Gardening at the wilderness interface, Santa Cruz area

I'd like to start a thread if one doesn't already exist for gardening at the wilderness interface (there may be a better term!).

For example, I'd like to know

* How to manage the chaparral. Right now I have about an acre of overgrown chaparral, full of fuel load. I'm cutting out old chamise and keeping interesting manzanita - I need to know if I should plant anything or leave it to nature to fill in. I'm leaving the chamise roots - see what comes back next year. There are a mixture of chaparral plants, but these predominate.

* How to manage the forest area - how much "gardening" to do, and why.

* How to make some parts of the land more garden like, and blend with the natural areas.

* How to make pathways through the natural areas

* How to deal with fire danger without removing too much of the native growth.

* How to manage poison oak - I still have a few stands and they are BIG. I've gotten rid of some of the big areas, and hope I can just keep whacking it back. once the long vines are removed. I need a place to put the vines so they can rot away in peace. How long before they're really harmless?

* How to garden so the natives are truly native and the exotics don't invade.

* How to maintain wildlife corridors

* How to keep exotic weeds down. Right now we are covered in oxalis which I keep whacking and pulling hoping it won't be so bad next year.

* How to recognize and propagate the nice native plants that are here. WE have lots of nice sticky monkey flower and small ferns etc.

* How to garden with deer around. One thing I'd like is a really nice garden book that is just about deer-resistant plants and gardening, with pictures and the whole thing. Working with regular gardening books is frustrating - always crosschecking the deer resistant lists of plants, not having reference photos all together, etc.

* And gophers and bunnies and other critters! And encouraging the ones you like.

*How to build deer proof fences for some garden areas.

Is there a book that gathers all these topics up into a neat package?

(Would there be a market for such a book or web site if there isn't one - I'd consider taking on such a project with a garden expert. I know how to put books together, but I'm a novice gardener.)

Jackie,

Sorry, but I've never had to handle those particular gardening issues, so I don't have anything helpful to tell you. It sounds like you have quite a challenge on your hands!

As for whether the subjects you mentioned -- addressed together -- would make a good topic for a book, I think they would. It seems like a lot of people in CA (and elsewhere) would have similar concerns & issues and would like to learn about how other people have addressed them. Maybe you could move this post to the General Discussion or Garden Talk forums to see if you can get a discussion going. Just a thought.

Re the deer: I searched under "garden deer" at Amazon and found a number of books that deal with the deer issue.

Re the natives: Your local California Native Plant Society http://www.cruzcnps.org/ or the native plant nurseries in the area (like Elkhorn Native Plant Nursery http://www.elkhornnursery.com/ or Sierra Azul http://www.sierraazul.com/), should be able to give you a lot of help with these issues. BTW, the UCSC Arboretum http://www2.ucsc.edu/arboretum/calendar.html offers an ongoing free workshop on identifying natives; the next one is Feb 23. And Central Coast Wilds http://www.centralcoastwilds.com/ offers a lot of services, including residential ecological landscaping.

Re the other issues you mentioned: In my brief searches at Amazon, I didn't find any books that address them as a whole. Perhaps some of the more experienced gardeners can help think of some, or can remember articles in various gardening magazines that would be useful.

Hope some of this helps! Good luck with your gardening (and with your book, if you decide to go ahead with it).

Hi Terra - Sorry for late reply. I felt embarrassed by my own hubris - here I am a novice then thinking about writing a book for crying out loud. so I stayed away from Dave's Garden! But I'm back looking for more deer resistant gardening ideas.

Thanks so much for your interest. I'm a tech writer so writing books is a natural thought for me, a way to think about things.

I've had a lot of success in my little wildlife garden area, and I'm still in love with the little spot of heaven here that I get to be steward of. I've got some nice babies growing slowly, as native plants do, but I"m very satisfied that they didn't just up and die.

I also caught up with some resources you mention - I want to get more hooked up with UCSC programs as you mention, and have been to visit, but haven't participated yet. Life busy! Thanks indeed I'll follow up with those links.

But the deer are still munching and giving me heartache! I tried liquid fence with limited success. I went through a bottle in no time. A neighbor has a formula involving rotten eggs I think! I'll have to give it a go.

I'm surprised not to find a "deer resistant gardening" area in Dave's garden. Maybe there is one and I haven't found it yet. If htere isn't one, I would like to start one, when I figure out how.

I'm now trying to figure out some colorful deer resistant annuals or something easy for a splash of color around the front of our house. Gazanias are deer resist, I understand.

I think it would be helpful if people's garden diaries and journals were sorted in some way so you could browse people with similar gardening situations and interests to your own.

Anyway, have to go feed the old horse. Thanks again for your reply!!

I have read that the wild Buffalo Gourds will deter deer...if you would like seeds for next year I would be glad to share some with you.

Also, the Native Americans used them (crushed) to put around their domestic gourds to deter insects. Jo

Hi Jackie,

Natives that are mostly deer resistant most of the year that blend in well with the forest are-
Mahonia - Oregon Grape
Salvias-apiana for sun, spathifolium for part-shade
Rush-CA natives are drought resistant
Ferns-poystichum munitum is drought resistant
Vancouvarian
Azaleas
Bunch grasses
Pacific Coast Iris
Blue eyed grass

Non natives that are also toxic such as-
Digitalis
Datura
Brunnera
Borage
teucriums-especially the prostate
Salvias-the smellier the better

Deer will taste everything like a smorgasborg, then tend to leave the fuzzier and more toxic plants alone.

