GARdenVariety FALL 2011
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California Native Plants Fire Follower A Green Yard Native Landscapes Mapping the Garden
www.rsabg.org
California’s Native Garden
| Welcome Susanna bixby bryant, the founder of rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden, was a visionary.
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more than 80 years ago bryant recognized the increased pressures by people on California’s native plants and their habitats. She set aside 200 acres on her ranch in order to help preserve native flora, and further the study and promotion of these plants. Her innovation did not stop there, however. As part of the founding documents, bryant enabled the trustees to move the organization as they felt it was in the best interest of furthering the mission of the Garden. at decision permitted rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden to relocate to Claremont in the 1950s.
It is impossible, however, for even the most visionary to anticipate all situations. over time the expectations for appropriate governance of nonprofit organizations have changed. As originally envisioned, the organization had five trustees, and those trustees served life terms. best practices now call for larger boards with term limits to appropriately reflect the communities the organization is serving, as well as help ensure appropriate fiscal oversight. recently the rSAbG board of Trustees sought a modification to the trust that established rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden. In June, e Superior Court of the State of California issued an order modifying the trust to allow for an increase in the number of trustees and to set term limits. Susanna bixby bryant was a visionary. is small change to the trust is significant and will help ensure that the innovative organization that she founded will remain relevant for years to come. Patrick Larkin Executive Director
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GARdenVariety e Newsletter of RAncho SAntA AnA B otAnic G ARden
FALL 2011 VoLumE 26, NumbEr 2 editoR/deSiGneR Pauline Amell Nash editoRS rebecca Lerback Linda Worlow contRiButoRS brenda bolinger, Deborah Carini, Eric Garton, Patrick Larkin, Lucinda mcDade, bart o’brien, Allison ritter editoRiAl oFFice Send letters and submissions to: rSAbG, Public relations, rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden 1500 North College Avenue Claremont, CA 91711 Email: pnash@rsabg.org Garden Variety is published four times a year and mailed to rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden members. Copyright 2011 by rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden. Postage paid at Claremont, 91711. opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden, the staff, faculty or editors. rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden is committed to equal opportunity. rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden strives to display, document and conserve the native flora of California. members enjoy many benefits and help renowned horticulture, science and education programs flourish. to become a member visit www.rsabg.org or call (909) 625-8767.
Contents |
A Second Spring
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uthor and philosopher, Albert Camus is quoted as saying “autumn is a second spring, when every leaf is a flower.” With the Fall 2011 issue, we present to you a second spring of sorts for the rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden membership newsletter. e newly redesigned newsletter aims to capture the breadth and depth of our organization through colorful images and stories of the amazing people of rSAbG. bringing the design in-house reduced production costs and enabled two prominent features of the new design—full-color printing and Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper. ese are just a few stories from the Garden. If you would like to comment or contribute, I would love to hear from you. Pauline Amell Nash Editor
Dep ar tm e n t s 3 Garden Scene In the Groove
4 california native Plants Fire Follower
5 Field notes Erin Tripp’s research stresses the role of plant diversity
6 class Act News from the graduate program at rSAbG
11 Membership Spotlight 3,000 members strong
GARdenVariety FALL 2011
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Fe at ures 7 Mapping the Garden Plant curation, much like art curation, helps get a handle on the big picture.
9 A Green Yard When the Albrigo’s took on the hefty job of relandscaping their La Verne home, they were looking for a spectrum of green.
12 volunteer today
Light up the Garden
13 Garden Guide
Events, Classes and Programs
www.rsabg.org
o n the coveR : Photographer Carrie rosema captured this Garden scene: monarchs and milkweed.
Fall 2011
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| Garden Scene In the Groove
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The rSAbG’s summer concert series wrapped up its 18th consecutive season in August with a concert by Doc rock-It. The L.A.-based band was one of six shows, which included terrific performances by local bands—some longtime favorites and some fresh faces. Concertgoers enthusiastically supported the performers and made each Thursday evening concert a resounding success. Local event supporters, bert and rocky’s Cream Company and Gourmet Gourmet Catering, continued to help make the series a fun event for all. New this year was the Garden Groove VIP experience for Director’s Circle members. As premiere
giving society members, these individuals were treated to priority parking, reserved seating and access to a hospitality tent where they could enjoy refreshments and hors d’oeuvres. In addition to Director’s Circle members, nearly 30 additional guests received VIP treatment as a result of their winning bids at the 2011 Garden with clockwise from top: a View. These Garden Groove Doc rock-It saxophonist Tony VIPs enjoyed shaded seating, as brewer; concert goers clap to well as catered dinners, libations the beat; (L to r) Charlotte and and attentive service. Join the Eric Sorensen join Samantha Director’s Circle, or be the highest and Jeff musa under the VIP bidder at the Garden with a View, hospitality tent Aug. 4; Sally and Skip Prusia dance the and you, too, can be a VIP.
