Apricot Orchard, Los Altos History Museum's Boletim

Pollinators are attracted to diverse wildflowers in the edges around fields and orchards. Loss of these fallow strips is correlated with a decline in pollinator diversity in Europe.

We are pleased to announce restoration of biodiversity in one small corner of the orchard by the backdoor of the library. Nikki Hanson from the Grassroots Ecology Nursery demonstrated restoration planting techniques, while volunteers helped plant 54 seedlings grown at the nursery. The species were chosen by our orchard interns, to provide flowers in spring, summer and fall, as well as interesting foliage in between.

Today I watered the plants, since we have been 2 weeks without rain. The buckwheat was looking a little stressed, but the others were even putting out new leaves. Here is a list of the species, photos of which are in our iNaturalist project.
Achillea millefolium Yarrow (5)

Carex tumulicola Foothill Sedge (9)
Ceanothus papillosus Ceanothus Prostrate Form (2)
Epilobium canum California Fuschia (5)

Eriogonum nudum Naked stem Buckwheat (9)
Grindelia hirsutula Hairy Gumplant (3)
Monardella villosa Coyote Mint (7)
Penstemon heterophyllus Foothill Penstemon (5 )
Phacelia californica Phacelia (7)
Salvia brandegeei Island Salvia (2 )
Solidago velutina ssp californica Goldenrod (3)

We are hoping backyard gardeners will be inspired to add pollinator plots to increase waystations across our urban landscape.

Check out page 3 of the Town Crier for photos of the event:
https://www.losaltosonline.com/images/a_digital_edition/2020/LATC_01_29_20.pdf

Volunteers from Mission San Jose helped our City Orchardist, Phil Doetsch, to lay out the grid for planting 100 new apricot trees to restore the productivity of our heritage orchard. The trees are the heirloom variety, Blenheim apricots, grafted onto hardy root stock. This is the variety first planted in the orchard in 1901-1902 by J. Gilbert Smith. Phil will pick up the baby trees in a few days and keep the bare root stock moist until planted.

The grid is 11.5 feet, wide enough to allow tilling with a tractor and to provide for laying the drip irrigation lines that are planned for the future. We are hoping eventually to establish a beneficial plant guild along the drip lines, to replace tilling and provide a ground cover that will help restore a complex food web.

I was delighted to see several bluebirds in the orchard today. One perched on a post right in front of me, as if to say thank you. Yet I was not fast enough to get a photo.

Tomorrow Phil will be leading a volunteer crew in planting the 100 bare root apricot trees that he recently picked up from the nursery. They are the Blenheim variety, grafted on hardy Nemagaard root stock.

The holes have already been drilled with an auger, 12-18 inches deep. He has constructed a jig to hold the trees centered in each hole while we put in a cup of alfalfa and collapse the walls to fill in the holes. He wants the roots to be able to penetrate the soil without bumping up against an impenetrable wall.

On another note, here is a great blog post on the native pollinators we hope eventually to encourage in our area:

https://www.grassrootsecology.org/blog/2020/2/21/all-creatures-especially-small?mc_cid=367fd7550c