The last tour of the year occurred on August 4^th and there was a great showing of Master Gardeners interested in learning from each other. We started off at a prolific property on Congress Valley Road where vegetable gardens are intermingled with pollinizers and chickens (well maybe not the chickens, but they and their offspring were definitely present).

In addition to the vegetable gardens, there are a few fruit trees interspersed amongst the many olive trees. Italian plum and a 4-type hybrid apple stood out .

Within the gardens is a bed of Floriani red flint corn, grown specifically for making polenta. This MG's latest interest is to take garden areas and make them pollinator-friendly. It's succeeding in a big way and attracting lots of bees. He's also converted a vegetable bed into a California native garden, probably as a result of his time spent leading similar efforts at the Las Flores Learning Garden.

We all admired the tree in the front yard –maybe a bit too much. One visiting MG was curious and picked at a spot. You can see what's underneath the papery bark, prompting the question, “is this what inspired paper"?

Next up, we toured a re-imagined backyard in downtown Napa. The first time many of us were on this property was during a tour in 2021. What a transformation greeted us. A straight-forward lawn, bordered by trees, shrubs and flowers was replaced by a lush native habitat with softscape walkways–a pollinator paradise. This MG absolutely followed all the gardening rules. The area was lasagna composted about a year ago and planted with a variety of pollinator friendly vegetation. Among the many varieties planted were aster monch, lion's tail, buddleia, verbena, coreopsis, gaillardia, and yarrow, all featured in the Las Flores Learning Garden's Pollinator garden that this MG leads. The lawn was also removed from her front yard and mulch covers it. The front yard is covered in bark mulch awaiting her decision about what to plant in the shady area.

Fall fast approaches, and with it comes the perfect time to consider adding native trees, shrubs and flowers to create your own pollinator garden. A great resource for ideas to get you started (or improving) a native habitat for pollinators is: https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/pollinator-gardening.  The Napa chapter of the California Native Plant Society, https://chapters.cnps.org/napa/ , has information about planting and care of California natives and holds semi-annual plant sales at their location in Skyline Park. In addition, plan a trip to the Las Flores Learning Garden at 4300 Linda Vista in Napa to tour the pollinator and native plant gardens.

Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143.  Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.

Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.

 

A garden with a variety of plants with colorful blooms that produce pollen and nectar attracts and helps to support a variety of birds, butterflies, moths, and beneficial insects year-round.  These visitors play a critical role in sustaining our ecosystem by helping our plants reproduce. Pollinator gardens provide the habitat, plants, pollen, and nectar to help us care for our wildlife partners.  A pollinator garden can also give much personal satisfaction in the process so, investigate the many types of pollinators in your area and tailor your garden plans to supply their needs. In this final article dedicated to plant pollination we'll focus on plants that encourage those very important pollinating guests.

Research has shown that native bees prefer native plants in a 4 to 1 ratio, though they will feed on introduced plant species when given no other choice.  In the past, flowers with showy blooms have been the ‘go to' for many gardeners.  Humans enjoy the riot of color provided by various varieties of these hybrid plants.  Unfortunately, we have failed to consider the pollinator's needs as many of these hybrid plants, while providing lovely visuals, are short on the nectar and/or the pollen needed to support hard working pollinators.  

We have lost many wild land areas to development but we can help mitigate that loss by creating pollinator oases in our personal landscapes.  In fact, recent research has shown that urban plantings have had a very significant positive influence on the native bee populations.  Planting in different banks or blocks using a different pollinator friendly plant for each block creates areas where a variety of pollinators are encouraged and can load up on nectar and pollen without having to travel long distances between each flower.  For example, native bees usually nest within 50 feet of their foraging sites.

When planning your garden make sure to consider the early risers and the late comers.  Put in plants that bloom early in spring and some that will have flowers well into the late fall and winter.  Rather than prune the dry seed pods in the late fall, leave the seeds for the winter foragers.  Think of it as a slowly rotating smorgasbord for all those wonderful pollinator workhorses.  Also, a garden set up like this will provide you a wonderful changing panorama as these cycles progress through the seasons. 