Ed and I can’t thank you enough for a truly memorable evening at Garden Groove. The ambiance, rSAbG, of course, was perfect. We appreciate all your effort providing us with a real VIP experience!” ~ Gloria Slosberg
evening away.
PHoToS by CArrIE roSEmA
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PHoTo by mICHAEL WALL
FFollower ire
California Native Plants |
by bart o’brien
pectacular and beautiful, this native perennial subshrub can currently be seen in great abundance in the central and western San Gabriel mountains in the aftermath of the Station Fire. Eriodictyon parryi (formerly Turricula parryi) or the poodle-dog bush is primarily a fire follower—its seeds germinate shortly after wildfires and it may even produce flowers during its first year of growth. However, this short-lived plant is typically most spectacular in its second, third and fourth years, when it reaches its peak in both size and vigor. From late spring through summer, large, showy flower clusters appear and the plants may reach up to 10 feet tall. ese are composed of hundreds of lavender to bluish, one-half to three-fourths inch long flowers. Poodledog bush is an important plant for erosion control and provides abundant food for native pollinators. In the wild, this species is especially common in Southern California mountains, but it is found from the southern Sierra Nevada, the outer south Coast ranges and the Tehachapi mountains through the Transverse and Peninsular ranges to northwestern baja California, mexico. Surprisingly, it is also found in deserts in the Panamint range and in the Little San bernardino mountains. e name poodle-dog bush comes from the appearance of the dense dried foliage and flower clusters that can look similar to a poodle’s fur. But beware—never pet this plant! It is highly allergenic to many people, causing a severe contact dermatitis in some (similar to that of poison oak), and a feeling of itchiness to most everyone else. many people describing the plant refer to the fact
that it is glandular, sticky and that it smells bad—though some charitable folks say that it has a mint-like scent. ese features probably explain why this gorgeous plant is not seen in many gardens and landscapes. Still, it is one of California’s most impressive wildflowers. Should you want to try and grow the poodle-dog plant, it will require full sun and excellent drainage. is is one plant that you will not find growing on clay soils—it needs decomposed granite or other similarly droughty soils. Seeds are often difficult to germinate, and smoke treatment is recommended. In the right conditions, the plant grows quickly. In nearly all cases individual plants tend to be short-lived, with most going into decline or dying outright after two to five years of producing copious quantities of seed. In the wild, these seeds are extremely long-lived in the soil seed bank, and are ready to grow after the next natural catastrophe.
www.rsabg.org
PHoToS by JoHN mACDoNALD
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| Field Notes
From Africa to Appalachia
e beautiful fall foliage of the Great Smokey mountains. PHoTo by ErIN TrIPP
rin Tripp, rSAbG postdoctoral researcher, delves into the importance of biodiversity. In June, Tripp received a grant from the Tallahassee Foundation to continue her research on lichen diversity in Great Smoky mountains National Park. And her most recent award, the prestigious George r. Cooley Award, was bestowed by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for the best paper given at the annual meeting of the society. During the conference, she presented the results of her work on the small West African genus Physacanthus, a member of the large plant family Acanthaceae. Tripp’s work on Acanthaceae is motivated by the global ecological importance of plant diversity. She has long been intrigued by acanths—one of the most diverse families of flowering plants. Despite their broad worldwide representation, she is one of a handful of
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scientists (including two botanists at rSAbG—Lucinda mcDade, Judith b. Friend Director of research, and graduate student Carrie Kiel) actively studying Acanthaceae in the Western Hemisphere. Her findings on Physacanthus are significant because, among other things, it is an inter-generic hybrid between two very distantly related lineages in the family, where as hybridization generally happens between close relatives. Tripp’s collaborators on the project include rSAbG research assistant Siti Fatimah Isa, Lucinda mcDade and Iain Darbyshire of the royal botanic Gardens, Kew, in the uK. Tripp travels the world conducting fieldwork. Her passport has logged visits to mexico, Costa rica, Guyana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Namibia and China. is summer she returned to the southern Appalachians—a place she endearingly calls her
