- Author: Beth Wray
- Author: Tami Reece
- Author: Sophia Stevens
- Editor: Jennifer Hopkins
UC Master Gardeners, whose mission is to extend research-based knowledge and information on home horticulture, pest management, and sustainable landscape practices to the residents of San Luis Obispo County, is now officially in Paso Robles, welcoming residents to visit their new demonstration garden at the Centennial Park. On Saturday, Aug. 12, the UC Master Gardeners of San Luis Obispo County will host an Open House from 8 to 11 a.m. at 600 Nickerson Drive in Paso Robles.
The garden project has been two years in the making, beginning in August 2020 when the initial conversations started with the City of Paso Robles and the University of California Regents for the UC Master Gardener Program of San Luis Obispo County to take responsibility for the 3,500-square-foot garden space at the city's Centennial Park.
“The City of Paso Robles is thrilled to partner with the Master Gardeners of SLO County to present a beautifully renewed Centennial Park Demonstration Garden for the benefit, enjoyment and education of our community,” said Community Services Director Angelica Fortin. “As we continue to develop this 3,500-square-foot garden space together, we will focus on demonstrating water conservation, providing food to the hungry and inviting community interaction. We believe the garden will become a special place for community members to learn and grow together toward these common goals.”
UC Master Gardener volunteers will be stationed in the garden to discuss the eight different garden plots, which reflect the joint goals of the two organizations for this garden space: developing community green spaces, demonstrating water-wise gardening practices, donating food to local food banks, and providing opportunities for community education.
Soon, workshops will be scheduled at the garden, with topics such as home landscape design, pest identification, and management, pruning, what plants do and don't grow well locally, as well as other topics, keeping in mind the special climate requirements of North County. Workshop topics at the new garden will also be selected based on survey results collected at the upcoming Open House in August. Input from the community on preferred format and scheduling is encouraged and appreciated.
Future plans for the garden will include monthly open garden days, where UC Master Gardeners will be in the Centennial Park Demonstration Garden to answer questions.
“We're so thrilled to engage with the North County and help support their gardening success,” said Maria Murrietta, program coordinator for the UC Master Gardener Program of SLO County. “While we've had a strong presence in San Luis Obispo at the Garden of the Seven Sisters Demonstration Garden, this new garden offers a second beautiful place to host UC Master Gardener Program events and engage with home gardeners who have questions or want to learn more about gardening.”
For more information about the UC Master Gardeners of San Luis Obispo County, call (805) 781-5939 or visit ucanr.edu/sites/mgslo/.
- Author: Brett Israel
Reposted from the UC Berkeley news
UC Berkeley announced today the establishment of the Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity to tackle the most pressing issues facing the future of parks, including climate change and equitable access. The institute's inaugural executive director will be Jonathan B. Jarvis, who served 40 years with the National Park Service (NPS) and as its 18th director from 2009 to 2017.
“Our national, state and local parks are facing a myriad of challenges from climate change while simultaneously expected to provide recreation, wildlife refuge, public gathering space, health benefits and environmental justice,” Jarvis said. “I am very excited by this opportunity to bring together the extraordinary academic talents at UC Berkeley with the professionals in the parks and public lands to tackle these challenges.”
Jarvis brings a lifetime of park management experience to the institute. During his tenure as NPS director, Jarvis initiated extensive programs to address climate changes in the national parks, expanded the NPS by 22 new parks, and led the service through its Centennial with a vision for a second century of park stewardship, engaging communities through recreation, conservation, and historic preservation programs.
Resource Legacy Fund (RLF) provided $250,000 in seed money to launch the institute, continuing its nearly 20-year history of advancing conservation across the West. The nonprofit recently led efforts to help modernize the California park system through the Parks Forward Commission.
“The new institute will help inform future policy and management directions for parks,” said Michael Mantell, the founder and president of RLF. “Today we understand better than ever the economic, ecological and societal values of protecting parks and biological diversity. That's why we need a new vision for parks that includes equitable access and climate resilience, and policy to achieve that vision. Resources Legacy Fund is pleased to help UC Berkeley pioneer the interdisciplinary approach that can help advance our parks and serve society for the 21st century and beyond.”
The new institute continues Berkeley's long tradition of involvement in the national parks system, starting with its very foundation. In 1915, Stephen T. Mather, class of 1887, and Horace M. Albright, class of 1912, gathered a group at Berkeley's campus to plot a future for the country's existing and evolving national parks. The result of their efforts was legislation establishing the NPS in 1916, with Mather serving as its first director and Albright as its second.
For more than 100 years, research at Berkeley has helped guide evidence-based management policies and actions for parks. Berkeley's faculty, graduate students and natural history museums' curators conduct research in and for parks that produce key data and insights. Interdisciplinary studies of ecosystems yield important information about the management of biodiversity in the face of climate change, introduced species and other threats, and assess how protected land contributes to the health of the economy and the health of the planet, including carbon sequestration and ecosystem services. Research on the social, cultural and health benefits of parks contributes to decisions on park use and human enjoyment. The new institute will connect field managers and researchers to improve management of national, state, and local parks and other public lands.
