Celebrating Earth Day by planting milkweed!
Partnering with Living Classroom, we planted 30 seedling narrowleaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis) in the garden at the Los Altos History Museum. About 30% of the seeds planted by students (before Shelter in Place), sprouted under the care of their teacher, Zac Hansel. Students participated in planting the seedlings at the museum via a virtual field trip. Here is a video describing the event:
Our goal is to establish two species of milkweeds, so we can register the site as a monarch waystation joining thousands across the nation: https://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/ In the meantime, we can register the museum garden with the Million Pollinator Garden Challenge, https://www.pollinator.org/million-pollinator-garden-challenge putting our site on the map that connects like-minded folks across our community and the nation!
Our new intern from Foothill College HORT program, Melanie Hollenstein, helped with the planting. In the video you will also see her pulling bedstraw (Galium spp) from the garden plot. Invasive Galium is growing prolifically this year in the the irrigated parts of the landscape. I am pulling it wherever I can before the "velcro" seeds set, we definitely do not want it in the orchard!
Melanie and I also did a site reconnaisance for her project, which will be a landscape design to reduce debris from the orchard entering the storm drain on San Antonio. The area is between the two crosswalks at the lights. We measured a strip 6 feet deep, running 45 feet on either side of the storm drain. That includes the orchard sign to the corner of the walkway.
As we walked through the orchard, we noticed there is a really good fruit set on the apricot trees, even on the little ones planted last year. Most of the bare root apricots we planted in February have now leafed out. We did see wilted tips on some of the branches, so will get some advice on what pathogen is causing that. Also, the Western tussock moth caterpillars have arrived and are eating apricot leaves. We will keep an eye on how many trees are affected.
The native plants in our pollinator plot are still alive, some sending out more new shoots than others. The buckwheat are all struggling. Using my moisture meter as a guide, the bed did not need watering even though we have not had rain for a week.
Alot to celebrate on Earth Day! Monarchs connect us with nature and with each other!
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