September 2011

New Exhibit at the Water Conservation Garden

September 30, 2011

Water Conservation
Garden and County Watershed Protection Program Unveil New Exhibit

Rancho San Diego, CA—The Water Conservation Garden, in partnership with the San Diego County Watershed Protection Program, formally opened a new exhibit this week that highlights storm water pollution prevention. The public is invited to view the new exhibit any time during its normal operating hours—9am-4pm, 7 days a week. The new exhibit features a permeable pavement installation, complete with re-circulating fountain, situated alongside a straw bale house with a green, living roof. Funding for the exhibit comes from a generous grant from the County of San Diego’s Watershed Protection Program.

Permeable pavement is an innovation that allows water to flow through the surface material to the soil layer below, preventing water from flowing into the storm drain. Although we typically receive limited rainfall in San Diego, our extensively paved surfaces—roads, sidewalks, and other impermeable surfaces– contribute to toxic urban runoff, as water has nowhere to go but into storm drains, carrying pollutants from paved surfaces with it. Urban runoff has a negative impact on sea life, ocean habitat, tourism, and recreational use of beaches.

“We are fortunate to partner with the County’s Watershed Protection Program to bring awareness to the public about how they can help to protect our watersheds and prevent storm water pollution,” said Marty Eberhardt, The Garden’s Executive Director. “Through this partnership we have not only expanded our exhibits, but have also expanded our workshop curriculum to include information on green roofs and permeable pavement that will assist homeowners in incorporating these sustainable alternatives into their homes. From our perspective, the first step is to use only the water you need, and the second is to prevent pollution with the water you do use.”

The Garden will offer a new class, Gardening on a Rooftop on Saturday, October 22, 9:30-11:30am, and will feature a permeable pavement seminar during its Fall Garden and Home Festival on November 5. Check the event’s website, www.gardenandhomefest.org for an updated seminar schedule as the festival nears.

Homeowners can further help reduce urban runoff by planting a green, living roof. Green roofs provide a unique aesthetic while expanding growing space and reducing energy costs associated with heating and cooling. A green roof requires professional installation and assessment by an engineer to ensure proper support of the added weight. Jim Mumford of GreenScaped Buildings and roofer Ulf Waldmann oversaw the installation of The Garden’s green roof system. A straw bale house forms the base for the roof, illustrating the use of sustainable materials for building purposes. Advantages of straw-bale construction over conventional building systems include the renewable nature of straw, low cost, easy availability, and high insulation value. Willow Lane Construction of San Diego built and stuccoed the straw bale house.

About the Water Conservation Garden – Opened in 1999, the Garden is dedicated to promoting water conservation in the southern California landscape through excellent exhibits and programs that educate and inspire the public. The Garden is supported by memberships, donations, grants, and water agency support. For more information, please visit www.thegarden.org or call 619-660-0614 x10.

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National Public Lands Day – Sept 24

September 24, 2011

President Obama declared September 24 as National Public Lands Day.

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Watch Your (Fo)Odometer!

September 23, 2011

This is powerful!!! EAT LOCAL!!!

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Garage Sale Bonus!

September 22, 2011

By now we all know I’m a black-belt garage sale scrounger, but this week I won’t be bragging about my latest finds. Well, that’s not completely true, but it’s not what you think!

One of the great things about wheeling around town on Thursday mornings is getting to peek into other people’s yards. Some yards are old and mature with giant trees and overgrown bushes. Others are perfectly manicured, obviously tended by some one other than the owner. The best yards are the ones where you don’t really notice much when you first walk in to peruse the stuff on sale. You look around awhile and then something catches your eye. Hmmm, what is that plant? And if you’re lucky, the person who is having the garage sale will jump at your question. Aha! A fellow gardener!!! The next thing you know, an hour has passed and you’ve toured the entire garden and you’re going home with plants, happily given to you by your new friend.

This happened to me last week. I stopped at a little house with lots of plants in the front yard. I always check out the succulents when I drive past. I’ve met the lady who lives here at other garage sales, and we have looked over plants for sale together. When I came around the corner of her house to check out her sale, I realized she had lots more growing on the side and in the back than she did in the front. The more I looked, the more I found. She had an interesting collection of plants, mostly tropical, and I discovered she really knew a lot about her plants.

She had a nice collection of plumeria. One small tree had varigated leaves. I wonder what color the flowers will be?

Varigated plumeria

Look at these different white plumeria flowers.

Pinkish white

This white flower has radiating yellow centers.

Clumpy white flowers

The most spectacular plumeria she had was this pink flowering beauty. The flowers were huge, 3 inches across, with an incredible fragrance. Not the usual plumeria smell, but interesting with scents of vanilla, lemon and a hint of gardenia. Very interesting and so beautiful.

WOW!!!

: Pink Beauty

One more cool thing in her yard was this stack of pots. I just thought it was kind of cool and looked like something from Bali.

An artistic stack of pots

What a pleasure to spend some time with this fellow gardener. By the time I left there, I had cuttings, seeds and plumeria flowers. A successful garage sale day!!!

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Chicken Little 1, Snowflakes 0

September 21, 2011

I went back to City Council yesterday for round two of the Snowflakes. The good news is I think I nailed my second chicken speech, and the city is going to research and discuss the issue at a future meeting. The bad news is that the future meeting probably won’t be for a few months, and the city is enforcing the ordinance NOW, so the Snowflakes have to go! BOOOOO! HISSSSSS! Fortunately, I’ve had a Plan B has been in place for a while, so the Snowflakes will go to a new home that is pro-chicken. Depending on how things go in the future, maybe the Snowflakes will be back, but in the meantime, the Snowflakes will be flying the coop.

