Appearance: Revisting Estivation

With the repeated comment by individuals coming in contact with Shasta for the first time identifying her as a “Golden Retriever,” I am struck by how inaccurate a human’s “first impression” can be and how it can be influenced by what that person wants to see (point of view). As some of you know, when we adopted Shasta from the Novato Humane Society we were told she was a mix of Golden Retriever and Spaniel. After a few days of her coming to MuRefuge it was clear from her behavior that she was neither. Wisdom Panel performed a DNA assay on her saliva verifying she is not a Golden Retriever:

• Great Grandparents, Grandparents and Parents on one side Bearded Collie (Shasta’s      disposition of sweetness and exuberance)
• On the other side Collie, the Lassie type, (Shasta’s “tail feathers”) and Pointer (Shasta’s white with lemon/orange fur color, and she does "point")

Then other ancestors (in descending order)

• Chihuahua (Shasta’s front teeth and muzzle configuration when she barks)
• Lhasa Apso (Shasta’s tail)

• Curly-coated Retriever ( Shasta's soft, silky fur)
• Bulldog (Shasta’s scissors bite)
• German Shepherd

MuRefuge's 25 year old California
Buckeye tree (Aesculus californica) in estivation.
Some of you might recall a picture of the blooming in May?

Applying the “point of view” assessment of humans who have specific views of what plants should look like to the landscape here in Northern California at this time in the year’s cycle often indicates the deficit to that way of thinking. Often individuals talk about how their plants are dying when in reality the plants are just dormant. Dormancy is usually spoken about in relationship to Winter, while here in Northern California it happens in the “Fifth Season,” aka “Indian Summer.” 

Ocean Spray or Cream Bush (Holodiscus discolor) along MuRefuge's South fence

The plants are shedding their leaves and drawing down the sap flow to the roots to conserve their life force and longevity. The plants are not dead but in estivation aka dormancy. This way of BEing has evolved over the millennia in this part of the globe where it has been in the past dry in the Summer and wet in the Winter. The plants and other BEings of the soil and air are in rhythm with this way of BEing. Although, I want to add here that all BEings are affected by the erratic and not typical weather brought on by climate change.

Western Ninebark (Physocarpus capitatus)

Watering these plants during estivation often shortens their life span which has not evolved to BE green all year round nor look like it is alive to humans with a certain point of view or experience of living elsewhere in this country where green indicates Summer and brown indicates Winter. The appearance of native plants can be deceiving to those not in tune with the seasonal cycles here in Northern California just like those not connected to Shasta think she is a Golden Retriever.

BEing with the flow of cycles has the added benefit of connecting ourselves with the natural process in the place we are rooting. This process of connection supports our well BEing on so many levels and allows us to step outside of our limiting “personality” which includes not only learned childhood behaviors but the physical body with its genetic DNA, and experience expansive “essence,” aka soul/spirit, which includes the surrounding energy fields as well.

Bush Anemone (Carpenteria californica)
with her droopy, drying leaves.
The bright shiny leaves in the upper left and towards to upper right corner
are Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica) bushes now laden with dark almost black fruit.

Shasta is uniquely herself with a unique personality and DNA mix. She is also much more when her essence is included. Her sweetness that everyone comments on who spends any time with her is clearly a reflection of so much more than just her DNA.

Shasta, in her slimmed down body of around 55#,
bemoaning, "They don't feed me enough" with a smile.

The native plants here provide a similar opportunity to step outside of humanness (point of view of uniqueness and separateness) and experience the connection to the entire energetic web not only here at MuRefuge. Of course, as one expands his or her point of view or awareness one can feel how essence connects any/everywhere to all sentient BEings.