California has many diverse native plant species available that are tailor-made to support our native pollinators. Here area few examples of early and late bloomers:

 v  Early bloomers

• Herbaceous flowering plant
  • Baby blue eyes Nemophila menziesii is a low growing annual with low water needs. It has stunning sky blue flowers that attract native bees, including mason bees (Osmia spp.); tolerates moderate shade and moisture
• Shrub
  • McMinn manzanita Arctostaphylos ‘McMinn' is a tall (5ft) perennial with low water needs.  It has clusters of small, bell-shaped flowers that provide early season forage for bumble bees and other spring bees and will tolerate clay soils

 v  Early-mid bloomers

• Herbaceous flowering plant
  The iconic
  California poppy Eschscholzia californica
  is an annual that is also a perennial because of its prolific self seeding properties. With its low water requirements it is easy to establish and long blooming; attracts a diversity of bees, bumble bees in particular.
  
• Shrub
  • California flannel bush Fremontodendron californicum a low water perennial that can reach 15 ft. It is a prolific bloomer with large, bell-shaped yellow flowers. It does not need summer water.

 v  Mid bloomers

• herbaceous flowering plant
  • Narrowleaf milkweed Asclepias fascicularis is a 12-18 9nch tall perennial with medium water needs. This is a Monarch butterfly host plant and it's a high-quality nectar source for many bees. It is  easier to establish from transplants than from seed.
• ShrubCalifornia buckwheat Eriogonum fasciculatum
  is a perennial that grows to about 30 in high and drought tolerant. It is a favored nectar source of many blue and hairstreak butterflies and also very attractive to native bees.
  

 v  Mid-late bloomers

• Herbaceous flowering plant
  • Common sunflower Helianthus annuus is a very tall (5 ft) annual with medium water needs.  A favorite of many bee species and easy to establish. It is tolerant of clay soils.

v  Late bloomers

• Herbaceous flowering plant
  • California fuchsia Epilobium canum is a medium tall (3ft) perennial with low water needs. It has abundant scarlet-colored flowers and is a critical late-season nectar source for hummingbirds and bees. 

For more information on these and many more California native plants:  Xerces.org-plants for pollinators

There are many pollinator plants that aren't California. natives. Some of the best non-native, pollinator-attracting annual and perennial flowers are: agastache, ageratum, allium, betony, catmint, cornflowers, cosmos, lavender, Mexican sunflowers, pentas, Russian sage, salvia, sedum, verbena, veronica, yarrow, and zinnia. Use these plants to round out your garden and create diversity in your landscape.  Contrary to popular belief pollinator attractive plants don't have to be herbaceous flowering plants; they can also be herbs that you allow to flower. Let your dill, parsley and other herbs 'bolt' or go to flower, then stand back and watch the pollinators enjoy themselves. 

We hope the information in this series can be an inspiration to create a pollinator garden of your very own. Having a pollinator friendly landscape will not only benefit the pollinators, it will give you hours of entertainment and contribute to a healthy environment in your own backyard.

Information links:  Las Flores Learning Garden-Plants for Pollinators

Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143.  Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.

Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.

Photo credits:

LFLG pics all taken by MGs: Las Flores Learning Garden-Plants for Pollinators

 

 

There are around 350,000 pollinator species in the world.  Though they are the most recognizable, bees are not the only plant pollinator team in town.  Other insects that help to carry this responsibility are. butterflies, flies, moths and beetles. These, along with birds, bats and other small mammals and lizards, fill out the plant pollinator roster.  Let's look at some of these often unrecognized helpmates.

Butterflies and moths

When thinking of gardens and pollinating butterflies often come to mind. Though butterflies are not built for pollination they do move the pollen as they flit from one nectar filled flower to another.  They like brightly colored flowers that offer ‘landing platforms' with their clustering growth habit. 