Here’s my speech from yesterday’s meeting:

Honorable Mayor and Coronado City Council,

Since I spoke at the last City Council meeting two weeks ago, my chickens, the Snowflakes, have been flying high with all the publicity. My speech went viral but not in the avian flu kind of way. It’s been a very positive response all around, which was eggs-actly what I was hoping for! My blog, 3000Tomatoes.com (that was a shameless plug!) has gathered quite a flock of followers. A Coronado High School English teacher had her freshman and junior classes read my speech, so I had commentary from a couple of hundred students. And it was featured in the Union-Tribune. Mr. Mayor, just for the record, columnist Tom Blair threw down that chicken gauntlet, not me!

On a Sunday morning ten days ago, two Coronado police officers showed up in my front yard, saying they were following up on a report of chickens on the property. I thought my friend, a local Police Sargeant, was playing a yolk on me, but when I realized the officers were serious, you could have knocked me over with a feather. It turns out Chicken Little squawked again. Chicken Little needs to realize that the sky is NOT falling, it’s just coastal morning fog. It’s gonna burn off.

Other than puffing out their feathers a little with all this attention, my Snowflakes are just doing what they do best; eating, laying eggs, scratching for food, and making a mess. Every day, I clean up their cock-a-doodle doo, throw in a bunch of chicken feed, and give them fresh water. As of today, the total egg count from the Snowflakes since they laid their first egg on December 31, 2010, is 464.

I would like to continue to be the hen mother of my little coop troop because I prefer quiche over chicken pot pie. Hens, I request that the Coronado City Council change the current ordinance, allowing a few chickens, NOT ROOSTERS, and defining acceptable chicken coop parameters.

I will continue advocating for my Snowflakes, sunny side up, but hopefully, you’ll get cracking on this issue because I’m running out of punny material. Thank you very much!

What?.........

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Miscellaneous Monday 9-19-11

September 19, 2011

Our last week of Summer!

Interested in becoming a San Diego Master Gardener? Here’s the info to get started: San Diego Master Gardener Class 2012

Here are Four Trellis Ideas for your garden.

I have never been to a Chicken Festival!

This Wall Street Journal article shows some beautiful Herb & Flower Arrangements, even giving you a blow-by-blow on how to achieve these results.

Colonial Williamsburg shows us that gardening hasn’t changed that much in over 200 years.

You can choose a career path as a Horticulture Therapist. Who knew?!

Have a nice week!

Beautiful color and texture!

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Fleeting Moments of Fame

September 14, 2011

My chicken speech has been working its way around town, and has gone viral on the internet, too. Apparently, I’ve struck a nerve!

I was at the Sunday concert in the park and was approached by a couple of people who watched the city council meeting on TV and saw my speech. They loved it.

I discovered that a local high school english teacher had her students read my speech and comment on it. It’s been a lot of fun to read the students’ impressions of my speech! I’ve been interviewed by two publications. I’ve had phone calls from people I don’t know who want to help by drumming up support, so now I have an entourage.

I spoke with the city administrator to find out when I could expect my issue to be on the council’s agenda and, in between giggles, she told me that it’s on next Tuesday’s agenda.

All of this hoopla isn’t going down well with Chicken Little who called the police on Sunday. Seriously, it was 9/11, a day of remembrance, but Chicken Little squawked and two officers showed up at our front door. The officers were only doing their jobs and are required to investigate all complaints, so I showed them all my documentation and explained that I’d been to city council. In the end, they didn’t cite me. I asked how much a citation would be, but they admitted that they had never been called out on a chicken complaint so they had no idea. That would be interesting to know so maybe I’ll call on that. I assume the officers had more pressing matters to follow up on so I felt badly that the Snowflakes diverted their attention.

Note to Chicken Little: I’m willing to have a conversation so I wish you would at least make an attempt to strut your stuff along the high road. (I’m not getting my hopes up. Chicken = needs to man up. Little = the size of his hard boiled eggs.) Sorry, I needed a snarky moment.

Anyhoo, today in the Union-Tribune, I was featured in Tom Blair’s column so another minute of my fifteen minutes of fame has been spent. Check out “Mayberry West”.

In the meantime, the Snowflakes are busy doing a whole bunch of nothing which is still a lot when you have to lay an egg every day!

Who doesn’t love a dirt bath?!

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Time Will Tell….

September 13, 2011

I have never seen this before. An aloe plant sent up a bloom stalk which bloomed, and now there are interesting pods on the flower stock. I wonder how these will evolve?

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Monarch Watch

September 11, 2011

I’ve got Monarch butterflies flitting all over my yard this week. Sitting on my front porch, it’s a constant back and forth of these little beauties. I planted more milkweed (Asclepias) to add to the plants that were eaten down to nothing. I found an interesting variety that is two colors, yellow and red. Hopefully, [...]

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Going To The Mat For The Snowflakes

September 6, 2011

Today I took the chicken issue to City Hall. Somebody wrote a complaint against the chickens so it was time to get the issue in front of Coronado City Council. I wrote a totally dorky chicken speech and I think I nailed it today up at the podium during Oral Communications. What’s the point of [...]

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