May we let go of our small idea of self and embrace a much larger one as we 

"Fifth Season" when native plants rest Talk with Rainy Tour

This past Sunday a few inquisitive, hardy souls joined me at MuRefuge for a talk sharing thoughts about BE-ing Rooted here in the Mediterranean Biome (see previous post for information about this region).  We gathered inside for talk then ventured outside to the garden and rain.  Here are some pictures Harmony
Susalla.  Through www.harmonyart.com  you can read about Harmony's adventure into the fabric design world and see pictures of her lovely organic fabric.

Dwight's sculpture amidst rhubarb

Raindrops on the showy native clematis by MuRefuge's front entryway

Vegetable beds in transition from old recycled redwood to cinder blocks which will  hopefully deter gophers

Perennial sunflowers in bloom

New Evening Primrose plant

View of MuRefuge looking West from South patio

Estivation or Summer Dormancy, aka the Fifth Season

Muhlenbergia rigens (Deergrass) glowing in the sun, September 13, 2010
In Judith Larner Lowry's The Landscaping Ideas of Jays she discusses the "fifth season"
or "quiet time".  She suggests this time "can be a time of planning strategy for fall.

Those of us who are fortunate to live in Sonoma County are inhabiting part of what is referred to as the Mediterranean Biome which is composed, as many of you are aware, of California/Baja California, Chile, the Mediterranean Basin, Australia and South Africa.  This unique portion of Earth's land mass composes only 2.2%, yet contains 20% of the world's vascular plants.      http://www.mediterraneanaction.net/ma_v2/home.jsp 
provided this information and more about our place to which many of us have been transplanted.  

This estivating or Summer dormant Ribes speciosum
(Fushsia-flowerrd gooseberry) looks like a brown dead bramble.

Often, driving about or even BE-ing Rooted in place, we see an agricultural region since many before us as well as many of us presently have brought/bring plants and their childhood experiences of plants with us from other places.  These experiences bring us comfort . . . having a green lawn or a blooming, fragrant cottage garden midSummer.  Or we visit someplace and fall in love, so to speak, with a plant that flourishes there.  Oh, I have had that experience myself, most recently in the early 1990's.  At the time I was spending a week or so every month in Santa Barbara, "learning to laugh at what's not funny in my life" with Dr. Annette Goodheart as my laughing coach.  You can check out http://www.laughtercoach.com/home.html for more information if you so wish, although she is no longer in Santa Barbara, but an expatriate in Mexico.


Back to plants.  I fell in love with the trumpet vines growing it seemed every where in the city with Spanish architecture.  Over the course of a few months, I bought from nurseries there these trumpet vines in every color available and proceeded to plant them here at MuRefuge.  Now for you savvy individuals, you're saying, "West Sonoma County's climate is nothing like Santa Barbara's."
True!  AND only one of these vines survived, struggling to do so, dying back with each cold, rainy season.  This plant no longer lives here.  I found it a new home, yet even in a warmer Sonoma County location, it did not thrive.

Single blossom Tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa)

A few of my memory plants, I'll call them because when I look at them, and smell their fragrance, I am transported to another time and place, and usually to a cherished person in my life.  Like this single blossom tuberose which came from my Grandmother Howard's place in Southwestern Iowa.  She was such a "good" person, someone whose qualities I would like to incorporate more of into my BE-ing

Bear Claw Acacia with tiny
green leaves & flowers

And the Bear Claw Acacia, grown from seeds gathered in the Sonoran Desert, that has toughed out many uprooting, replanting, uprooting, replanting.  Each Summer when it gets hot enough it presents me with fuzzy little blooms that transport me back to my hikes in both the Catalina Mountains and the Chiricahua Mountains.  Unfortunately my maternal Grandma Haynes's jade plant did not fare as well as the previous two plants.  This glorious 3' tall and wide plant succumbed to death after being buried in 3 feet of snow during an unusual Winter storm while I lived in San Antonio, Texas.


