with Mohammed Nuru, Director of DPW today to get his apprival for the plans. He's strongly supports this project, and told us again today that the Mayor Ed Lee also supports the project and wants to see it completed.

Great to get that kind of "thumbs up"!

Mohammed looked over the structural engineer drawings, the landscape architect drawings, and answered our questions about encroachment permits and so on. We are just awaiting the final soils analysis - the infiltration test results were much better than expected.

Mohammed told us to call DPW to ask them to remove the 2 large homeless encampments so I'll do that today. Emily is getting a letter of support from Mohammed. We are a go!

The heat is unbearable

Crinum bulbispermum

OK well if you live in SF you're probably thinking the title of this post is daft. It's a sunny, breezy day, right? And if you live in Potrero Hill you're enjoying a relatively hot day. However, if you're working down at the bottom of the new terrace area in Pennsylvania Garden let me tell you: the heat is unbearable. It reflects off the metal of Gary's building next door and it's enough to wilt an Agave, which is no mean feat considering they're basically made of Kevlar.

 Despite this, Matt and I went down there and planted some plants. We put in:

1 Euphorbia ammak cutting from John
1 Agave of some long, narrow type also from John
3 Cotyledon orbiculata
1 Opuntia bigeloveii (Tedddy Bear Cholla)
1 Chamaerops humilis (Mediterranean Fan Palm)
1 large bush ice plant of unknown type from John

Euphorbia ammak

We also watered the right end of the brights bed, parts of the left bed, and the area behind the wrong way sign. Matt deadheaded a huge clump of Cotyledon orbiculata var. oblonga in the middle back bed, and I deadheaded the Aloe striatula in the same area.

We drank a lot of liquids, rested frequently, and accidentally-on-purpose pointed the sprinklers at each other a few times, and I still feel as limp as an old dishrag. Time for a lie down!

Sunday Streets this weekend

No garden news to write about today, but there is a special community announcement! This Sunday our neighborhood will be participating in Sunday Streets (see map with events!). If you've never been, I highly recommend it. The event varies by neighborhood, but the basic structure is that the city turns a major thoroughfare into a bicycle/pedestrian only street party. The garden is just off the street party route this year but we hope to be included in the festivities next year.

Volunteer day lite

Gorgeous! Emily's not
bad either ;)

Today's volunteer effort was surprisingly productive, given that aside from me and Emily and Matt, the only people working were Eliot and Carlin. No problem: all seasoned hard workers, so the results were great. Miyuki and her baby girl Mia came to hang out and cheer us on.

Carlin worked on cutting back all the Chasmanthe in the garden. It'll be back in December - for now each clump is taking a rest. She also cut back Cannas, weeded and was generally the Queen of the Hori-Hori as usual.

Since Matt and I both have injured right wrists in a bizarre coincidence, Emily turned the compost bins. One was ready to empty - filled with gorgeous dirt, loaded with nutrients. She spread it under the Fuchsia, all over a spot by the bench and a few other areas. What a totally rewarding feeling to have made such a great product for the garden! Eliot watered the bins, one of which is now full to the top with new garden refuse, one of them cooking last month's batch, and one empty and ready to fill. Watering and turning the bins each month has made a huge difference to how quickly they composted down - pats on the back all around.

Agave lophantha and
Artemisia "Powis Castle"

Matt and I worked on the area behind the wrong way sign. All the Lychnis got cut back (lots of seeds fell, so we'll have tons more hot pink flowers soon) and all the past-their-sell-by-date corn marigolds and best-before-last-week California poppies got pulled out. I gave the spot a thorough watering and it's good to go.

Matt also weeded out tons of grass from the middle back bed and prevented the Aptenia cordifolia ground cover from strangling everything in the middle front bed.

Lastly, Emily cut back the Glaucium grandiflorum (Orange Horned Poppy) - need to move that back in the bed in the fall, as it did so excessively well at the edge and got too big. Nice problem to have!

