By Jeff Oster, UC Butte County Master Gardener, October 13, 2017.

Chico's Lindo Channel, also known as Sandy Gulch, is a seasonal waterway that serves as a flood control channel.  The soil has significant percentages of sand and cobble, further enhancing summer dryness. Since moving there in 1991, I have established a drip irrigation system to help establish native plants on the streamside bank on my property.  What has worked for me along the Channel could also work in a variety of gardening conditions.

I have separated the plants according to size (and therefore purpose), forming three articles: today's article on large trees, and two more articles, one smaller shrub-trees, and another on shrubs, which will appear in this column in the coming weeks.  Each article will describe plants that have been successful in the Lindo Channel gardening conditions, and indicate the variety of insects, birds, and mammals that make their homes in them.

Large Trees

Large trees are highly effective features in a landscape, but are also useful in creating a high canopy so that a variety of plants (including shade plants) can grow underneath, and in providing substantial habitat for wildlife.  Western Sycamore, Oregon Ash, Big Leaf Maple, and Valley Oak do well in the Lindo Channel environment.

Western Sycamore (Platanus racemosa)

Western Sycamore (also commonly known as California sycamore, California plane, and Aliso) is native to California and Baja California, where it grows in canyons, floodplains, and along streams. They are also often found next to drier habitats such as chaparral, valley grassland, mixed woodlands or evergreen forests.

Because their roots go down, not out, if given enough water, they are good trees near patios or in urban environments. They grow quickly (up to 30 feet in five years). Eventual height can reach 115 feet, but more commonly 65-85 feet, with a trunk diameter up to three feet. The trunk generally divides into two or more large trunks, each splitting into many branches. The bark is multi-colored, with splashes of white, pinkish gray and pale tan. The older bark becomes darker and peels away. Leaves are up to 10 inches wide. After a good rain, the leaves produce a fresh, earthy scent. Western Sycamore trees are deciduous, with leaves turning yellow and orange-brown in the fall. Flowers are one-inch spheres that become seed balls. Western Sycamores are tough and easy to grow: they will tolerate a wide variety of soils and pH levels and prefer full sun, but they do need a lot of water. Western Sycamores are important hosts for Western Tiger Swallowtail and other butterflies, hummingbirds, finches, waxwings, and pine siskins. Hummingbirds use the down from stems and leaves to line their nests. They are deer resistant trees, but are susceptible to anthracnose fungus (leaf blight) if it rains when leaves are expanding. The disease causes disfiguration of the leaves in mild cases and leaf loss in severe cases

For more information on Western Sycamore, see California Native Plant Society, Western Sycamore.

Oregon Ash (Fraxinus latifolia)

Oregon Ash is found from the southern coast of British Columbia, west of the Cascades in Washington and Oregon, to the coast ranges and Sierra Nevada range of California. It grows quickly to 75 feet in height. Long-lived, easy to care for, this tree likes moist to wet soils, including heavy soils near streams, lakes and in flood plains, in sun to partial shade. It also grows on sandy, rocky, and gravelly soils in riparian areas (near river banks) or areas with seasonal flooding. Foliage turns bright yellow in fall.

Seeds are single samaras (fibrous wings of papery tissue), with long wings (up to two inches) borne in large, drooping clusters on female trees. These are eaten by birds and small mammals, while the foliage provides sustenance for the larvae of pale swallowtail, two-tailed swallowtail, and western tiger swallowtail butterflies.

Oregon Ash trees are susceptible to caterpillars and scales, anthracnose, root rot, rust, sooty mold and verticillium wilt.

For more information on Oregon Ash, see California Native Plant Society, Oregon Ash.

