What's Growing and Who's Showing Up?

The purple plants in the picture are Red Amaranth.  Never having grown Red Amaranth before I generously sprinkled the seeds over the bed at the end of May.  I think every single seed has grown into a plant!  

June 2010

July 2010

My friend Claudia acquired the Red Amaranth as well as two varieties of Mexican Marigolds,  Tlapanche, Papalo, Pipicha, Chipilin and Huazontle seeds (all used and grown by the Aztecs) from Farmlab through their Metabolic Studio Seed Box program, harvested from the Anabolic Monument (created by Lauren Bon). Being that they are all fairly drought tolerant and produce different sizes and variations of flowers and seeds, I thought they were a good choice. I planted them farthest from the hose.  I've been having to cut the Red Amaranth back to allow for the other slower seeds to grow. It seems to be working. 


I've also planted two types of native penstamon that provide nectar for hummingbirds and two varieties of native yarrow, that provide seeds, for birds.  There is a grouping of wildflowers started a year and a half ago that had come from a generic wildflower seed packet.  There are probably ten different varieties of wild flowers growing in this small space.  The cosmos have actually re-seeded themselves outside of the container and are very happy.  I did have a bed of California Poppys that have gone to seed now.  Six sunflowers have seeded themselves in random beds from the wild birdseed mix.  I'm pretty happy about that.  The first one opened up today!

  
I've started two varieties of grapes, a hibiscus plant and have revived three jasmine bushes.  I'm not sure of their variety yet.  There are a number of trees that came with the property.  I haven't been able identify them yet, but I'll post their pictures and maybe someone out there can help me out.  We have a beautiful 15 foot, and several smaller potted Datura bushes with long golden trumpet flowers and a lot of bamboo.  Then we have squash, tomatoes, watermelon, herbs and corn for us humans!  We'll see if the birds are interested too...  There are more plants and trees in the front yard, but my experiment is mainly in the backyard for now.

So far we've been visited regularly by a group of two varieties of humming birds, finches, sparrows, black phoebes, mockingbirds, mourning doves, crows and one large hawk (possibly a juvenile red tailed).  The hawk was going after a mockingbird nest.  The mocking birds in all their characteristic moxie eventually chased it away, but I've seen it scoping things out since.  As far as I can tell the seed eating birds are just eating the bird seed that I put out in feeders and on the ground.  The hummingbirds are also just at the feeders.  The phoebes of course eats insects, and there are definitely more insects around lately.  The finches and sparrows drink from the ground level bird bath/water.  We have a larger birdbath in the front yard that they and the mockingbirds drink from and bathe in.  

One interesting thing that the sparrows and finches do is take dry dirt baths.  They have actually created bird sized indentations in the ground in three areas of the yard!   They look sort of like mini sand dunes. 
Based on this observation I've tried to create other types of areas for them.  


I recently attended a lecture given by John Fitzpatrick of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology   He said that in urban and suburban zones of tidy lawns, there aren't enough dead and dying areas (dead trees full of insects and potential nest cavities and areas of different types of decomposer insects).  In addition many areas lack hiding places.  I've attempted to create several areas of decomposing vegetation, piles of rocks and hiding nooks. 

For my future project plans I'd like to focus on growing more native plants.  I just ordered twenty seed packets of Southern California natives that are known to attract birds from the Theodore Payne Foundation .  I'm going to designate a nursery area for them and start them in flats.  I have much to learn through the process.  Some of the seeds require fire and or soaking in hot water to mimic natural processes.  I will most likely be signing up for a couple classes at the Theodore Payne Foundation to help with my native plant growing and care education.  I will continue to update on the progress.