Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Understory Is Made For Shade

Andromeda tolerates a bit of shade.

Shade influences every ecosystem. Where it is scarce, some vegetation adapts to harsh exposure to sunlight. Some develops glaucous foliar color to reflect some of the sunlight. Some develops tomentum, or foliar fuzz, to shade its foliar surfaces below. Where shade is abundant, understory vegetation adapts as efficiently. Essentially, it is made for shade.

Understory vegetation naturally grows beneath larger trees and shrubbery. It is therefore more tolerant of partial shade. Some tolerates significant shade. Ferns that inhabit forest floors beneath shady redwood trees are notable examples. So are most houseplants that originated from tropical rainforest. Naturally, most live in the shade of bigger forest trees.

Not all understory vegetation is diminutive. Some Japanese maple trees can grow rather large. However, they naturally inhabit forests of trees that grow larger. Some palms begin as understory vegetation to become the tallest trees of their gardens. Their foliage simply adapts as it becomes more exposed. Banana and tree fern foliage might adapt similarly.

Such adaptation is an advantage now that home gardens are becoming shadier. Modern homes are taller, so produce bigger shadows than older homes. They are closer to other tall homes with comparable shadows. Fences are higher to compensate for the proximity of homes. Garden spaces are more compact, with less space that is not partially shaded.

No vegetation survives without sunlight. Understory vegetation is simply more tolerant of partial shade than most other sorts. It is adapted to it, just as some vegetation is adapted to extreme exposure. Generally, understory vegetation is deep green, to absorb as much sunlight as possible. For the same reason, individual leaves are typically large and lush.

Cast iron plant seems to tolerate more shade than any other understory vegetation. Kaffir lily and hosta tolerate almost as much shade as some ferns. Rhododendron, azalea and andromeda prefer only partial shade. Excessive shade inhibits bloom. The same applies to camellia and hydrangea. Realistically, all species of understory vegetation are unique. Each tolerates a particular degree of shade that it is adapted to.

Posted on by tonytomeo

July 12, 2024 – Memorial Tree Update (July 14)

The Memorial Tree is becoming a productive member of its ecosystem!

Every year, there is less to write about regarding the Memorial Tree in Felton Covered Bridge Park. That is because every year, it becomes more independent. It no longer needs structure pruning for clearance above the surrounding parking lot. It no longer benefits from supplemental irrigation. The mesh around the base of the trunk really should be removed. So should the truss between the two lowest main limbs. The stake remains merely as a precaution for strong winds, but is likely completely unnecessary. It can be removed after defoliation next winter. The trunk is quite sturdy. Growth is quite vigorous. The branch structure seems to be rather awkward, but such structure is normal for such young specimens of this particular species, and is very unlikely to compromise structural integrity as the tree matures. The canopy is slightly asymmetrical, but not problematically so. The crew who maintains the park replenishes the mulch within the parking lot island around the tree more regularly than they had in the past, and cuts weeds when necessary. They are very protective of this tree, so pull weeds between the trunk and the surrounding mesh rather than get too close to the trunk with their weed whackers. Recently, a neighbor pulled weeds before weed whacking became necessary. Although oaks can technically bloom and produce acorns after only about five years, almost all delay bloom until they are about twenty years old, and some wait until they are twice as old. A lack of bloom this early is therefore normal. The development of two oak apples was a surprise though. Apparently, an oak apple gall moth considers this tree to be mature enough to sustain its eggs. It is as if this little Memorial Tree is already growing up to become a productive member of its ecosystem!

From the ground, I could not get a good picture of these first oak apples.
Posted on by tonytomeo · 9 Comments

There’s No Place Like Home.

Desert ecosystems are fascinating, but so are local ecosystems.

Vacation was excellent! I do not get out much, but when I do, I feel as if I enjoy it more than those who travel regularly. The simplicity of my travel allows me to enjoy it more intimately than those who travel more elaborately and put more effort into enjoying what they should probably just enjoy more effortlessly. Anyway, I went to the Pacific Northwest for two weeks, returned for two weeks, and went to the Southwest for two weeks. Actually though, my trip to the Pacific Northwest was limited to Western Oregon and Western Washington, and my trip to the Southwest was limited to the area between Los Angeles and Phoenix. Regardless, it was excellent, and I encountered several climates and ecosystems that are very different from what I am accustomed to. I drove through dense rainforests dominated by massive Douglas firs as well as sparsely forested deserts dominated by sporadic saguaro cacti. Winters are much cooler in some regions than here. Summers are much warmer in some regions than here. It was all so fascinating. I encountered so much vegetation that I would like to grow here, and brought a bit of it back, but can not grow everything that I find intriguing within other regions. However, as excellent as it all was, it also reminds me that I prefer to be here, within the climates and ecosystems that I am most comfortable with. Winters do not get too cool. Summers do not get too warm. I may not be able to grow all the cultivars of apples that prefer a bit more chill in Washington, or all the cacti that prefer more arid warmth in Arizona, but realistically, even if I could work in the garden constantly, I could not possibly grow everything that performs well here.

