Robert's adventures in the Northern Sierra Nevada - California

[Robert]

This part of the outing was unproductive as it is generally under water.



After about a mile I arrived at the old Salmon Falls Bridge. This is the third time in the last 50 years that the bridge has been above the water line. The first time I crossed it was in 1977, during the 1976-77 drought years.



The free flowing South Fork.



Once on the north side of the river, we arrive in "old California". This is the California I remember in my youth, a real paradise! and a great place to start looking for interesting plants. My goal today was to reach the ridge line on the highest hill in the area. I had been there in the past, about 1988, and knew that it would be a good area to look for Calochortus luteus habitat.



I walked for another mile or so without finding anything interesting. Much of the area was once grazing land and is now an oak savanna. I finally dipped into a drainage and found a few red leaves remaining on the Vitus californica.



The habitat started to change back to chaparral. I found a good game trail to follow - and then plants of interest started to show. Iris macrosiphon, a low elevation version of I. hartwegii higher up the mountain. I have to admit the ID is just a guess as they look the same except when in bloom.

[Robert]

Mimulus aurantiacus is a common chaparral plant at this elevation. A good garden plant too, as long as it has good drainage and is not over watered. It will bloom most of the growing season if given a little irrigation. With complete xeric conditions it will dry-up and look dead, only to come back to life with the first rains in the fall. It has been hybridized with other types to create a number of clones with a good color range.



After a very steep hike through the brush I arrived on the southern flank of the ridge, 830 ft. (253 meters). The rocky ridge runs SSE TO NNW with much of the south facing slope, rocky and open to the sun. There was a large area to explore and perfect habitat for Calochortus luteus. This area has never been grazed by livestock. The rocks and other shrubs protect the bulbs from deer and rodents. I was hoping to find some dried flowering stems of this species, but found none. There were old dried stems from other bulbs and the new shoots of Dichelostemma poking up, so I am still very hopeful to find Calochortus, at some point, when I return.



There were other interesting plants such as Dudleya cymosa.



Pellea mucronata, a rock fern, grew among the rocks on the south facing slope. An extremely hot and dry site during the summer. I have to admit, I was also surprised by the moss that grew in this area too. It was everywhere! Not a location where one would expect to find moss growing.



I continued up the ridge line, knowing I had run out of time and needed to turn back. There was much still to explore.

[Robert]

On the way back I found the same ferns as on my outing to Rattlesnake Bar; Pentagramma triangularis, Polypodium calirhiza, and Adiantum jordanii. This time I found some of the Adiantum with new foliage.



I this area, one finds coyote scat with mazanita berries all the time. Here is a small group of Arctostaphylos viscida that germinated and grew from one such pile of scat.



Taking a short cut back I found this old bridge.



The last leg, up the drainage of Sweetwater Creek. 40 years ago, during the summer, I would come out here with friends and spend the night fishing and swimming in the warm water. There was an old Cottonwood tree that had a tree swing out over the water. The tree died and is now a large trunk slowly decaying into the earth.
It was a great day to be out and more good memories from Sweetwater Creek.

[Gerdk]

Robert,
Thank you for this lively report. It seems the region still persists as a paradise. I am especially glad to read about the Mimulus aurantiacus site and its colour types. Can we expect some pics of flowering plants during next season?
This species does well here in my region (with frost protection in winter of course).

Gerd

[Robert]

Robert,
Thank you for this lively report. It seems the region still persists as a paradise. I am especially glad to read about the Mimulus aurantiacus site and its colour types. Can we expect some pics of flowering plants during next season?
This species does well here in my region (with frost protection in winter of course).

Gerd

Gerd,

Yes, I will have photographs of the Mimulus in bloom and much more this coming season. Thank you for sharing the information on its performance in your area. For me it is somewhat of a surprise. I'm amazed how some plants adjust to new and different growing environments.

I keep a journal with notes on everything I see on each outing. I do not report on everything I see. Sometimes the photographs do not turn out, such as Castilleja foliolosa. C. foliolosa is just starting to leaf out again with the fall - winter rains. It is another plant that looks dried-up and dead during the dry summer. Its wooly gray foliage is beautiful now that the new growth has started. Its orange-red flowers are spectacular. This time around, the photographs did not turn out well, however there will be more opportunities.

I also get into remote areas where there are still native California bunch grasses. I'm quickly getting much better at identifying them. Many are good ornamentals in the garden too. Our native ferns are also good garden plants, some of which are extremely sun and/or drought tolerant.

Thank you for your good words and encouragement!

[Rick R.]

I just want to let you know that we, here in America, also follow your "adventures" with much interest.

  Your narration is a delight, and so much better than just the pictures alone!  I wish more members would add even just little tidbits of information to go along with their images.