Creation of the institute comes as the original concept of managing parks as discrete natural areas is increasingly out of date. Wildlife do not obey boundary lines, and climate change makes the historical record an unreliable predictor of future conditions. Park access must be expanded for underserved communities and urban populations, and to ensure continued support, parks must be managed in ways that engage younger generations.
One hundred years after the founding of the NPS, Berkeley hosted the 2015 summit “Science for Parks, Parks for Science: The Next Century” to advance the conversation about the future of parks. In the wake of this summit, the institute will help prepare parks, people and biodiversity for multiple futures, incorporating the best available science. The institute will bring together Berkeley faculty, researchers and practitioners across diverse disciplines to chart the course of park and protected space management for future. Berkeley's College of Natural Resources will host the institute, but the academic talents of the university's various colleges and disciplines will be involved, including public health, environment, education, design, business and law.
“We have world-class faculty who are already working on these issues, and we can look long term to study difficult questions across disciplines,” said Steven Beissinger, Berkeley professor of conservation biology in the College of Natural Resources, who led the push to start the institute.
- Author: Mishelle Petit
- Editor: Emily Harris
- Author: Clyde Elmore
- Posted by: Gale Perez
Before we just remove everything and plant rocks (which are almost impossible to remove if you ever want to change the landscape), and chips with a few shrubs or groundcover, maybe we need to think of what we really want to do in our surroundings. Do we want a place to play with children, or a dog, in our landscape? Do we just want a static display to look at, with no other care than reducing water use? Another concern, not often thought about, is by removing turfgrass as a part of the landscape, we will contribute to a warmer environment around our home; turfgrass also has many other beneficial effects for the environment, besides cooling (Jim Baird, University of California Agricultural & Natural Resources (UC ANR) Cooperative Extension Specialist, based at UC Riverside, in UC ANR News 2015.) There are many environmental benefits of having turfgrass. Some of these include fixing carbon from CO2 from the air, removing other air contaminants, reducing dust, increasing water penetration into soil, reducing water runoff into drains and reducing runoff of contaminates from bare soil.
Effective renovation depends upon what plant material is in the site. First, evaluate if the area has been beaten down into a hard “rock like soil.” Make a list of types of weeds, such as annual or perennial species or whether you have some real bad actors that are difficult to control. Will control take some special effort or practice? You may also need to rearrange the irrigation system to obtain uniform watering, with new sprinkler heads to use the least amount of water for the best result.
If the soil needs to be rototilled and you don't have perennials weeds, you can rototill the thatch into the soil and use it as mulch. If there is excess plant material, rake it off for use elsewhere as mulch. If there are perennial weeds such as bermudagrass, you may need to control in more of the lawn. It depends on what you want the turf to be and whether it needs to be uniform or just a mix of grasses. If the total area needs renovation, see UC ANR Publication 74113 (Weed Management in Lawns) for turf renovation suggestions. If bermudagrass is the culprit another suggestion is to apply a non-selective grass herbicide, glyphosate, to weeds that are growing well. Spray and then wait several days for the herbicide to work, then deep rototill the area to dry out any remaining roots and rhizomes (underground stems.) Withhold all watering so the soil is not re-wet or some bermudagrass often will regrow. Let it dry for several days and rototill it again to bring up new roots and rhizomes to dry again. This should eradicate bermudagrass with a single treatment, if done properly. Prepare the soil raking it flat and removing any clumps of thatch, then reseed or sod the turf to re-establish. This type of renovation should be done in the summer during the dry, hot season.
If only small patches are bare, raking the area to remove the old dead plant material will allow you to over seed with new grass seed and then cover with a light layer of fine mulch. Keep the mulch moist to establish the grass. Mow the grass at the maximum suggested height for the turf type, to rapidly establish new turf. Since bermudagrass will often have seeds in the soil, keep a vigorous cool season turf, such as a turf-type tall fescue, in the area that will compete with the seedling so bermudagrass does not reestablish.
Please see UC ANR Publication 74113 (Weed Management in Lawns) for suggestions for maintaining a reduced pest lawn.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
On April 1, 2015 Governor Brown mandated a 25% water reduction in urban water use. While you may have seen the news articles about some private citizens or even some public areas being irrigated like water is an unlimited resource, my observation is that most homes and public areas are in fact reducing their outdoor water use.
However, there were some problems that are coming along with that. I first noticed it when I was walking to the UC Riverside campus on April 14. The landscapers had cut off the water to the medians so all the turf was dead but now some drought tolerant weeds were growing. I think the campus had cut off irrigation to “non-essential” areas so that they could maintain adequate irrigation level in other places like the sports turf.
More recently, I have been noticing that many of the homes with lawns are reducing or cutting off their water. The same holds true for some parks and schools. As I saw at UCR, while the turf is dying out, the area is getting weedier.
What are the mid-term consequences as related to weeds due to the change in irrigation? In my opinion, there could be an increased use of herbicides if we do get a wet winter. The turf will not be competitive enough to reduce weed pressure and the weeds should do quite well. Also, we are seeing that in some areas such as parks and schools there is a species shift from cool season turf (tall fescue) being the dominant turf in parks to more competitive warm-season kikuyugrass.
As we learn to modify our irrigation practices we need to be aware that these changes will have an impact on weed pressure and species shifts. As we move into this new paradigm we will have to adapt our weed management plans and put more emphasis on soil moisture and irrigation amount and timing in that plan.