Big Leaf Maple (Acer macrophyllum)

Big Leaf Maples are native to western North America, mostly near the Pacific coast, from southernmost Alaska to southern California, and also thrive inland in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They are found in riparian areas in hardwood forests and dispersed through relatively open canopies of conifers, mixed evergreens, or oaks. Growth is very fast at first, to 50 to 65 feet, eventually reaching up to 160 feet in height with a trunk diameter of 12 to 36 inches. The 4 to 6-inch clusters of greenish-yellow flowers appear with leaves in the spring. Leaves are six to twelve inches across. In fall, they turn gold to orange-yellow. Trees are long-lived. These are good native trees near lawns; they need lots of water for the first year or so. They are not as tolerant of wet soils as ash trees and can be drought tolerant in their native range. Tolerant of soils with serpentine and clay; will survive (though not at best) in sandy soil.

The seeds, buds and flowers of Big Leaf Maple are a favorite food of many small mammals and birds. Speciesassociated with Big Leaf Maple are evening and blackheaded grosbeaks, goldfinches, pine siskins, warblers, vireos, bushtits and kinglets.

For more information on Big Leaf Maple, see California Native Plant Society, Big-Leaf-Maple.

Valley Oak Quercus lobate

The Valley Oak is native to riparian areas of the central valley, the valleys of the Sierra foothills, and the coast ranges of California. The fastest growing (three to four feet per year) of California oaks, it is deciduous and can grow to 70 feet. With age, the branches are irregular and spreading. Leaves are deeply lobed. Valley oaks like sun and moderate water with a water table above 70 feet. Do not water established oaks. They are long-lived and tolerant of seasonal flooding and a variety of soils (though they prefer deep soils with pH of 6 to 8).  These trees are deer resistant.

Valley Oaks provide nesting sites for birds, and are popular with insects year-round and with the birds that eat them (including bluebirds, warblers, phoebes, flycatchers, vireos, swallows, and titmice). This tree hosts numerous species of butterfly, including California sister, propertius duskywing, mournful duskywing, golden hairstreak, and gold Hunter's hairstreak.  The acorns of the Valley Oak are a staple food of the acorn woodpecker, but a variety of mammals and birds also eat them, including scrub jays, yellow-billed magpie, deer, bears, and squirrels.

For more information on Valley Oak, see: California Native Plant Society, Valley Oak.

The following two charts refer to plants referenced in the three part series on native plants that thrive in Chico and Lindo Channel.

Channel Native Plant Characteristics

Channel Natives Flowering Time and Color

By Jeff Oster, UC Butte County Master Gardener, October 25, 2017.

Note:  This is the second in a three-part series on native plants that have proven successful on the author's property along the Lindo Channel in Chico.  The previous article discussed large trees; the final article in the series will cover smaller shrubs. 

Western Redbud, California Buckeye, Toyon, and California Flannelbush are all plants in this category that attract pollinators, provide interest over several seasons of the year, and can be grown in a number of different gardening environments. They are especially effective planted in groups for repetition of form, and can create informal hedges or provide a backdrop for smaller plants.

Western Redbud (Cercis occidentalis) is native on dry slopes of the coast ranges and Sierra Nevada foothills to 4500 feet and eastward to Utah (usually situated next to a spring or seasonal creek). It is a deciduous, multi-trunked shrub or small tree with a long life span, growing two to three feet per year and reaching to six to twenty feet over time. Magenta flowers appear in February to April before the leaves, and last for two to three weeks. The leaves are kidney-shaped and bluish-green; they can provide a lovely garden backdrop for summer-blooming plants, and turn yellow in fall. Reddish-purple seed pods hang from the branches in winter. The bushes are impressive in groups.

Western Redbud likes full sun, and will grow faster if given some summer water. It will tolerate clay soils and soils with lime or acid (pH levels 5.5 to 8). It can provide good stabilization along a ridge or bank.  The roots perform the useful role of fixing nitrogen. A good winter chill is necessary for good flower set. The flowers and young pods are edible; the plants will self-seed.      

Western Redbud attracts hummingbirds, goldfinches, butterflies, and bees (including leaf-cutter bees) to its flowers. It is deer resistant, and resistant to Oak Root Fungus. While generally pest-free, Western Redbud is susceptible to caterpillars and scales, and to crown and root rot.

