If your garden is big enough to run magnificently wild, you'll be fine. But if your garden is smaller and well-manicured, watch out! The beauty and vigor of native plants that are happy there comes at a price—the constant struggle to keep them in check.

This blog post was born as, with growing astonishment, I reeled in yard after yard after yard of multiple runners of native California pipevine (Aristolochia californicaTorr.), hand over hand. If I hadn't, in short order a wholefenceline of desirable plants would have wound up smothered in its big, soft leaves. In January, I was thrilled to see the vine's trellis covered with little brown “pipes.” I allowed it free rein in a large neighboring bush, while clipping errant tendrils I noticed heading in other directions. Only when I happened to lift some of the thick mulch along thefenceline did the scope ofpipevine'sinvasiveness hit home! Moreover, thepipevine went to seed this fall, which will make things worse. I've got a resident monster that will require perpetual monitoring and pruning of runners and seedpods.

Pipevine flowers, January

The very first eye-opener came ten years ago, when I planted a bed of native showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa Torr., to establish a monarch breeding site. (Not even one caterpillar, so far.) The milkweed grew tall, bore huge leaves and lovely bunches of fragrant flowers—and proceeded to fall over onto every other plant within a five-foot radius! I've since controlled this competitive gambit by placing large tomato frames around each clump of sprouting milkweed stems. More startling was that milkweed sprouts appeared all over the garden, as far as twenty feet from the Mother Ship. I must constantly pluck them out of our bark mulch open space and from among other plants. Obviously, the milkweed's subterranean connections are nearly as impressive as the pipevine's surface ones. Starting that first year, I've pruned off the immature milkweed seedpods, alarmed at the thought of spreading by that means, too.

Pipevine in gooseberry, April

This spring, the milkweed sprouted through a thick blanket of California fuchsia, Epilobium canum (Greene) P.H.Raven, that in its third year is starting to overrun the milkweed bed and much else besides. I've been ripping it out at the edges so as to spare adjacent plants. That too will be an ongoing task.

CA fuchsia overrunning milkweed bed, April

Don't get me wrong—I love these plants, and am glad they're in my garden. But if you assume, as I did, that native plants will be low-maintenance, think again. We establish them with their water-wise and wildlife advantages in mind—from monarch butterflies to hummingbirds—and want them to thrive. But the trade off for them doing well may be the unending challenge of reining them in. 

Photos: all taken by Patricia Matteson

1)    Pipevine flowers, January

2)    Pipevine in gooseberry shrub, April

3)    California fuchsia overrunning milkweed bed, April

A while back, I wrote a blog on the fun notion of converting one of my raised-bed veggie gardens into a pollinator-friendly flower garden. I imagined this would bring a splash of color to the yard for most of the year. It became a fun project, and I loved the results.

I decided that the garden would have both perennial and annual flowering plants.  The perennials would endure over time, and I planned to replace the short-lived annuals with flowers that bloom each season of the year.  I first planted the perennials and waited to see how they evolved before deciding on which annuals to add.  Meanwhile, a mystery plant appeared in the area where I planned to plant the annuals.  I wondered how this plant ended up in my garden; maybe a seed was brought by birds, a breeze or a gnome that came to life one evening?

The plant did not look like any of the usual unwanted weeds, so I left it to grow to see what would turn out. It took a few seasons to finally bloom but became a very pleasant surprise! The plant grew tall narrow stalks that displayed strikingly white, cup-shaped flowers.  The flowers first emerged at the bottom of the stem and more appeared opening one at a time up, growing up the main stalk... It was beautiful!

Once it flowered, I started to recognize this plant on my walks throughout my neighborhood in Vacaville. I did some research and discovered that it is the Alcea rosea, commonly known as a Hollyhock.

Hollyhock plant in bloom - P. Pashby

Hollyhock plant in bloom 2 - P. Pashby

Some facts on Hollyhocks:

• They can grow up to six feet tall.
• They have a substantially long blooming period, from early summer through fall, between June and September.
• They start to blossom from the bottom of the stem and grow new blooms up the stalk one at a time, as I observed with the Hollyhock in my garden.
• They are “biennials”, completing their life span within two growing seasons. The first year, they tend to put energy into growing foliage and establishing their root system. The second year, they will bloom, generate seeds, and then die.

So now I have some new gardening decisions to make. If I let the Hollyhock go into bloom, it will self-seed and spread anywhere in the yard. The blooms are stunning, but the plant ended up taking a large space in my limited-size garden…I will move the plant somewhere else to continue its natural life cycle.

I find great pleasure in these garden discoveries. Hopefully, another mystery plant will come my way to explore in the near future.

One of the nicest Christmas gifts I've received was a plate of homemade membrillo and (purchased) Manchego cheese. In the words of Rachael Ray, “Yum-o!” If you have never heard of membrillo, it is quince paste or quince jelly made by very slowly cooking the fruit together with sugar, lemon and vanilla until it forms a paste. Membrillo is the Spanish word for quince, a tree that has been around for millennia.

I had forgotten about this gift, until a few weeks ago when I was walking the Centennial Park bike path and passed two teachers on a school holiday checking out a tree near the path. They thought the ripe-looking, kind of lumpy, lightly fuzzy, golden-colored fruit on the tree was pear. It's a good thing they didn't try to eat it raw; it is tough, acidic and astringent. Some in the Iberian Peninsula and Asia where the tree is more commonly grown have developed a taste for it in its raw state. I wonder who figured out to cook it to make it not only edible but delicious. Maybe it was the floral aroma that originally drew that first chef in. One quince can make a whole room smell sweet.