I use round up on poison oak, I know it isn't pc, but poison oak and broom must go. Goats work too if you can find some that are rentable.

I remove chapparel near the house and replace with native salvias and bunch grasses for low fire protection.

Best of Luck,

I have been awol from this forum but am back. Thanks for the replies to my post. I have the intention of creating a blog on the restoration etc of the chaparral, redwood, and mixed woodland areas (and the garden areas close to the house. But whether I actually do that.... It would be a start. I've been working with Jeffrey Caldwell, a local native plant botanist and enthusiast, to help identify the good natives and the bad invasives, and I've been working to eradicate the invasive grasses etc. It's a lot of work and I know I have a few years of effort before weed control gets to be more manageable, but I'm encouraged by my progress this year so far.

Jackie, this subject interests me to, but on a small scale. We have 1.26 acres in San Diego County. Except for a small woodland type area at the back, our lot was nothing but mustard and weeds when we built here. Slowly we are trying to rebuild some kind of native landscape. We started with the help of a great landscaper here (strictly natives), but we are nearing retirement and must now depend on ourselves. Las Pilitas (laspilitas.com) is a very good resource. They have a large database of native plants and you can search by your needs/plant community/etc. They are very knowledgeable about restoration and it would be worth your while to get acquainted. We are lucky enough to live less than 10 miles from their So. CA nursery and buy 90% of our plants there.

We are hampered here by a harsh southern exposure and my tendency to allergies which rules out a lot of plants. We do have non-natives (what I call my specials) near the house, but want to keep the rest of the landscape native and attractive to wildlife (we don't have a deer problem).

It would be nice if others joined this thread so we can share problems and successes.

I'm located at the interface that Jackie mentions, except that it is Joshua tree/creosote scrub. The reason I respond is that the term "botanical preserve" caught my attention the other day. What botanicals have been lost to the 50 years of sheep and cattle grazing? I couldn't find anyone that had experience or knowledge of California desert/montane endangered plants here on the eastern side of the Sierras. Still interested though, and I have 200 acres which could be used as it has very limited agricultural use.

Have you contacted the CNPS chapter for your area? I would think they should have the most information.

I'll mention Las Pilitas again, morus_springs. They might have a contact for you or some other resources. There is contact information on the web site. And it sounds like Jackie has made some contacts locally, too.

We worked here with a landscaper, Greg Rubin (www.calown.com). He speaks at native plant societies, etc. in our area and might be able to point you in the right direction, or you might find a similar fella nearby.

I hope this thread stays active. I'd love to hear what you folks are doing.

Hi everybody!
I'm excited to join this thread. I'm practicing some landscape design at my aunts property in the redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains, CA. (Wilderness interface zone you were talking about). We are looking for Shade tolerant, deer resistant, acid loving, slope friendly, plants - with color, ! ... few! The more unusual the better. We need some errosion control and so I was thinking of some planting scheme involving combinations of plants with different level root systems. I am trying to keep it somewhat casual looking with the landscaping blending in with the surrounding forest. It should be fun. Anyone have any ideas? The nursery suggested bamboo, ornamental garlic, potato vine, and hellebor. I've seen crocosmia growing in her neighborhood looking great with birds of paradise. Deer area real problem out there. I'll keep everyone posted as we try different things. Try googling dear proof or dear resistant natives and I think an interesting site comes up. I'm thinking native irises might work with ferns. The Sunset Western Gardening book has a listing of deer resistant plants. I think this is also accesssable on line. Unfortunately I can't speak from experience -- yet : )

If you use bamboo, make sure you get the clumping sort not the running sort, you don't want the runners anywhere, but especially not where it can escape into the wilderness. By ornamental garlic did they mean Society Garlic (Tulbaghia violacea)? It and the potato vine and the crocosmia will be happier in sun and I don't picture them as woodland plants.

I'm going to get on my native plant bandwagon and suggest that the area might fit in with the wilderness interface best if you choose at least a good number of your plants from ones that are native to that plant communit. Here's the page from Las Pilitas website that talks about the Redwood Forest plant community http://www.laspilitas.com/comhabit/California_Redwood_Forest.html . If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you'll see a link to a list of the plants that are in the trade that live in that community.

And here's some info from them on some plants that may resist the deer http://www.laspilitas.com/easy/deerfire.htm

If you do go with non-native plants, please be really careful to avoid any that might have any tendency to spread into the natural areas, I understand not everyone loves native plants and even people who do usually don't plant 100% native plants, but living at the wilderness interface is one of the most critical places to avoid anything that's got the potential to be even a tiny bit invasive.

I'll add my vote to what ecrane3 said. Natives will give you the best erosion control, from what I have read, and there are ways to vary the plants to provide lots of variety and color. Check out www.calown.com mentioned above for some examples. These are not in your plant community, but you can see what can be done with natives. I try to keep my non-natives close to the house, but use only natives for the main landscape. JMO

Also, I would think in that area fire safety will be high on your list of priorities, too, and will influence your plant choices. Have fun and show us what you do.