Moths do pollinate flowers but only those that flower at night.  Hawk moths or Morgan's sphinx moths are adapted to pollinate certain types of orchids and the yucca plant depends on the yucca moth for its pollination needs.  The flowers that night dwelling moths pollinate are usually dull colored. 

 Birds

For many people hummingbirds are the bird world's pollinator icon, but there are often other birds doing pollination duties without recognition.  There are honeycreepers in Hawaii, honeyeaters in Australia, brush-tongued parrots in New Guinea and sunbirds in the tropical old world, just to name a few.  Over 2,000 bird species feed on nectar.  Flowers with curved out petals that provide a platform, are bright colored and have lots of nectar are the main focus of these feathered pollinators. In their search for nectar these birds will visit a flower and, in the process, become dusted with pollen.  They will then move on to the next flower for more nectar and leave some of that precious pollen dusting their feathers behind to fertilize that new flower. 

 Flies:

Hoverflies (Syrphidae family) are thought to be one of the most important pollinators after the bee.  Most will pollinate flowers without being picky and some flowers even mimic aphid pheromones or the hover flies' favorite colors to attract them. 

Bee flies (Bombylius species) are another important fly pollinator.  They are bee imitators in their look but actually feed on bee larvae.  The bee flies have long sucking mouth parts specially suited to pollinate flowers with deep, narrow tubes.  Other pollinating flies are adult mosquitos, some adult fruit flies and carrion flies that are attracted to flowers with a fetid odor.

Wasps

Wasps are different from bees because, for the most part, instead of gathering pollen they catch prey to feed their larvae. In their search on the flowers for their prey the flower's pollen tends to stick to the wasp's body and then they inadvertently pollinate the other flowers they visit while hunting.  There is one species of wasps called ‘pollen wasps' because they gather pollen to feed their larvae and over 1,000 different species of figs that rely on the tiny fig wasp to pollinate them. 

 Beetles

Beetles have been around pollinating flowers for centuries and they still “soldier on.”  They prefer the more ancient plant species like magnolias and spicebush.  The beetles that eat the pollen and nectar like the dull colored, fruity flowers that grow separately or in groups during the daylight. They are not neat pollinators in that they sometimes eat the petals and other parts of the flowers and often leave little calling cards of feces behind. 

 Other less known pollinators

Believe it or not there are still more pollinators out there and some may surprise you.  Mammals like monkeys, lemurs, possums, bats and rodents and even some lizards join the party as well. 

Though these are not found in our area they are interesting nonetheless. The largest known pollinator is the black and white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) of Madagascar.  This mammal feeds on the traveler's palm by pulling the tough flowers open and sticking their snout inside for the nectar.  Their nose gets covered with pollen and when they visit the next flower and stick their nose in, viola, that flower gets pollinated. 

 The lizard, the Noronha skink (Trachylepis atlantica) from Brazil, crawls into the leguminous mulungu tree's flower and while drinking the tree's flower's nectar becomes covered in pollen.  When visiting the next flower that pollen is transferred to this new flower pollinating it.  

 Final pollinator notes: It's a wild kingdom out there.

• We tend to think of pollination as mutually beneficial between plants and pollinators. Many pollinators use plant parts and substances to assist in their own reproduction While it's sometimes a two-way street, this is not always so..
• Mimicry and deceit often prevail.
• Some pollinators are specialists and some are generalists.
• Some bees collect the scents of flowers to use for their own purposes. “Bee perfume,” if you will.
• Diverse plants with colorful blooms attract pollinators to your garden and help to support a variety of birds, butterflies, moths, and beneficial insects year-round.  These visitors play a critical role in sustaining our ecosystem by helping our plants reproduce.
• Important:  Avoid using pesticides where possible because they are indiscriminate and will kill many wonderful pollinating insects along with the pests.  Choose from UCANR IPM-Integrated Pest Management methods detailed at: http://ipm.ucanr.edu .

 

Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143.  Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.

Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.

Information links:

California Dept of Fish and Wildlife

California Native Pollinators

Did you know that the largest organ of the human body is...the skin?