California Buckeye (Aesculus californica) is found in a variety of environments, including Coastal Sage Scrub, Mixed-evergreen Forest, Riparian (alongside rivers & creeks) and Central Oak Woodland communities. It is a long-lived deciduous small tree, normally growing to 15 feet (occasionally up to 39 feet), with multiple trunks. Showy white six-inch scented flower spikes appear in April to May, after leafing.

California Buckeye will grow in conditions ranging from partial shade to full sun, and it is drought tolerant but needs regular water during the first few years. It will tolerate clay and serpentine soils (pH 4 to 8) and seasonal flooding, and is useful as a slope stabilizer. In the garden it will drop leaves early (going summer dormant) if it gets dry; otherwise leaves will drop in the fall.  

The nectar of the California Buckeye attracts hummingbirds, native bees and butterflies.

California Buckeye is poisonous to livestock, Asian honey bees, and fish. Its seeds are toxic unless processed.  It is deer-resistant.

Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia).  Also known as Christmas Berry, Toyon is native to much of California. It is a multi-stemmed evergreen shrub to small tree with white flowers in summer and red berries in winter. Toyon can grow quickly to six to eight feet high (sometimes reaching as high as 20 feet) and four to five feet wide. Toyon makes a good screen or specimen plant.

While Toyon likes full sun, it can tolerate full shade, and will grow in a variety of soils (pH 5 to 8), and can help stabilize a ridge or bank. It is drought tolerant after a few years, but will tolerate some water if drainage is good.  

Toyon attracts a wide range of pollinator insects including native bees, pollinator flies, and butterflies. Winter fruit attracts cedar waxwings, towhees, finches, flickers, grosbeaks, bluebirds, robins, thrushes, mockingbirds, quail, tanagers, warblers and sparrows. Often the ripe berries ferment before they are eaten, so birds may get a little tipsy. Mammals, including coyotes and bears, also eat and disperse the berries.

Toyon is susceptible to fire blight and root rot (if over-watered).  Over time, it will become deer resistant.

California Flannelbush (Fremontodendron californicum) is native to a number of California plant communities. This evergreen shrub grows quickly to five feet (and can eventually reach up to 20 feet). Showy yellow flowers, three inches across, appear in spring.

California Flannelbush likes sun to part shade. It is drought tolerant and needs no summer water but must have good drainage, preferring well-drained (sandy) soils (pH 6 to 8) near natural drainage channels (placement along the top of a riverbank is ideal.

California Flannelbush attracts bees and butterflies, has few pest problems, and is deer resistant.

The following two charts refer to plants referenced in the three part series on native plants that thrive in Chico and Lindo Channel.

Channel Native Plant Characteristics

Channel Natives Flowering Time and Color

 

 

 

 

 

By Jeff Oster, UC Butte County Master Gardener, November 10, 2017.

Note:  This is the third in a three-part series on native plants that have proven successful on the author's property along the Lindo Channel in Chico.  The previous articles discussed large trees, small trees and large shrubs.

California Wild Rose, Silver Lupine, and California Fuchsia are all smaller shrubs that provide flower color and foliage interest while also offering food and habitat for wildlife in our area.

California Wild Rose (Rosa californica) is native throughout California, except for the high Cascade Range and the high Sierra Nevada. It is a deciduous, thicket-forming shrub growing four to eight feet in height, with prickly, arching stems. One to two-inch fragrant pink flowers appear from mid-spring through summer.

If planted in dry light shade, California Wild Rose needs no supplemental irrigation, but if planted in full sun, extra water will be necessary. It is adaptable to many soil types, and is useful as a barrier plant and soil stabilizer. Any all-purpose plant food will keep it healthy, flowering, and attractive all year.  It is immune to mildew and rust.

California Wild Rose provides excellent nesting and shelter habitat for songbirds and attracts butterflies. The flowers support many pollinator species; after bloom, wild rose hips persist on the plant and are an important food source for birds and mammals.

Silver Lupine (Lupinus albifrons) is a perennial which quickly grows to three feet, then slowly reaches up to five feet. Flowers are very showy and fragrant, appearing in blue spikes on a white-silver bush and blooming from spring into summer.

