Visit to Martha Walker Habitat Garden in Napa, CA

In mid-June we had an opportunity to return to the Napa/Sonoma valley region of California.  Most of this trip was involved with tasting some really good wine.  Between tastings we took in some beautiful scenery along the Russian River and the Coastal redwoods near Bodega Bay.   One morning in Napa we paid a visit to the Martha Walker Native Habitat Garden.  

While I grew up in California and learned something of the state's ecology, all of my plant ID skills were learned on the East Coast.  I was a little overwhelmed at first not knowing the plants that I was looking at.  I did find some plant tags to get started.  After a while I started recognizing relatives to plants that I knew from the East.

Here are some photos of some of the plants I recognized.  (There are many more that I don't.)   The Calflora.org website was helpful in confirming some of the ID's.

The California Poppy was in bloom throughout the region.
It does well on well drained soils.

The California Buckeye was also in full bloom in the middle of June.
The palmate leaves and large panicles of flowers are similar to the eastern species.

It was easy to spot this Western Sycamore.  Note that the seed pods are hanging in a chain (raceme).
This is different from the American Sycamore (P. occidentalis) which has singly borne pods
and London Plane (P. x acerfolia) which has pairs of pods. 

When I saw this branch I immediately thought of our Eastern Redbud (C. canadensis).
 I found the tag indicating that it was a Western Redbud.  Instead of having
heart-shaped leaves of the eastern species, these are roundish,
many with an indention at the tip (retuse).

This Spiraea looks a lot like Steeplebush (S. tomentosa),
but that species is not listed as native to California.
 It may be S. douglasii, Rose Spiraea

Here is one of many Monkey Flowers in the garden.
There are over 70 species of Mimulus native to California.
I put some Allegheny Monkey Flower (M. ringens) in my garden
at home this year and am still waiting for it to bloom.

This is one of the many oak species in California (I couldn't find a label).
This is a quintessential tree to the coastal hills and valleys.

The dappled shade under the oak tree provided a very soothing resting spot.  

I had to look on the Calflora site to learn about this Matilija Poppy.
There are two very similar species on Romneya.  These plants
were common along the highways in Napa. (Note the state bird in the background.)

This is one of a number of Sage species in the garden.  I liked this one
because of the interesting form of the spent flowers.
I can image this having an impact all through the summer and fall.

If you are in the Napa Valley area I highly recommend a visit to the Martha Walker Garden for an overview of many native California plants grouped according to their natural habitats.

Early Summer Blooms

Bees visit American Bellflower in both sunny
and shady locations

Now that we are getting into the hot days of summer, blooming of many native plants and the associated pollinator activity are picking up.  Here at home I saw my first Monarch Butterfly in many years.  You'll have to take my work for it, since it was gone by the time I got my camera.

One plant that has been blooming for awhile is the American Bellflower, Campanulastrum americanum.  This is particularly attractive to a medium sized black bee, probably a Miner Bee.  This plant blooms nearly as well in the shade as it does in the sun.

This Miner Bee is the primary visitor to the Bellflower

This Miner Bee draws nectar from the open face of the flower.  To do this it lands on the stamen and style of the flower.  Apparently the flower's stigma is situated to receive pollen from the bee as it makes its approach to the flower.








Nearby, on the sunny side of the driveway the Echinacea is in full bloom.  These attract a variety of pollinators, such as this Green Sweat Bee.  The Meadowsweet, Spiraea latifoia, has finished it's first round of blooms.  This year I cut some of the plants back significantly to keep the growth in check.  (I'm pretty sure it will put out a second growth.)  So for now the bees will be visiting other flowers for pollen and nectar.

It's interesting to note that with all the activity on the native flowers, I have seen very few insects visiting the flowers on my nearby shrub rose (other than a couple of Japanese Beetles).

Another early bloomer in the dry shade of my Norway Maple is Rosin Weed, Silphium integrifolium.  I chose this species of of Silphium because it does not get as big as the more familiar Cup Plant, S. perfoliatum.  This plant has slowly been expanding its mass, but I have not seen it show up in other parts of the garden.

A Hover Fly monitoring a cluster of Rosinweed blooms.

The flowers on this particular plant tend to form on the shady side.
This makes for a difficult photograph.

A new native annual that I'm trying out this year is Partridge Pea, Chamaecrista fasciculata.  This plant will grow in poor, dryish soils.  So far I'm favorably impressed.  One grouping that I planted near a highway is growing and blooming, despite receiving no additional moisture, other than the small amount of rain this summer.  Like its relative the Sensitive Plant, its leaves will fold up when the plant is handled roughly.  The leaves also fold up when it gets dark.  I wonder if this behavior helps it to survive under dry conditions (by limiting transpiration).

Some drifts are still intact, like the lavender-color Beebalm, Monarda fistulosa;
the orange Butterflyweed has blown over from another part of the
Wildflower Meadow at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

A Monarch Butterfly passing over
some Beebalm and Hoary Vervain

Over at Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, MA, there is a good sized native wildflower meadow installed about 5 years ago.  Here I have seen many more butterflies than in my urban backyard.  This meadow features a number of native grasses as well as many showy flowering plants.  The original planting had the plants arranged in drifts, but the management plan is to let the plants move around as they will, to create a dynamic garden with plants finding there best locations.

In another part of the cemetery I noticed this Bottlebrush Buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, in full bloom.  While native to the Southeastern US, this shrub is very attractive to the bees up in the Northeast.  I spent some time watching how the bees interacted with the flower.  It was more like a mugging than a gentle approach to sip some nectar.  The bee grabs onto to the outside of the flower and extracts nectar from between the petals and the calyx.  In the process the bee's abdomen rubs all over the anthers and the stigma, thus achieving pollination of the flower.  

This bee on the Buckeye flower is about 1.5" long.

Other flowers are about to open up here, like the Scarlet Sage, Woodland Sunflower and Prairie Coneflower, so the show has only just begun.

Some Surprising Finds this Week

As I was traveling through Mount Auburn Cemetery this week I was caught off guard by what appeared to be blooms on a Harlequin Glorybower, Clerodendron dichotomum. This was surprising to me because I recalled seeing it covered with pinkish blooms at the end of June. On closer examination I saw that these were actually bright red sepals surrounding a sapphire blue fruit (a drupe, actually). In a sense this shrub produces interesting ‘blooms’ twice in a season.

This Glorybower is not native to North America. It has it origins in China and Japan. It is cold hardy to Zone 6, and here in Boston it is approaching the northern limits of its range. Here at Mount Auburn, it has ‘died to the ground’ at least once, but as you can see it has regrown to a good sized shrub. For more information about this plant check out this link: http://hort.ufl.edu/trees/CLETRIA.pdf

Growing next to the Glorybower is a native shrurb, Bottlebrush Buckeye, Aesculus parviflora, a southeastern native anyway. The delicate white brush-like flowers that topped this plant at the beginning of July have grown into golf ball sized nuts that hit the ground with a small thud. Sometimes I wonder how could a flower like that turn into that fruit that looks so different.

The last big surprise, botanically anyway, was when I nearly bumped into this old Common Honeylocust, Gleditsia triacanthos. This particular tree is the straight species, not the thornless variety that is used in the landscaping trade. These water sprouts give a close up view of the 3” thorns that characterize this species.

Most of the commercially available plants available today are derived from a naturally occurring thornless variety G. triacanthos var. inermis, native to the Eastern United States. If it were not for this variety, I can imagine that the Common Honeylocust would only rarely be seen on any landscaped properties.