President Cary had the sense to calm us down by playing three pieces of music to see if we could identify them by the first chord only.  This little game, he called “One Hit Wonders.”  One was a symphony by Mendelsohn, another was a pop hit from the 60’s, the Everly Bros, “All I Have to do is Dream” and one was from the musical “Grease.”

 

Program time:  Our speaker was Jessica Fernandez, a Botanic Garden specialist with multiple appropriate degrees, experiences and credentials.  She spoke to “Growing with Purpose:  Preserving California Native Plants.”  Jessica brought a lot of enthusiasm, vision and passion to the subject.  (Note:  This subject is not the same as “watching grass grow,” so don’t turn off your brains—this is maybe a doctoral level course with direct applications to your garden and lawn!)

 

Jessica took Torrey Pines as an example of what happens in a nursery.  Torrey Pine is the rarest pine species in North America, thriving basically in the Santa Barbara area and some areas south of that.  But the climate has changed so that it is too dry and hot for the tree, allowing bark beetles to thrive, by eating the Torrey Pine.  So, there are now 50 planted at Ms. Fernandez’ Botanical Garden.  To find seeds that can be planted to create a new generation (essential in the event the mature trees all die off), meant a trip to Santa Rosa Island, which supports one of the populations of Torrey Pines.  Once the conservationists determined there were enough seeds to justify a trip to the island to collect them (in the pinecones) without endangering the remaining plants and their seeds, they brought them inside to dry out, usually in baking pans.  The seeds are retrieved from the cones and cleaned off (of mold, fungus, insect eggs, etc.) and then it is time to get them to germinate, a process of usually 3 to 6 months.  Most plants have a period of dormancy, and that has to end to get the seeds to grow.  Some are wet with water, others are made cold in freezers or refrigerators, others hot (scarification, called boiling water), and still others need to be nicked while perhaps most oddly, some need fire, as if a forest fire had come over the plant, in order to cause it to break dormancy and to germinate.  The way they imitate that often is to put a jar of “liquid smoke” (as may be used to make BBQ) next to the seeds.

 

The seedlings that arise are carefully ID’ed so they can be traced to their parent plant as the whole point is to find the strongest genetics and reproduce from those seeds where possible.  Some species going through all these processes only have a one in ten outcome of germinating.  The seedlings, once strong enough to leave the nursery, are planted where the soil and the terrain seem most like the places the seed parent trees were growing. 

 

And that, boys and girls is a summary of the story of plant reproduction, without any mention of birds or bees (seeing as how they are not plants!).  The talk ended with a listing of ways you and I can help keep California green with healthy and appropriate (native) plants:  Visit a Botanical Garden; grow some seeds to maturity in your own garden; donate to any Botanical Garden or to the American Public Garden Association.

 

Our speaker has a dream for working with prisons (which are often built on soil that is second rate, like the places many endangered species grow) and helping build networks of prisoners to learn about the preservation and propagation of native species and to plant gardens and maintain inside work rooms so the incarcerated people can learn skills and develop a dossier in order to be of use in this realm after release.

 

Thank you to Jessica; a certificate for 5 polio vaccines was awarded to her in gratitude.