Overcast day

Weeping Yucca
(Yucca recurvifolia)

Today is a bit overcast and a good one to water the new plants. I spent about two hours with various sprinklers on various areas of the garden.

While they did their work I trimmed, deadheaded and weeded. The cardoon (Cynara cardunculus) is blooming, which means the leaves are going to die off shortly after and then it'll be cut back. That always leaves a big hole in the left bed for a month or two but it's worth it for the spectacular foliage the rest of the year.

The Weeping Yucca (Yucca recurvifolia) by the steps is flowering nicely for the first time - a very healthy plant. Another plant that's about to flower is the Agave parryi by the arch that I posted a photo of last week. Sadly this spells doom for that Agave - they die after flowering.  However, the flower spike is about 12' tall and very impressive, and should be there for many months. It's certainly going out with a bang!

Matilija poppy
(Romneya coulteri)

The fourth plant I noticed in bloom is the California native Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri) in the left bed, with it's fried egg style flowers on very tall stalks. It's a bit of a rascal in that it likes to spread and pop up in odd places, but it hasn't been too annoying yet.

Water infiltration test

Yesterday Emily, Matt and I dug a 3' x 3' x 3.5" hole at the site of the proposed rain garden at the north end of the project.

This is the latest request from the PUC in order for them to release our grant funds and get started on the project.

It took 2 hours to dig the hole in the very rocky ground, then we soaked the entire are with a sprinkler for an hour or so to saturate the ground before the test.

After that Andrea, our landscape architect from DPW came by the help us perform the test.

We filled the hole and timed the draining - every 60 seconds we took a reading until it was empty. This is supposed to be repeated three times.

With a bit of luck this is the final hurdle from PUC.

For the love of....!

Matt and Annie assess the digging site

Hello Dear Readers,
Today Annie, Matt and I dug a 3ft x 3ft x 3ft hole. It wasn't impossible, we had the right tools, and the ground wasn't horribly hard. Did we enjoy it? No. Do we love our neighborhood? Yes!!!

In addition to creating, building up and managing Pennsylvania Garden over the last few years, we have also been working with the city to put in a brand new street park along Pennsylvania Avenue before it hits 17th.

The pit: fill with water!

The hole was part of that - the city namely PUC (yeah, I name names) has been moving the goal-posts on this project for over two years now. Digging this hole in itself isn't hard, but having the grant requirements change constantly is maddening and makes it hard to push on. Luckily Andrea from DPW has been helping us, and was there today to measure the infiltration rate of the water.

Andrea measures the water height

We love the neighborhood and want to make it an even more enjoyable, livable and beautiful place as best we know how. I know that you all feel more or less the same about the neighborhood, and if we ask for help in the future, digging holes or whatever the project will be, we know there is a community willing to pitch in.

Another heatwave

Matt and the
flowering Agave parryi

Hot again today, and I went out to set a low sprinkler on the terrace pots at 9.30am, then went back out a little later to do some work.

The compost heap got a thorough soaking, as did all the new plantings in the garden. I plan to water them twice a week for the next couple weeks only. I also took care of some plants that needed to be potted up - at long last.

I potted up 24 Aloe veras, a Euphorbia cactus of some sort that Michele gave us, 4 Aeoniums of various sorts and 4 large Yucca cuttings that John gave us.

My temporary potting station

I also planted two Aeonium undulatum cuttings John gave us - hurrah! I have wanted that species for ages.

Lastly I did a little weeding, tidied up masses of pots and trash, and thought about how long it'll take to finish planting the terraces (forever.) That took 4 hours and I am totally exhausted. Phew!

Thievery

Alstroemeria
"Third Harmonic"

More thefts at the garden yesterday. I had heard that the thief was taking the plants to a Mission flea market so I went down to the Alemany flea market as it was on my way elsewhere. I did have a good time browsing, but none of my plants showed up...

Today I went out to water - we have a number of potted plants and newly planted plants that need a little drink. I rearranged all the potted ones so they're easier to water, gave the compost heap a water too (compost needs to be damp) and did a little trimming and weeding too.