An Amaryllis for DRY Summers!

The Southern California dry summers, so typical of a Mediterranean climate place special constrictions on living organisms. Like plants dropping leaves in the very cold winters of the more northerly portions of our hemisphere, plants have also adapted through dormancy to avoid the rigors of annual droughts in Mediterranean climates. This year in Santa Barbara, there has been no rain since early March - now six months ago! And it may not rain for another six to eight more weeks. This is NOT 'global warming'. This is simply one of our planet's oddest climates.

Growing up in the Tampa Bay area of the central Gulf Coast of Florida, it is weird for me not to feel raindrops, hear thunder, smell the rain nor see the lightning for so many months at a time. However, the plants and animals native to this region (and many other Mediterranean climates) have it all sorted out.

A plant native to the western Cape in South Africa, another Mediterranean climate provides a showy blast of color each mid-summer. Amaryllis belladonna begins growing foliage just after the onset of the rains in the fall. With the drying spring and summer, the foliage begins to brown and die off, neatly matching the available rainfall (none).

With the foliage 'missing', the plant disappears from sight - until the bloom spikes start appearing like erect tenacles from a buried octopus in mid-summer. In full bloom with flowers in shades of pink and white, they earn their amusingly genteel name 'Naked Ladies'. [In the Carolinas if they were up to no good, they would be 'Nekked Ladies'.]

Santa Barbara is treated every summer to a huge blast of pink from the Clark Estate - a mysterious ocean-front estate at the end of East Beach. Gardeners there have supported mass plantings of Naked Ladies that slow traffic.

Once the blooms have dried and fallen, the bulbs lie dormant until the fall rains begin again. Clever, eh?

Naked ladies can tolerate some frost - however appreciate good drainage and very little (if any!) water in the summer. They are available in many shades of pink and white - just look around as these great old landscape plants qualify as 'pass-a-long' plants as the bulbs are easily shared once the blooms drop off. Randy Baldwin and San Marcos Growers here in Santa Barbara offer a great selection.

Zaca Fire Now Contained, NOT Controlled!

The Zaca Fire was started on 4July by two ranch workers repairing a water line in a remote area of the Santa Ynez Valley. Sparks from a grinder got away from them and 240,207 acres and two months later, the fire is contained - encircled and not likely to expand. The photo above was taken in August during a flare-up. At 375 square miles, it is the second-largest fire in California fire-fighting history. Amazingly, the Zaca Fire burned in an area TOTALLY UNPOPULATED!

Imagine - in the country's most populous state, a fire burns for two months and chars 375 square miles (5.5 times the size of Washington, DC) and only burns one storage shed! Yes some hard-working firefighters were hurt, none too severly and no one died in the fire. Based on my earlier analogy relating to the size of the fire, at 375 square miles, it would equal an area of 15mi x 25 miles with a perimeter of eighty miles! Even if this were 'neighbor hood streets', it would take someone about nearly THREE HOURS to drive the perimeter! However, this area has the shape of an amoeba on acid - and is located in an area with 3,000' mountains.

However, even now, two weeks after "containment", the fire will not be "controlled" (completely out) until the rains finally arrive in our Mediterranean climate - maybe as early as the first half of October!

The two workers and the ranch they work for were charged with felonies regarding the fire's start. Best advice? Get that fire extinguisher -- and learn how to use it!

Trees & How They Are Appreciated by Their Communities

I have an opinion that in general, trees belong to all of us. I like trees. They feel good to me. Growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, I learned very early in my driving (and parking) career to seek the 'shady spots' in parking lots. Now that I've been driving a long time, I'd hoped that the parking lot builders would have gotten the picture by now.

Heck, I'd hoped people would have 'gotten the picture' by now! Certainly some have, and celebrate the value of our trees. For others we have Tree Ordinances - at least in enlightened communities - because city leaders must have agreed with me that trees belong to no one person, they belong to all of us and the trees (and us!) need to be protected from those that would rather not rake leaves or pick up downed fruit or object to having a branch fall or don't like pollen or roosting birds....

While I am certain I will extoll again and again regarding my feelings about trees, this one instance proved just too good to ignore.

I'm presently living in Carpinteria with my wife while we are sorting out our next adventure - and have wonderful friends who have made their garage apartment available to us for most of the summer, "housing benefactors" I call them! We have spent quite a bit of time in "Carp" (nicknames for towns are another topic opportunity!) and I drive past a glorious pine tree nearly every day on some sort of errand or another.

The town has chosen to celebrate this particularly robust specimen with its own lot and identification and placard.

And let me tell you - this tree is HUGE. While our State Redwoods and Douglas Fir are certainly much larger, this tree can hold its crown high and not be in anytree's back seat! This large surface root is as big around as my arm - and grows 30' from the trunk.

How can I properly show scale in a photo? I lay on the ground to take the photo and used my own feet!