As you have read in earlier blog entries here, I have lived in many places diverse from one another.  I recall a memory from living in Tucson, an area a half a mile high in the Sonoran Desert, that in the 1950's and even into the the 1970's, was known as a healthy place to live for those experiencing lung difficulties.  Earlier in the 20th century the area boosted some of the best TB sanitariums in the country.  Many people, most Midwesterners, with respiratory problems moved to the Tucson area for relief of symptoms, alas, bringing with them plants they loved.  Can you hear the next words?  Yup!  Bermuda grass flourished, releasing pollens into the previously pristine air.  By the 1980's, when I lived there, the city government banned Bermuda grass and other such plants that produce repirataory allergens.

Grindelia stricta or Salt Marsh Gumplant with bud and open flower

So perhaps you, like me, could entertain shifting your/my perspective about "place" i.e. Sonoma County which is a part of this "most inhabitable place we love to live," 2.2% of the Earth's land. We can make a difference by considering the natural cycle. BE-ing Rooted: a practice of essential living embodies examining our "baggage", plant attachments included. Planting plants native to here, wherever "here" is for each of us, not only is about the enjoyment of the plant(s) but of the entire ecological system of which the plant is only one part. Wingeds, 4 leggeds, mammals, insects, birds, beneficial and predatory, all evolve with their food source. As we introduce plants from outside our home region, not only does the plant itself struggle but all the other inhabitants as well.

Scrophularia californica (Bee Plant, Figwort) with raindrops

We are fortunate to have great resources for gathering local plants onto our place.  For me, living just North of the Petaluma Wind Gap, Mostly Natives Nursery   http://www.mostlynatives.com/   in Tomales most closely matches the microclimate here at MuRefuge.  For those of you who live in the hotter spots of Sonoma County there's California Flora Nursery in Fulton.  http://www.calfloranursery.com/  


And if you are so inclined to start your natives from seed, you can check out Larner Seeds  http://www.larnerseeds.com/  in Bolinas.  The owner, Judith Larner Lowry, also has her own blog.   http://judithlarnerlowry.blogspot.com/

The second Saturday of each October Milo Baker, the local chapter of the California Native Plant Society, has its annual native plant sale at the Veteran's Building in Santa Rosa across from the the Fair Grounds.  A suggestion, arrive early if you want to choose from a vast array which quickly dwindles!


For those of you who live further South, one of the largest and oldest native plant nurseries in California is located in the hills above Woodside.  
  http://www.yerbabuenanursery.com/
Perhaps you have already visited this nursery, founded in 1955 by Gerda Isenberg? 

Volunteer sunflower on our septic mound . . . see the pollinator?

This time of the year my garden looks dead, as a number of people who have visited share.  I use to catch my breath, feel the fear and rush out with the garden hose to water.  Now, even thought the catch of the breath and wave of fear enters my awareness, I take a deep breath and remember that I live in the unique and small amount of land mass know as Mediterraean Biome where the plants rest, go dormant this time of the year.  I further remind myself that the plants do not need me "to rescue thirsty, dying plants".  The plants are simply resting as each of us are meant to do with the sympathetic nervous system (activity) cycling with the parasympathetic nervous system (rest).


I was reminded of the effect of my watering hose on plants of the ecologic niche here, when I recently visited Mostly Natives Nursery reading a sign on a Bay Area native plant which stated that water will provide many blooms in the summer but shortens the life of the plant from many years to 2 or 3 years.


I encourage each of you to share, in the comment section below, your experience with natives and your attention to the whole of garden ecology.
And anyone interested in viewing a huge project reflecting this process, visit the "upper reach of the Laguna de Santa Rosa that runs through Cotati and a small section of Rohnert Park" being restored by Cotati Creek Critters with the help of many volunteers over the past 12 years.  You can contact Jenny Blaker or Wade Belew through http://www.cotaticreekcritters.info/ .

Cathie & Rose soaking in the healing of MuRefuge
This picture obviously was not taken during the Fifith Season
since the Clarkia and Red Fescue are in spectacular bloom.
Resting seems like a valuable practice no matter
the season.