Posted on by tonytomeo

End of Fire Season

Burned trees are visible on ridge tops within the CZU Fire zone.

Rain is gratifying at the beginning of the rainy season. We all know that it has potential to become excessive later in the season, but we are not yet concerned with flooding or mudslides. After a typically long and dry summer, we enjoy it while we can. A storm that finished earlier yesterday was relatively minor, but was nonetheless the first significant storm of this new rainy season of 2023 and 2024. Only minor drizzle preceded it.

The beginning of the rainy season is also the end of the fire season. Forest fires become less likely as the forests become more saturated through the season. However, rain also sustains growth of vegetation that will become combustible during the following fire season, especially if the weather becomes unusually warm and arid by then. Unfortunately, this is the natural pattern of the climate here. Fire is a major component of local ecosystems.

Three years ago, the CZU Fire was the most destructive forest fire within documented history of this region. Larger fires likely occurred prior to documented history, but burned forests that expect to occasionally burn, without damage to unnatural infrastructure that did not exist at that time. Prehistoric fires were likely less common than modern fires, but involved much larger areas. They also likely burned faster and less violently. Modern forest fires involve more fuel because of regeneration of hardwood species after clear cut redwood harvesting a century ago. That is why so many coastal redwoods that survived several fires during their long lives succumbed to the CZU Fire.

Much of the marginal area of the CZU Fire is regenerating efficiently enough to eliminate evidence that it burned so recently. The scenery of areas that burned more severely remind us why we are grateful for the beginning of the rainy season.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 5 Comments

Vegetation Exploitation

P00201K
If a tree falls in a forest, . . . it might get recycled.

Exploitation of the vegetation here involves so much more than collecting seed from old bloom, dividing overgrown perennials, or processing cuttings from pruning scraps. It goes beyond the reassignment of lauristinus, canna, African iris, deodar cedar and perhaps others that I wrote about earlier. Flowers, fruits, vegetables and herbs are mundanely obvious assets.

The landscapes and forests here do so much more than beautify and provide shade. When a tree falls in a forest (and makes a sound even if no one is there to hear it), it might get processed into firewood or lumber. Some of the foliage that falls in landscaped areas goes to the compost piles. Even debris that gets removed from here gets recycled as greenwaste somewhere else.

Of course, we can not recycle, reuse, repurpose or otherwise make use of everything that falls out of the forests and landscapes. There is simply too much of it. That is how the ecosystems of the forests recycle naturally. Exotic plants in the landscapes do not know that they are exotic, and try to behave as they would within their respective ecosystems. Nature is innately messy.

Trees that fall across hiking trails merely get cleared from the trails, and left to decompose out in the forests. Even potentially useful firs, pines and redwoods can not be extracted feasibly. Their big trunks might remain where they fell, with only a section cut out where a trail goes through. The forests do not mind. Their ecosystems know how to make use of such biomass too.

This fallen fir tree happened to land squarely on top of a few steps in a trail that is cut into a steep hillside. As you can see, it was not exactly cleared completely from the trail, but instead replaced the steps that it destroyed.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Horridculture – Fake Environmentalism

P90515Fake environmentalism is a HUGE topic, so for now, will be limited to fake environmentalism as justification for the eviction of homeless encampments.
The yellow triangle in the picture above was the site of the Hero’s Camp, which was more commonly known as Ross Camp, and located behind Ross Dress For Less in Gateway Plaza in Santa Cruz. It is gone now. This satellite image was taken by Google Maps prior to the development of the Camp. I did not get pictures of the camp while inhabited, but you have likely seen enough other camps in the news to imagine what it looked like.
It really was as big as it looks, and really did exhibit all the problems that you hear about in the news, although not to such an exaggerated degree. Not everyone there used syringes to inject illicit narcotics. Not everyone there was an alcoholic. Not everyone was violent, from somewhere else, or a criminal. This is not about such issues anyway. It is about how the two hundred or so unhoused people who lived here affected the environment.
Was there trash? Of course there was. Was it more than what two hundred people who live in homes generate? No. Houseless people do not generate as much trash as the housed, simply because they lack resources to purchase the commodities from which so much trash is generated. The houseless certainly do not waste as much as the housed. Their trash just happens to be more visible for outsiders who do not know any better to see.
Furthermore, what is so typically described and perceived as trash is actually the belongings of those who live in such camps. Without closets, cabinets or furniture, our belongings would look about the same, except much more voluminous. When we take just some of the belongings that we don’t want or need and put them out in front of our homes, it is a garage sale, and likely amounts to much more than individual homeless people own.
The satellite image from Google Maps below shows the neighborhood where my grandparents lived in Felton, less than seven miles north of where the picture above was taken. Their old home is right in the middle of the picture. There were not so many other homes there when they arrived, just as World War II was ending. They lived a relatively modest lifestyle, on a small suburban parcel. They were not concerned about the environment.
Why should they have been? Even now, the people who live in homes here can generate as much trash as they want to, and no one will complain about it. They can fill their homes with their belongings, and put them neatly away in closets, cabinets and drawers. There are alcoholics in this neighborhood, as well as a few who are addicted to illicit narcotics. Some are criminals. Some are violent. Few are native. Again, this is off the main topic.
None of that is visible in this satellite image anyway. What it shows instead is how the lifestyles of those who live in homes are more detrimental to the environment than the lifestyles of those who lack homes. This picture is the same scale as the picture above, so you can see that only a few homes would fit into an area comparable to that in which about two hundred unhoused people lived. Only a few people live in each of these few homes.
What that means is that two hundred people like those who lived at the Hero’s Camp live dispersed over a much larger area, on land from which trees and vegetation needed to be removed. They all live in homes that are made of wood derived from trees that grew in forests. These homes are furnished with synthetic plaster, carpet, paint, glass, vinyl, metals and all sorts of materials that needed to be quarried, processed or manufactured.
It doesn’t end there. These homes consume energy for heating, lighting and whatever else that gas and electricity are used for. Cars driven by those who live in homes are also constructed from raw materials, and then need fuel to function. Water is consumed as if it were not a very limited resource. Much of it gets mixed with soaps and detergents before going back into the environment. Chlorine volatilizes from chlorinated swimming pools.
Then there are the landscapes and gardens, the parts of domestic lifestyles that we actually believe to be beneficial to the environment. They contain exotic (non-native) plants that compete with native species, and interfere with natural ecological processes. Irrigation of the landscapes stimulates redwoods and accelerated decay of oaks. Soil amendments, fertilizers and some of the pesticides change the chemistry of the soil and ground water.
Just compare these two pictures. As bad as the mess at Hero’s Camp was, the two hundred people who lived there were less detrimental to the environment and the local ecosystem than those who live in just a few of the homes visible in the picture below. Those who claim to be concerned about the environment should be more concerned about the ecologically detrimental lifestyles of those who live in homes than those who lack homes.P90515+