While not truly native to the site in downtown Carp in the current biological sense, Torrey Pines (Pinus torreyana), are only known to grow on Santa Rosa Island and at Torrey Pines State Reserve in San Diego. This tree was grown from seed collected on Santa Rosa Island and planted at this very spot in 1888. Now it is over 130' tall and 30' in circumference! This tree has truly found a spot that suits it.

Montecito, another local community here on the Central Coast, is an unincorporated area of Santa Barbara County that prides itself as being "semi-rural" and trees cover much of the community, although not as much today as last week. All I can say is that if you enjoyed sipping your "low-fat soy chai latte vente de-caf" at the outside tables of the Starbucks on Coast Village Road - and part of your enjoyment was the nicely shaded patio - you're toast. And if the sun comes out and heats up, that could well be literal(!) as the very large California Sycamore that shaded the entry patio to Starbucks was cut down late last week.

While I can't fathom why, I also didn't choose to ask - certainly the hardworking coffee-jocks behind the counter don't have purview over landscape decisions that affect the entire community. Oddly, this strip of Coast Village Road is actually within the City of Santa Barbara, so there may well have been a successful permitting process - or perhaps the City ordered it removed for it is very close to the sidewalk and may well be within the City 'Right-of-Way'.

Whatever the reason, and whether or not the removal was properly permitted, removing a tree of that size in an area that several thousand people saw on their daily cruise on the CVR and that shaded many people in their leisurely pursuit of caffeinated happiness just doesn't seem to be sensible. Without being socialistic about it, I think there are times that trees just belong to us all.

In this one instance, Carpinteria celebrates a large tree, and Montecito removes one.

Carpinteria 1

Montecito 0

Carpinteria Salt Marsh

After driving by the Carpinteria Salt Marsh for nearly two years, I actually walked through part of it today. At 230 total acres, it is a remnant following a hundred years of agricultural and urban development. In fact, the entire reserve is completely surrounded by urban warehouses, trailers, apartments, streets, homes and beach homes.

Today the incoming tidewater was clear - and the Santa Barbara ChannelKeepers have worked effectively to obtain cooperation from local nurseries and greenhouses that were found to be discharging irrigation runoff (fertilizers & pesticides) into channels that led directly to the marsh. While a very serene setting, long-term disturbance is easy to detect as only about 1/2 of the plants growing in the marsh are actually native to the site. The rest are all escaped exotic weeds or ornamentals. There did not appear any evidence that controlling such invasive plants was a current priority.

A large portion is managed by the University of California Natural Reserve System - primarily for research purposes. Access is strictly limited - other than one nature trail.

I was 'art support' for my wife Jeannie who was participating in a local 'paint-out' organized by SCAPE (Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment). She required a super-size ice tea w/lemonade from MickieD's, so I was able to gain entry to a normally-locked access by way of the SCAPE activity and gain much-needed 'kindness points' in the process!

Local artist Chris Chapman led the pastel paint-out. Even her stash of pastels looks colorful!

Green Heron on a mud flat.

And in flight over a channel.

Evidence of the marsh's 'megafauna' - a raccoon.

And a shorebird had walked the trail before me.


A crab hangs out on the edge of the mudflat/channel boundary.

Dodder, a member of the cucumber family has no chlorphyll and is a generalist parasite - and this one is Salt Marsh Dodder, Cuscuta salina v. major.

See? It even has flowers - looks just like pumpkins? No?

The yellow-flowering shrub is a member of the aster family and grows on higher ground between the channels where tidal flooding does not occur. Santa Ynez Mountains in the background, average 2,000'+

Hummingbirds Are Attracted to Red!!?

This blue agave (A. fransozinii) with the arched nine-foot leaves and the 25' inflorescence with yellow flowers would not likely be a good target for hummingbirds. Correct? Red flowers = hummingbirds. Well, there may be some truth to the color red attracting some hummingbirds. However, with an abundance of energy-rich nectar produced, the hummers will show up!

Look closely and try to count 'em! And this is only one section of the flower spike. The much smaller specks are bees feeding on the same flowers. I tried to count the hummingbirds around this inflorescence - and as you can imagine, it was tricky. Best as I can figure there were 50 or 60 birds in view at any one time - and who knows HOW many more in the shadows, waiting there turn? In North Carolina, the folks at the Hummer Bird Study Group felt that for every Ruby-Throated Hummingbird seen around a feeder, there were at least 5x that many in the very nearby area!

Closer inspection reveals these hummers to be Anna's Hummingbirds - quite common here on the Central California Coast.

Like most hummers, they are very territorial - even with such a huge resource of food! You can see a bee below the lower hummingbird.

It was like observing a three-ring circus watching these hummers feed and dance. All it took was one good agave, about 30 years of good growing, 25' of flower spike and nectar dripping from each of hundreds of yellow blooms.

Carpinteria, CA - Overlooked?

I am summering with my wife Jeannie in Carpinteria, CA, just south on 'the 101' from Santa Barbara. Confusing to most, including me from time-to-time is while the main direction of US-101 is north-south, here in this part of Santa Barbara County it runs east-west. This section of coastline oddly runs east-west on an overall greatly north-south Pacific Coast of California (and Oregon and Washington). So the main street in Carpinteria, Linden Avenue (above) runs north-south and wonderfully ends at the beach in the Pacific Ocean!