Plant Silver Lupine in full sun with good drainage and some water (performs best on the dry side). This plant prefers well-drained soils with a pH of 6 to 8. The life span of Silver Lupine is about 6 years; plants fix nitrogen and will often reseed forming small colonies. This makes it a good choice for erosion control or planting on a rocky slope.

Silver Lupine is a specific host to the Mission Blue Butterfly.  It also attracts other butterflies, bees, and birds (including quail).  It is deer resistant; but it is important to note that Silver Lupine is toxic to livestock.

California Fuchsia (Zauschneria californicum or Epilobium canum)is a low-growing shrub with bright orange to red flowers and gray or green leaves. This plant grows where there is extra moisture in the winter and spring, with the soil gradually drying through fall. California Fuchsias prefer a cool but sunny location, but will tolerate part shade or hot sun with moisture. Summer watering is necessary the first year. By pruning or mowing established plants in winter, the shorter varieties will stay very low at three to six inches high, otherwise growing to two feet.  Plants will spread three to six feet across and boast hundreds of bright red one- to two-inch flowers from late summer to fall.

California Fuchsia tolerates many soils (pH 6 to 8), likes good drainage, and tolerates seasonal flooding and high foot traffic. Good rock garden selections are ‘Select Mattole' (silver), ‘Brilliant Smith' (bright green), and ‘Everett's Choice' (gray). ‘Catalina', ‘Route 66', and Z. arizonica, can be used as seasonal hedges. ‘Hurricane Point', ‘El Tigre', and ‘Kristin Jacob' can be used as short all-season hedges—lightly prune these varieties, but do not mow them.  Fertilize hard-pruned plants after growth resumes in spring.

California Fuchsia can seed abundantly, and be used to stabilize banks, sometimes becoming invasive.

This plant is a magnet for hummingbirds and also attracts bees.  It will tolerate deer damage, and is bothered by very few pests unless grown in large numbers.

The following two charts refer to plants referenced in the three part series on native plants that thrive in Chico and Lindo Channel.

Channel Native Plant Characteristics

Channel Natives Flowering Time and Color

By Laura Lukes, UC Master Gardener of Butte County, December 8, 2017.

They are capable of amazing acrobatics, from floating to hitchhiking to auguring. They are enchanting, magical, and mysterious. Exhibiting a variety of sizes, shapes, colors, textures, and scents, they can be densely nutritious or fatally poisonous. Some are the size of a child's head; others are microscopic. Some can live in a dormant state for thousands of years. They are opportunistic; they are ingenious. They can be breathtakingly beautiful, or quite plain. They are nature's disposable, single-use containers. They are seeds, the vehicle by which most of our planet's plants reproduce. And they are among Jennifer Jewell's passions and delights.  

Jennifer Jewell and John Whittlesey are the creators and curators of Seeds: Nature's Artful Engineering, a traveling exhibit of photographs, interpretive information, and hands-on activities. The exhibit aims to educate the public about California's fascinating native plants and their seeds, on the premise that the more we know and love a natural resource, the more we will appreciate, care for, and protect it.

Jewell recently presented a PowerPoint adaptation of the exhibit as part of the Butte County Master Gardeners 2017 Fall Public Education Series.  The following is a summary of her presentation. For more information about the traveling exhibit, please click here.

Seed-bearing plants (spermatophytes) evolved 400 million years ago, coinciding with the receding water and increasing land masses on Earth. The vast variety of seed structures that evolved revolutionized the ability of the plant kingdom to travel to almost every corner of our globe. Diversity is key to the successful reproduction and survival of many species, and seeds have that in spades: that's why our globe is covered in plants.

Basically, seeds consist of an embryo and an endosperm, both of which are often contained within a protective coating called the testa. The endosperm feeds the embryo until it is successfully sent out into the world by one (or more) dispersal methods. If the seed ends up in a welcoming location, and conditions are good, germination can occur. When it does, the seed becomes a seedling, sending roots down into the earth and cotyledons up into the air. In a nutshell, that's the job of a seed: protect, nurture, disperse.