Posted on by tonytomeo · 17 Comments

More Misplaced ‘Environmentalism’

P80214Nature 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. They are more frequent now because of human activity; but they are less extensive, likewise because of human activity. Humans contain fires that would naturally burn much larger areas. Preventing vegetation from burning allows it to accumulate and become more combustible. If deprived of fire long enough, vegetation within ecosystems that rely on fire as part of their natural restorative cycle eventually deteriorates, or become so combustible that when it does burn, its seed gets incinerated.

Many box elders along the San Lorenzo River have been dying for the past many years. We have not identified the pathogen associated with the necrosis, but it is probably a naturally occurring pathogen that is an intricate component to the natural ecosystem, (although after last winter, an inordinate number of box elders succumbed at the same time). Regardless, trees succumbed and fell. A significant void developed within the collective forest canopy on the Eastern Bank, near the Graham Hill Road Bridge. ‘Environmentalists’ wanted to ‘help’.

These new trees in the picture were planted within the area vacated by a few deceased box elders. The closer of the two is a coast live oak. The other is a bay laurel. There are a few more beyond those in the picture. Native vegetation that developed ‘naturally’ but happened to be in the way was removed to facilitate this project. To prevent native deer from damaging the trees as deer would do ‘naturally’ the trees were imprisoned in small cylindrical cages. Because the trees did not grow there and disperse their roots ‘naturally’, they must be irrigated until they can survive on what they get ‘naturally’ from rain.

The irony of all this is that native vegetation that was growing ‘naturally’ was removed to install ‘unnatural’ nursery grown trees intended to restore a ‘natural’ ecosystem that was already doing what it does ‘naturally’. Although native, the coast live oak ‘naturally’ prefers to avoid riparian environments such as this. It ‘naturally’ prefers a more exposed and drier situation. Bay laurel trees live there ‘naturally’, which is why a few had already started to grow from seed. These seedlings would not have needed to be caged or watered, but were removed to plant the new trees. Yes, bay laurels that would have survived on their own were replaced by bay laurels that must be watered and protected. Willows and cottonwoods that were quite prolific in the area were likewise removed, although many more remain lower on the bank of the River.

In the background, in the upper right corner of the picture, the bright yellow flowers of an Acacia dealbata can be seen. It is a seriously invasive exotic species that displaces native vegetation. Although it is impossible to exterminate the species, this individual tree that has been dispersing profuse seed into the San Lorenzo River for many years, really should be removed. Even if nothing were to be installed to replace it, the removal would benefit the ecosystem. Nature would have no problem finding native trees that would like to occupy that spot.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 21 Comments

Invasive Exotics – Acacia dealbata

P80211Every 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 always been, and continues to be a pretty tree, long after more colorful and less invasive cultivars were developed. They were brought to California by prospectors from the East at a time when no one knew or cared how invasive they would be.

Acacia dealbata was likewise imported simply because it is a pretty tree, before anyone knew how it could naturalize and displace native vegetation and wildlife. Now it grows very rampantly in utility easements where other vegetation has been eradicated. Not only does it interfere with the efficiency of utility cables, but it is also combustible if ignited by sparks from electrical cables. Yet, it is so colorful and pretty in the middle of winter that it is not easy to dislike. Unfortunately, environmentalism is not what it used to be, and some so called environmentalists want it to be protected simply because it is ‘alive’.P80211+