[Tim Ingram]

Mimulus aurantiacus has been wonderful here this year, flowering for months. We had such a mild winter 2013/4 that it overwintered well, but it's always worth taking a few cuttings. It's growing here with cotton lavender and Buddleja 'Lochinch'. I'm with Rick and Gerd - it tells you so much more to see and learn about plants in their natural state and we don't have such a glorious flower around us here except in gardens. We may be great gardeners in the UK but we tend not to be so adventurous getting out into the wild.

[Robert]

I just want to let you know that we, here in America, also follow your "adventures" with much interest.

  Your narration is a delight, and so much better than just the pictures alone!  I wish more members would add even just little tidbits of information to go along with their images.

Rick,

I really appreciate your comments!

[Robert]

Mimulus aurantiacus has been wonderful here this year, flowering for months. We had such a mild winter 2013/4 that it overwintered well, but it's always worth taking a few cuttings. It's growing here with cotton lavender and Buddleja 'Lochinch'. I'm with Rick and Gerd - it tells you so much more to see and learn about plants in their natural state and we don't have such a glorious flower around us here except in gardens. We may be great gardeners in the UK but we tend not to be so adventurous getting out into the wild.

Tim,

I'm surprised by some of your comments concerning cold hardiness of plants. How cold can it get in your region? And, how often and for how long? Habranthus robustus is very cold hardy for us. In our area, most winters the temperature drops to 20 F, -6.6c, however there are times when the temperature drops much lower. 8 F, -13c is the coldest temperature that I have recorded in the last 40 years. There can be many days where the temperature barely reaches 32 F, 0c, such as December 2013. Snow cover can vary considerably, with some of the coldest temperatures arriving when there is little or no snow cover.

I have never notice cold damage on Mimulus aurantiacus - at least those growing in the ground and in there native habitat. In a container it is much different. It is a low elevation species. I have never observed many above 1,500 feet (455 meters) elevation in this area. They can look rather poor during the winter - mostly left-over from the summer dry.

Are the hybrid Bush Monkey flowers grown in the UK? There are a few different color forms sold commercially in our area. They tend to be short lived, especially if over watered during the summer. Also, there has been no effort to breed for cold hardiness - most are more sensitive to cold than Mimulus aurantiacus.

[Maggi Young]

A lot of our plant hardiness problems here in NE Scotland come not only from a plant's injury or death at temperatures  which can drop down to minus 19 degrees C , without snow cover, but also from the amount of water that  can be surrounding the plant at that  time- and the level of water in the tissues of the plants when they may have winter green parts too, of course. Even  temperatures  only slightly below freezing can do a lot of damage in  very turgid plant material or in soil which freezes solid around the plant.

And then there is the problem of those plants which do not prove "summer hardy" (so to speak!!)  because they cannot cope with the amount of summer wet we can have and which has seen off at least as many plants in this garden as has winter or frost damage , over the years.

Some days, I wonder why we even bother, there are so many problems!!  Just really determined, I suppose!

[Tim Ingram]

Our weather in Kent is pretty similar to you in N. California over winter, perhaps a little colder to around -10°C most winters (last winter we had hardly any frost; the previous one was relatively mild but went on with low temperatures for many weeks; and 2011/12 was one of the coldest down to -14°C). We get quite hot and dry (compared with Aberdeen!) over summer but nothing like your conditions in California. Probably we are around Zone 8, sometimes tending to 7. Only 20 miles away or so on the N. Kent coast nearer the North Sea the climate is significantly milder, except for cold north winds which can chill the whole of eastern Britain! We try to be 'Mediterranean' but often get the edge of the European continental winter climate which knocks plants like the Mimulus back.

But Maggi - what about all those wonderful meconopsis, primulas and corydalis - and rhododendrons? We don't do well with those, and we don't have the Scottish hills just over the horizon

[Maggi Young]

But Maggi - what about all those wonderful meconopsis, primulas and corydalis - and rhododendrons? We don't do well with those, and we don't have the Scottish hills just over the horizon

Well, I suppose it 's not ALL bad! Thanks for the cheering pep talk, Tim 

[Hoy]

Maggi points to the problem with "hardy" plants in northern latitudes: Lack of summer heat. All plants require a certain heat sum (or day degrees) during the summer. If it doesn't get that amount of warmth it doesn't take much freezing in winter. If the winter also is wet the plant is even more vulnerable.

[Hoy]

Seems I have to try Mimulus aurantiacus!

Here is Mimulus cupreus(?) and M. luteus(?) from Argentina (not my garden!).

[Robert]

Trond,

I wish that our Mimulus cupreus and M. luteus looked that good! I think that the slugs finished the M. cupreus off. 

I definitely appreciate your comments, and all the others, on cold hardiness. I had not considered summer heat and the hardening of the current seasons growth and how that interacts with winter moisture. Generally not an issue around here. It appears that this may account for some of the "hardiness" issues in Tim and Maggi's gardening situations.