I have been getting Calif native plants at the meetings of the California Native Plant Society which meets monthly in Balboa Park (del Prado building). I plant them on the joint grounds of UCSD and the First UU Church of San Diego. Anything we could work on?

Hi Lawrence,

I am an ex-academic (post doc'ed at UCI, my field was human disease genetics) and a UU'er. Good to meet you!

I don't know if we could work out something or not. Do you plant for the UU and/or the university? Whatcha interested in plantwise? Whatcha got to spare?

I have thought about going to the Las Pilitas nursery in Escondido. Have you been and how is it? If I went there, I'd probably look for arabis, native violets, and assorted butterfly plants.

I am trying to root some ceanothus (not too much luck yet), some ribes, eriogonum, and others. Some of these varieties are listed on my trade page, I could think hard and come up with a few that haven't made it onto the page yet. Feel free to have a look -

Patty

I'd love to know about rooting a few natives, ceanothus and arctostaphylos (sp?) in particular....I have a couple of Ribes that seem to be taking, but the c's and a's seem to be heading south...

Patty...that's quite a plant list. I've got a mix of things growing, but I'm a sloppy record keeper so I forget what trees the seeds are from....cuttings are so much nicer.

Anyway...back to your question. I would like to go to a swap, having never been to anything but proper plant sales. I might not have much to contribute, but I'd like to see what goes on and chat with like-minded folks. I'm in eastern LA county.

BTW...I'm a sort of academic, having p-doc'ed at WSU, and my mom is a casual UU-er...

cheers
dr

Hey dr,

I am confused by our ceanothus. I took several 8 inch woody cuttings of all three varieties that we have (concha, skylark, and yankee point) and at first they seemed okay. I put them in moist soil covered with a plastic tent.

Well, they all failed after a few weeks but one - one of the conchas - and it still looks as happy as the day I cut it. Which was two months ago, but it hasn't even hinted at roots yet.

I have also tried rooting small cuttings of these three. Like 3 inch cuttings without much woodiness in the stem. It's too soon to say whether those will root or not.

No attempts to root our manzanita, though we are talking of pruning them and I may put some in water or something to see what happens.

Our ribes cuttings looks like they will take hold.

As for seeds vs cuttings --- I suspect that when I get the knack of propagating by cutting I will be a convert. In the meantime I really enjoy finding seed pods on some roadside plant, and harvesting the seed. The plant ID process is fun too. Several of the seeds I have are from dried up seed pods on a park specimen of this or that - and I have enjoyed learning the species names of the common plants around here. There is uncertainty about traits breeding true, I suppose, though for some species there seems to be only one variety around so it wouldn't seem to be a concern.

Anyway, good talking to you!

patty

Try air layering for ceanothus -- they're difficult.

Here is a link that might be useful: Air Layering Link