 You have three layers of skin. The skin protects you from mechanical, thermal, biological, or chemical hazards. It prevents loss of moisture and protects you from the effects of the sun. It regulates body temperature, and enables the sense of touch to be identified. The average person has about 21 square feet of skin which weighs roughly 9 lbs. There are about 300 million skin cells on the average body?

 With all of that being said, why do we reward this tissue by working long hours in the garden that is actually baking our skin and traumatizing it by being in the sun?

 It starts like this: the skin can be overexposed to UV (ultraviolet) light that comes from the sun or a tanning lamp. There is both UV-A and UV-B wavelengths of light that penetrate to the deep layers of the skin and damage it. The damages is the result of the tissue's triggering the immune system that turns the tissue red from increased blood flow. If the exposure is intense enough, it will lead to blistering and the eventual peeling off of the top layer of skin. More significantly, the base cells can become permanently damaged.

 The three main layers of skin are: the epidermis (top layer), the dermis and the hypodermis (below the dermis). The epidermis has five layers of its own, yet is the thinnest layer that protects you from everything. The epidermis has melanin cells in it that darken the skin. The more you have of it, the more protection you have. That is not to say that people with very dark skin are immune to sunburn, because they are not. They have resistance but they can burn and still need to protect themselves from UV rays. Below is a diagram of a skin section.

 

PhotoCredit: John Hopkins Medicine

 The problem starts with repeated sunburns. Although some people are able to tan from progressive, and longer periods of exposure, most people with very little melanin will likely suffer deep damage to their skin.

 Here is the bottom-line: much like gloves that protect you from many mechanical hazards, sunscreens, (both chemical as well as fabric) can protect you from possible damage to your skin. The damage can be in the form of not only sunburn but of skin cancer.

 Sun Protection Factor (SPF) is a gauge of how much protection you have from the Sun. An SPF of 30 means it should take you 30 times longer to get sun burned from the UV-B rays than if you were not wearing it. It blocks about 97% of the rays.  UV-B rays are believed to be the rays that cause the most damage to the skin. SPF of 50 should block 98% of the rays.

 The bad news is that with repeated sunburns, there is an increased risk to permanently damaging the skin. That could go from wrinkles to cancer. Skin cancers have different appearances from moles or other skin blemishes. They can be: red, tan, white, brown, pink or black colors, bumps, or scaly patches. Seeing your doctor to determine which is which is crucial to having a successful treatment. Below are images of what skin cancer might look like. Have your doctor check out ANYTHING that is new on your skin is the key to a successful treatment of the potential cancer. Below are just a sample of what can appear on your skin.

 

 The American Academy of Dermatology advises watching skin spots for the “A,B,C,D,E” of Cancers.

• Asymmetry.-The Blemish is NOT round.
• Border irregularity.-The edges do not have a consist form.
• Color changes.- a mole or blemish begins to change color.
• Diameter greater than 1/4 inch (about 6 millimeters) and are getting bigger.
• Evolving. Size, color and shape are visibly changing over time.

 

Lastly, like wearing gloves, wear eye protection in the way of polarized sunglasses.  The type that wrap around your eyes are preferred rather than just flat lens that do not block the light from the top or sides. They can help prevent a serious eye cancer. They can also protect you from mechanical injury that could come from a thorn or branch.

There was some concern in some circles that the sunglasses would dilate the pupils and cause damage to the lens.  That has not been shown to be true.  The protection from the polarized lens outweighs any problems from pupils that might be open wider. 

 So, if you like it hot outside, please be careful to protect your health from excessive sun damage. I am a cancer survivor as I had sunburn often as a boy. The only warning that I listened to was from my sister. When I was very red from exposure she would say, “Get some baby lotion on, you are starting to smell like bacon.” Did anyone else have a wonderful sister like that?

 Napa Master Gardeners are available to answer garden questions by email: mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. or phone at 707-253-4143.  Volunteers will get back to you after they research answers to your questions.

Visit our website: napamg.ucanr.edu to find answers to all of your horticultural questions.