Living with Drought

On our Thanksgiving trip to Southern California, driving down Interstate 5 in the Central Valley, I was dismayed to see so much rich farmland laying fallow, or with dead and dying orchards. I have been following the drought on National Public Radio, so know our farmers are struggling with water rationing and expensive water. But it hit home to see the dry fields and swirling dust devils, and read the political signs along the side of the road: “Congress Created Dust Bowl”; “No Water, No Jobs”; “Food Grows Where Water Flows”. The Central Valley of California has some of the most fertile land in the world – and it is going to waste!



Dry field in the Central Valley

 

I realize the water issue is complex. I have been listening to arguments from all sides, and trying to understand the issues. Is it practical to transport the scarce water resource to cultivate this land? Is it conscionable to leave it fallow, while famine exists in the world? What about the green lawns in Southern California, while our lawns are brown in Northern California? How does our yearning to restore the inland wetlands and marshes, which once teamed with migrating birds, factor in? Is our current method of doling out water equitable? Are individual water rights from the 1800s just and pragmatic in a world with over 7 billion people and growing exponentially? Will Proposition 1, the water bond that passed in last fall’s election, help California? Or end up benefiting only a few? With so much at stake, should this issue be looked at from a higher level, rather than at the individual level?

Irrigated field, just a few miles away

 

I’m afraid Eden By The Bay is not equipped to tackle all facets of this complex issue. But over the year, I’m hoping to unpack a little bit of it, and come up with some ideas and practices to help the home gardener live with drought. Collectively we might be able to make a small difference, just by changing some of our gardening attitudes and habits. As for the larger issues, stay informed and speak up!

Botanical Gardens: University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum

Our first botanical garden of focus is the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, located on the beautiful Santa Cruz campus about 75 miles south of the San Francisco Bay Area. It specializes in Mediterranean plants from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and California. I visited the garden when I took a Mediterranean Plant ID class at Merritt College, and reported on some of the fascinating flowers (see Aliens from Down Under).

 

The Santa Cruz Arboretum covers 135 acres, which enables them to accommodate group tours, and individual wandering.

Botanist Glenn Keator leads a group tour

An inviting path at the arboretum

The ample space provides room for plant communities, so you can view plants in situ and with other plants. What conditions, such as sun exposure, drainage, and aspect, ensure a thriving plant?

Plant communities provide layers of plants

Natural terrain for plants

Plants can spread to their mature size, which can be very valuable when researching plants for a particular garden design. Is there space for the plant to reach maturity? Would the plant require excessive maintenance if not?

These plants require lots of room to spread

Plants are labeled, making it easy to identify and learn.

Labels clearly identify plants at the arboretum

Many plants are offered for sale in Norrie’s Gift and Garden Shop, or in seasonal plant sales. The Arboretum also participates in the Koala Blooms plant introduction project, which is a joint venture with growers in California and Australia for introducing plants to the California market. This program enables them to evaluate plants for disease, hardiness, and invasiveness, before introducing them to the California market.

Succulents	Multi-generation flowers
South African daisies	Beautiful textures

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I recommend this arboretum for finding out more about Mediterranean plants, and seeing some pretty spectacular flowers in the process. Think of Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander while you’re there – these are some of the plants they may have encountered as they visited Australia while circumnavigating the globe in the 1700s.

Address: UC Santa Cruz Arboretum; Arboretum Road (use for newer GPS devices); Santa Cruz, CA Web Site: http://arboretum.ucsc.edu/ Downloadable Map: http://arboretum.ucsc.edu/pdfs/JoanMap.pdf For other botanical collections in the San Francisco Bay Area see: http://www.edenbythebay.blogspot.com/2015/02/botanical-collections-of-bay-area.html

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Botanical Collections of the Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area offers a wonderful array of botanical collections. This is a great resource for learning more about plants, and the regions of the world from which they come. Here is a summary of some of my favorites, and the plant collections they offer.


 

Botanical Collection	Description
University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum	Mediterranean plants from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and California. http://arboretum.ucsc.edu/
Tilden Regional Park, Regional Parks Botanic Garden	Plants from California arranged in ten major geographic regions (such as Southern California Desert, Redwood, Sierras, Pacific Rain Forest, Valley-Foothill, and Santa Lucia). http://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden/botanic_garden
Conservancy of Flowers Golden Gate Park, San Francisco	Subtropical plants from places of exceptional beauty (highland and lowland); and special exhibits (such as dinosaur plants, and underwater plants). http://www.conservatoryofflowers.org/
San Francisco Botanical Garden	Plants of the Mediterranean, South Africa, New Zealand, the Americas, California, Asia; and special collections (such as cloud forests, moon gardens, succulents, and ancient plants). Formerly Strybing Arboretum. http://www.sfbotanicalgarden.org/
University of California, Botanical Garden at Berkeley	Plants from around the world arranged in nine major geographic regions (such as Mediterranean, South Africa, Australasia, the Americas, and California); and special collections (such as Chinese Medicinal Herb, old roses, cycads and palms, crops of the world, tropical, and carnivorous plants). http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/

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This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a good place to start. Over the year, I’ll report on some of these botanical collections, and see what they have to offer.

The benefit of local botanical gardens is that you can visit them often and in season, ensuring you see something new every visit.

Botantical Collections – What's the Diff?

We throw around some botanical terms pretty freely here at Eden By The Bay—botanical garden, conservatory, arboretum, herbarium—but what is the difference really? The terms all convey a plant collection of some type, and we know generally what they mean. But let's take a closer look at the differences.

Entrance to the botanical garden at University of California, Berkeley

Type	Description
Botanical garden	A garden dedicated to the collection, cultivation and display of live plants labeled with their botanical names. They may be displayed in a variety of ways – aesthetically, thematically, or regionally. Botanical gardens are frequently open to the public, and may periodically sell plants from their collections. Early botanical gardens consisted of healing plants, but later expanded to all types of plants.
Conservatory	A greenhouse or structure in which plants are arranged for display or cultivation. The walls and ceiling are typically made of glass or similar material, and temperature and humidity can be controlled. A conservatory is ideal for tender plants that need protection, or require special environmental conditions.
Arboretum	A place or park where an extensive variety of trees, shrubs, and woody plants are cultivated for scientific, educational, and ornamental purposes. They are a specialized botanical garden.
Herbarium	A repository of dried, pressed plant specimens that are labeled and arranged for access and archival storage. The label includes useful information about the plant and its origin. The archival storage is typically climate controlled to ensure preservation. Physical access may be limited to students or scholars, but some herbarium collections are available online.

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I will probably continue to use the term “botanical garden” a bit loosely, but it is good to know the more precise term when necessary.