In the autumn of 1989, small and temporary tent cities appeared in parks and other public spaces around the San Francisco Bay Area and the Monterey Bay Area, where many homes had been damaged or destroyed by the Loma Prieta Earthquake. They were necessary at the time, but were not intended to be permanent features of the landscapes. For a while, they were unpleasant reminders that some people could not go home until their homes were repaired or rebuilt.

In more recent history, ridiculously expensive real estate and rents have increased homelessness in the same regions. Even gainfully employed people are homeless because they can neither purchase nor rent a home, either because of expense or because of a lack of availability. Those who live in homes complain about the unsightliness and other problems associated with the homeless living in homeless encampments and small tent cities.

We get it. Tents…

Between here and Hawaii, there is a whole lot of water. Between Hawaii and Australia, there is a whole lot more. Everywhere to the west and southwest of California, there is a lot of water. Unfortunately, none of this huge volume of water is useful for gardening. It is saline. It would kill plants.

Of course this is not just any water. It is the Pacific Ocean. Although the water within it is useless directly, it is what feeds the weather that provides the precipitation that becomes the water that makes gardening and everything else possible. Rain fills local aquifers. Snow in the Sierra Nevada fills reservoirs as it melts.

The weather that the Pacific Ocean feeds gets shared over a very large area. Weather that does not make rain here might make rain or snow in Nevada, or Oklahoma, or really anywhere the weather wants to go to. In…

It is certainly not as cold as it is in other regions at or north of this latitude. Nor is it unusually cold for this time of year. It is not stormy. We got only a few heavy but brief rain showers with a bit of small hail. A slight bit of snow fell only on the Summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains

The problem is that the weather had been so mild earlier, and at times, downright warm. Many plants were coerced into premature bloom. Some started to generate new spring growth. When the weather suddenly became more seasonably cool, many of the flowers and new growth got frosted and ruined.

Fortunately, most of the deciduous fruiting trees seemed to know what they were being set up for, and abstained from bloom. So far, even the early blooming apricots, cherries, almonds prunes and plums are safe. The wild American…

Nature has been getting by just fine for a very long time before humans started to interfere. It has survived all sorts of catastrophes literally longer than anyone can remember. It was here when dinosaurs were exterminated by a meteorite or comet or vulcanism or whatever catastrophic yet natural event finished them off. In fact, Nature was here for all of the few mass extinction events of the very distant past, including the Permian – Triassic Extinction, which only about 4% of life on earth survived! We all know that “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.”, or serve her margarine that tastes like real butter; but we should also realize that it is rather presumptuous to think that we can be more efficient with correcting all environmental damage. Very often, it is best to let nature do what nature does best.

For example, forest fires are perfectly natural…

Three or four might be better than two. Perhaps that is what this queen palm was thinking when it decided to get extras.

This is not a good picture, and the tree is a bit too shaggy with old foliage to see what is going on inside clearly. To the left, a secondary limb is curving downward and away from the main trunk, before curving back upward as a secondary canopy. Another limb is developing immediately above this secondary canopy, and another is visible to the right of the main trunk. It is hard to say how many individual canopies are within the collective canopy of this single specimen.

What is weird about this development is that the popularly available palms do not form branches. Think of it. When was the last time you saw a palm tree with a limb or branches? Before you answer that, yuccas (such as…

There are so many big trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains that keep most of us looking up. It is easy to miss much of the understory plants that grow on the forest floor.

While getting the pictures for the ‘Six on Saturday’ article posted earlier, I happened to notice these few small pale flowers that contrasted more with their own dark green foliage than they would have if they were more brightly colored. Perhaps that is a technique to get the attention of pollinators. It certainly got my attention.The flowers were not completely white. They were very pale hues of pink. The wood sorrel in the last picture was slightly more pinkish than the unidentified cruciferous (of the family Cruciferae) flowers of the first two pictures. Pale flowers, particularly those that seem to be adorned with barely perceptible patterns, are typically those that use infrared and ultraviolet color…

Remember the Beverly Hillbillies? That was a really lame sitcom; but it was somehow very popular at the time.

Each episode began with the stupid jingle that explains how and why the formerly impoverished but suddenly wealthy Clampetts left their home in Bugtussle and moved to Beverly . . . Hills that is.

As they drive their decrepit Oldsmobile down Bedford Drive just west of downtown, the palms flanking the roadway are prominently visible to the left and right. This strictly regimented collection of Canary Island date palms alternating with Mexican palms was not very big back then, in the early 1960s. By the 1980s, they were strikingly grand. Sadly, they are now deteriorating from old age. Many of the broad Canary Island date palms have succumbed to pink rot, so are now absent. Some of the Mexican fan palms are also lacking. It is saddening to see them now…

Every invasive exotic (non-native) species has a story of how it got here.

Blue gum and red gum were imported to produce the timber needed for railroad ties. Many annual specie were forage crops for grazing cattle. Some got here by stowing away as seed on or inside cattle or other animals. Supposedly, mustard seed was broadcast by those traveling on the El Camino Real so that other travelers could find the route later. Then there are all sorts of invasive exotics that were imported simply because people liked to grow them in their gardens.

It is difficult to imagine why anyone would import any of the weedy specie of broom (Genista specie) or the sloppy species of pampas grass (Cortaderia jubata). It might have made sense at the time, before more appealing specie were introduced, or before less invasive modern cultivars were developed. Black locust has…

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the Heavens:

Verses 2 through 8 continue to list a few examples of more specific activities that happen at specific times. If there were more examples, autumn foliar color would probably be cited as well. After all, autumn foliar color happens in . . . well, . . . autumn.

Perhaps it was omitted for brevity. Of course, there is the possibility that it was omitted to avoid confusion. If it had been cited, it might have been described simply as ‘foliar color’ rather than ‘autumn foliar color’. Some foliage colors earlier if distressed. Some foliage does not color until frosted. Some might even delay color until it is in the process of getting replaced by new foliage. Then there are the many sorts of evergreen foliage that do not color at all, or at least in…

It was probably one of the best television shows for children back then, and probably still is. Everyone of my generation in American remembers Sesame Street. We all identified with it, even if our neighborhood did not look like Sesame Street, or lacked the variety of neighbors. Sesame Street sometimes took us on television field trips to other neighborhoods. Some were more familiar. Those that were more foreign were presented within a compelling and inviting context that got us interested in how other children lived within their respective societies.

Some kids lived in big cities and rode on buses. Others lived in suburban areas with big gardens. Some lived on farms with hens and cows. There were even kids who lived near a forest surrounded by big tall evergreen trees. The trees were probably the firs, spruces and hemlocks of New Hampshire. I do not remember. I just knew I…