The fruit. photos by Michelle Davis

The quince tree (Cydonia oblonga) is in the rose family along with apples and pears, but is the only member in the Cydonia group. The fruit is tough to cut, and the cut flesh is the color of an apple or pear. Once cooked down to a gelatin, the flesh turns a deep pink to ruby red.

Quince is a fall fruit, but commercially-grown fruit in the Southern Hemisphere can be found in US grocery stores in the spring. Trees can be grown in our area. They grow slowly and do eventually spread to the same width as height of the tree. They can be pruned to control the spread. They like loamy soil that drains well, but will still thrive in our local clay and once established, can tolerate some drought conditions.  Now is the time to plant - late fall to early spring. They are self-fertile, but like most self-fertile trees, will produce more with another of the same. Dwarf varieties can be grown in large containers (at least 18 inches wide and deep). All varieties like wind-sheltered locations in full sun. Fruit arrives in around 5-6 years but doesn't ripen on the tree. Wait until the fruit is fragrant and pick before the first frost. They do continue to ripen after picking. Just as with apples, keep an eye out for codling moths and trap as needed. Also, just as with apples and pears, copper sprays can be used for fire blight. Some varieties are more fire blight-resistant.

A quick internet search produced at least 20 varieties available to US gardeners. The dwarf trees usually range from 8 to 12 feet, and the standard trees up to about 26 feet. All trees have pale pink to white flowers in the spring.

So, what about those flowering quince shrubs that have beautiful red flowers in the spring? Those thorny plants are also from the Rosaceae family, but are Chaenomeles species and they don't produce anything edible, nothing like the Spanish tapa of membrillo and Manchego. My mouth waters just thinking about it!

Quince flowers.

I planted a crab apple tree many years ago, probably in the 1990s. I wanted a small tree for my backyard.  I thought a crab apple tree would give me a bit of shade and beautiful blossoms in the spring.  I don't know what variety it is, but the fruit is a beautiful light green.

Crabapple harvest. Photos by Karen Metz

I mainly used it as an ornamental tree. I didn't know what to do with the fruit.  I would collect the small green crab apples and display them in a deep blue bowl. I used it as a decoration to span the late fall to winter transition time.

One year I made crab apple bread and then I got interested in making apple sauce, well crab apple sauce. About that time, I started getting annoyed by how many of the crab apples were damaged. It looked like a worm had eaten through it, leaving a rusty trail.

I went straight to my University of California Agricultural resources and found that the problem was Cydia pomonella or codling moth.  Small gray moths lay eggs that become larvae which munch away into apples, crab apples, pears, walnuts, and sometimes plums.  https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7412.html will take you to a wonderful Pest Note that has pictures of the life cycle of the moth and discusses management techniques.  It's a difficult creature to manage as much of its life is spent inside the fruit.  There were multiple options, but many seemed to be more pertinent to farmers rather than a backyard gardener with a single tree. I also wanted to avoid using pesticides as I am trying to attract pollinators to my yard.

Sanitation was stressed as a major management technique. Picking up dropped fruit which is frequently infested and raking up fallen leaves can help decrease the population. It will also limit the over wintering sites and interrupt the creature's life cycle.  I could do that.

The Pest Note also discussed a bagging technique which tries to protect young fruit before the moth lays its eggs.  You use brown paper lunch bags, cut a small X in the bottom of the bag and slip it over the fruit when it is small, ½ to 1 inch.  Next you fold over the bag and staple it. Our tree was small and mostly reachable from the ground, we would just need a step ladder for the tallest parts. This seemed doable.

Crabapple after bagging.

On May 30^th I bought a 100-pack of brown lunch bags and my husband, and I worked for about 3 hours slipping bags over fruit.  When we ran out of bags, I decided that the remaining fruit would be the control specimens in our experiment.  It would be great!

The next day my husband and I were very sore.  I found 3 bags that had come off and were on the ground.  Two days later after a windy day, I found 3 more on the ground.  The bags on the lower branches would get wet from the sprinkler, but they dried out. We lost more bags over time.  Sometimes the bags on the ground would have the fruit still in them but other times the bags would be empty.  That meant that some of the fruit which had been bagged initially was remaining on the tree “naked”.  I had no way of distinguishing those from the original unbagged crab apple controls.  So much for my clear-cut experiment.  Also, we had to explain to the new neighbor who had just moved in next door what we were doing and why. The tree did look odd!

In mid-October, we started seeing that some crab apples were ready to come down when we wiggled the bag. Some needed a bit longer. Since we had green-skinned crab apples, we were able to leave the bags on until the harvest. Red-skinned varieties need to have the bags removed about 1 to 2 weeks before harvest to allow them to color up.

Because we couldn't do a control versus experimental comparison anymore, I can just make general observations. I think the total harvest was about the same amount as in previous years, even with all the bags that came off along the way.  I do think the overall size of the crab apples was larger. From outward appearances, there seem to be fewer infected crab apples.  The picture of the harvested crab apples was after they had been in my refrigerator for about 2-3 weeks.  We have been traveling and I haven't gotten around to making my crab apple sauce yet.

I think I will try this again next year with a few modifications.  Since I am working with crab apples rather than apples, I will try to find smaller paper bags. Even with folding and stapling shut, the larger bags seemed to act almost like a sail in our winds.  It will be interesting to see if I have fewer blowing off, if I use a smaller bag and if that will lead to a bigger harvest.  Hopefully combining this with the sanitation/clean up techniques, we can decrease the level of codling moths even more in the future.