Linden is a very pleasant tree-shaded and pedestrian-friendly street, with all sorts of shopping and eating readily available. It is much less than a mile walk from the center of the shopping areas to the beach!

In summer the beach is well-used yet not overly crowded, although I tend to stay away on weekends. Also very popular is Carpinteria State Beach, also at the ocean-end of Linden Avenue.

We've camped there with our fun 1967 Aristocrat Travel Trailer and had a grand time and close access to great views from INSIDE the camper! As you might suspect, reservations are a must.

And along the short walk on the way to the beach is the spot for lunch. Actually, it is The Spot - long known for great burgers and shakes. In the summer I try to arrive by 11:30 am on The Spot, or lines can be long! The Spot is also popular with campers, as it is a close walk for them as well.

Interested in Southern California and can't afford the virtually $1,000,000 minimum housing costs in Santa Barbara? Try another community close by - that might save money, right? Guess again. This is a very close-to-downtown neighborhood in Carpinteria.

And at the corner there are two houses for sale - one a rather ordinary-appearing duplex; one unit a 3/2 the other a 2/1.

The second home is much more charming, a craftsman-style bunglow, also a 2/1. The combined lot size is 10,000 square feet - less than a quarter acre for three living units.

And while my photo of the handout might not be easily read, trust me. It's a good deal. Live in one and rent out two. $1,630,000 - Heck, that's less than $550,000 per dwelling! Where else could you share a house with another family for only a half a million dollars - each.

I like Carpinteria - it has nourished my life this summer as we search for a next adventure. There is always something interesting on the beach, and being in town just feels "right". Folks are folksy and tourists are well, tourists. If I could find employment sufficient to match my housing needs (actually very modest), Carpinteria could well be my next adventure. Alas... our budget for housing is somewhat south of $550,000 - even in a town where north-south and east-west get so confusing.

Mendocino, CA and its Water Towers

Mendocino lies on a 'peninsular bump' about three-plus hours north of San Francisco, and is surrounded by the Pacific Ocean. Remote and charming, Mendocino is a collection of bed & breakfast properties, shops and galleries. Established in the mid-nineteenth century, it began as a lumber town settled by people from New England - and the architecture shows it.

With scarce drinking water and low-producing wells, townspeople erected water towers. Not just one for the town, but nearly one for each house! Some are very simple. Yet others, having 'invested' in the cost/effort of its construction, chose to enclose them and make use of the newly found interior spaces.

These towers create fun vertical elements and add greatly to the charm of this 'California New England' town.

Fun Stuff in Fort Bragg, CA

I spent a couple days recently in Fort Bragg, CA - a small town of nearly 7,000 people along the Northern Coast of California, about halfway between San Francisco and the Oregon state line. While not as 'charming' as its neighbor, Mendocino, I found it pleasant, quite likeable and 'normal' - meaning real people with real jobs and real lives live there.


Having moved from a mill-town (textiles) in North Carolina less than two years ago, this mill-town (lumber) had a kindred resonance. Here the lumber mills are completely closed. In North Carolina the mills are simply nearly gone. I did see some amusing sights amongst the 'normal' town life in Fort Bragg, CA:

1. A "Glass Beach"?? Seems the town dump had been situated over a bluff into the Pacific Ocean! While dumping was stopped decades ago, the beach is filled with 'beach glass' or 'sea glass' - broken pieces of glass bottles dumped and broken and then tumbled for decades in the grit sand and tossed up on the beach.

Glass Beach

Glass Beach up close

2. Ever have an important possession that was just a bit 'too big'? A favorite notebook that wouldn't quite fit into your locker in the 7th Grade. Or a set of speakers that wouldn't quite fit onto your bookshelf? Heck, you may have even had a BOAT that wouldn't quite fit into your garage!

Normal Garage?

Look closer...

3. Giant redwood trees in California are not news. However the fact that some still remain may be news to some. A 'drive-thru tree'? I recall photos from my mom's trip from New York State to California in 1942 - where they drove her dad's Model A thru a redwood tree. You can STILL do that! Just outside Leggett, a very small town about 45 miles north of Fort Bragg and inland over the mountains about 20 miles there are signs directing you to "Famous Drive Through Tree" - and the signage is very 'park-like'. However, once you arrive, be prepared to pay $5/car to drive thru! And it's worth it. The 'Chandelier Tree' is simply huge. The opening is 6'9" high and 6' wide. My 2002 Explorer only needed the wing mirrors folded-in to slip right through.

Chandelier Tree

BIG Tree! 315' tall, 21' diameter!

Successful 'Explorer thru tree trick'

4. Now being a 'plant guy', I couldn't resist stopping a a place called:

As seen on Hwy 1

Sure enough, filled with all things fuchsia - plants, gifts, cards, refrigerator magnets, shirts - you name it, and it was there in fuchsia.