The wonder and beauty of seeds is legion – but part of the wonder lies in the variety of dispersal methods plants have evolved to ensure reproductive success. There is no form, color, texture, size, or scent left unexploited in the bag of reproductive tricks developed by spermatocytes. The five basic dispersal strategies are Wind, Water, Weight, Wildlife, and Ballistics. Every plant utilizes at least one of these methods, and most employ several. The fact that each technique has advantages and disadvantages is a prime example of the tradeoffs and compromises inherent in evolution.

Wind (Anemechory): Reliance on wind is a common method (think pine trees, rice, and other grasses), but not the most efficient. This is why plants with seeds designed to be whisked away on the wind produce enormous amounts of light, aerodynamic seeds. When you depend on the vagary of air currents, you can't be choosy about where you land, and producing lots of seeds dramatically increases survival odds. The structure of the seed itself creates specific movements in the air. The samara produced by the California bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) is a good example: it locomotes like a helicopter until it drops to the ground.

Water (Hydrochory): Seeds designed to take advantage of moving water capitalize on the largest single ecosystem on our globe. As Jewell says, these plants have solved the age-old dilemma of how close to live to Mama, and the answer is “not very”! The leaves of the Indian rhubarb (Darmera peltate), a riparian plant common along our foothill streams, funnel its seeds into the water flowing beneath the plant. Taking hold in the soil away from the parent, they benefit from reduced competition for resources. Conversely, seeds dispersed in this way can forfeit the advantage of existing pollinator attractors.

Weight (Barochory): Gravity-fed dispersal is the domain of conifers and trees bearing large nuts, as well as sycamores. The sheer weight of the mature seed triggers its fall to the earth. These large seeds do not easily travel under their own resources, and either sprout under the parent, or rely on animals to move them about.

Wildlife (Zoochory): A variety of strategies encourages animals to disperse seeds. Through an ingenious crafting of texture, shape, and color, the plant attracts wildlife in order to hitch a ride (epizoochory) and be dropped or scraped off later, or to be consumed by an animal (endozoochory) and then deposited along with the animal's feces in a different location. Although poisonous to humans, the seeds of poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) are an important food source to overwintering wildlife and the birds which migrate along the Pacific Flyway, ensuring a wide dispersal range.

Ballistics (Ballozoochory): In what is perhaps the most impressive seed-dispersal tactic, explosions forcibly propel the seed away from the parent. Triggered by a change in heat or humidity, some part of the seeds' casing will contract and expand and change shape, ejecting seeds in the process. The beloved California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) is a prime example of seeds that burst open. This summer, save some poppy seeds in a paper bag, and listen to them as they dehisce (burst open).

Of our native California plants, the largest seed is that of the buckeye (Aesculus californica) and the smallest is the microscopic seed of any of our native orchids (such as lady slipper and stream orchid). The largest seed on earth is the coconut. Seeds can remain viable for thousands of years: a viable seed from a lotus was discovered in an Egyptian tomb. Curiously, seeds whose endosperms provide the most food to their embryos often have the shortest life span, and those which provide the least amount of food can last the longest.

Jewell notes that fall is a great time to view seeds in all their wonder and glory. Their structures are visible, as many are preparing to, or have already, dispersed their embryos to start new life. We urge you to go outside on a seed hunting hike, and find a front row seat to the greatest show on earth.

Note: Jennifer Jewell is an avid gardener and writer. Her garden writing has appeared in House & Garden, Gardens Illustrated and Pacific Horticulture among other publications. She currently serves as the Vice President of the Board of the Pacific Horticulture Society. A weekly voice of gardening on North State Public Radio in Chico, CA since 2008, she is the creator and host of the newly syndicated national radio program: "Cultivating Place: conversations on natural history and the human impulse to garden". John Whittlesey is owner of Canyon Creek Nursery & Design in interior Northern California and a garden designer, plantsman, landscape contractor, and photographer. He is author of The Plant Lover's Guide to Salvias published by Timber Press in 2014.