Arrgggh! What are Your Garden Frustrations?
Gardeners’ Corner | Questions and Answers with Local Experts
By Dan Songster, 2016 May
This column is a regular newsletter feature offering chapter members and local experts a chance to briefly share information on many things related to gardening with natives. The request for this edition is: “I found my Calochortus venustus that had sprouted so nicely eaten to the ground by rabbits and said, Arrgggh!!! What has made you say “Arrgggh” so far this year?”
Ron Vanderhoff – “My Aristida purpurea – purple three-awn grass. I should have known better, having seen the naturalized planting at Tree of Life Nursery, but I planted a few of these anyway. They are beautiful, but after trying to hand pull all the volunteers for the past few years I have now officially lost the battle. The patch is bigger every year. I need to make it go away before I have a complete “purple three-awn” landscape.”
Leon Baginski – ”Snails!!!! I live by the coast and the moisture in the air brings them out in this cooler weather and they eat all my lupine to the ground!!! Arghhhh!!!!”
Sarah Jayne – “I arrived one morning at the native plant school garden I have tended for the last 8 years to find that half the garden had been stripped and replanted with non-native “drought tolerant” things. This was way beyond arrrrggghhh!
Rama Nayeri – “For my own garden I ARGG that I have a 100 square feet of concrete patio, the only garden space I have that I cannot remove or change. I also have an AC unit that I cannot permanently cover.”
Jeanne Carter – “I lost several plants to skunks digging for grubs a El Modena HS Nature Center. Arrggh!!! Anyone have solutions? Wire mesh around the plants did not work.”
Helen Smisko – “After watching Polyphagous Shot Hole Borer/Fusarium (PSHB) attack Acer, Platanus, and Parkinsonia trees, it was then found on Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden’s first Populus tree.”
Laura Camp – “I looked out my back window this past winter, an my Arctostaphylos ‘Howard McMinn’ was wilted and obviously going downhill fast. At that point there was nothing I could do but watch it die. Arrgggh! In the end I only lost part of it (a maibranch split) but part of it lived, and new growth is sprouting from a rooted branch, and will fill in the missing plant.”
Mark Sugars – “Arrgggastropods!”
Curt Craft -“My moment is with Encelia farinosa. I did not prune the stalks back and when some strong winds came along, some of the stalks broke off at the base of the plant. Arrgggh!!!”
Celia Kutcher -“Hot dry winds, instead of the predicted rain, that dried up the Baby Blue Eyes & Freeway Lupines before their time.”
Dan Songster – “Besides my Calochortus being nibbled down to stubs by rabbits at Golden West College Native Garden (yes, it really did happen), at home my favorite 9 year old Humboldt Lily did not reappear this year but had rotted away. Super Arrrggghhh!!!!!”