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backyard. e Tallahassee Foundation grant enables Tripp to continue work with colleague James Lendemer of the New york botanical Garden documenting lichens and writing a field guide to the lichens that occur in the Smokies. Lichens are complex composite organisms that are composed of a fungus plus a photosynthetic plant partner. ey have great potential for evaluating environmental sensitivity and change but are understudied worldwide. Although 800 species of lichens have been documented in the Smokies, rendering it the most lichenologically diverse u.S. national park, Tripp notes there is plenty left to do. “We are still discovering new species left and right,” says Tripp. Tripp’s chief motivation in science and education is “to raise awareness of the value of biodiversity and to help uncover the untapped natural enthusiasm for biology across the ranks of our society.” ~ Allison Ritter
A Warm Welcome new students join the ranks of the RSABG botany program. is fall, Joy england, Forrest Freund and tommy Stoughton bring the total of students currently enrolled in Claremont Graduate university’s botany Department at rSAbG to 14. england, pursuing a master’s degree, grew up in Northern California and spent several years in oaxaca, mexico. She received her bA from Life Pacific College, San Dimas, Calif., and has worked in the rSAbG herbarium as a curatorial assistant since 2009. Her experience working with California native plants has made her eager to pursue floristic research—documenting plants and plant communities that occur in a particular geographic area. Sonoma County native, Freund received his undergraduate degree from Humboldt State university. Prior to joining the doctoral program, Freund worked for the bureau of Land management in ridgecrest. His research interests are the evolutionary processes of plants and primitive vascular land plants— those that do not have flowers but do have special tissues to conduct food and water. Stoughton spent several years working for the uSDA Forest Service near big bear in the San bernardino Forest and more recently as the coordinator for the Seeds of Success program at rSAbG. e Southern California native is pursuing his Ph.D. He is interested in the mustard family (brassicaceae) and high-elevation habitats and the plants that are restricted to them. High elevation alpine habitats are effectively islands. ey are separated from other areas of alpine habitat by lower elevation terrain that is as inhospitable to alpine plants as the sea itself.
Class Act | and Fond daniel Koenemann successfully defended his master’s thesis in Farewells July. His thesis, “Species Concepts and Studies in Sanchezia (Acanthaceae),” took on the question ‘What is a species?’ and how the answer to that first question influences our approach to working on species. (you may be surprised to know that these questions have been asked for centuries and continue to be of considerable debate.) During his tenure at rSAbG, Koenemann worked with Erin Tripp, rSAbG postdoctoral researcher, to examine a nomenclatural Did You Know? review of Sanchezia and Morphometrics nomenclature began a morphometric is the study of the is all about relationships scientific names. study of the genus. He among organisms It allows scientists found evidence that previbased on meas- to communicate ous researchers were both urements of clearly about structures (e.g., plants. right and wrong in terms of recognizing species that flower length and width). are distinctive enough to be Methods of analysis of morphodistinguished in this way. metrics attempts to summarize the patterns in ways that are easily Koenemann is taking visualized and interpreted. his plant knowledge to another calling, this fall he is entering our Lady of Providence Seminary in rhode Island as a seminarian. Siti Fatimah isa has been accepted into the master’s program in evolution, biodiversity and conservation at the universiteit Leiden (university of Leiden, Netherlands). ere she will be working on studies in malaysian biodiversity. Isa, who earned her undergraduate degree from Cal Poly Pomona in biology, first volunteered at rSAbG two years ago and later accepted a position as a research assistant working with Erin Tripp. left to right: Isa and Tripp at a poster session at the botany 2011 professional meeting.
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mapping
the Garden
the Garden is thriving, thanks in no small part to the role and importance of plant curation.
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rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden is a museum of plants—a living collection. e Garden’s curated living collection contains more than 22,000 plants, representing nearly 1,400 species, hybrids and cultivars of native California flora. To effectively take care of this vast collection, an accession system is vital to the overall wellbeing of the Garden. Plant curation, like art curation, involves the meaningful organization of information about a collection. As curator of the living collection, Shawn overstreet was responsible for the management of rSAbG’s records of each plant growing in the Garden. He recently left his post in order to pursue doctoral studies in horticulture and agronomy (agronomy is the science and technology of agriculture) at the university of California, Davis. but not before helping rSAbG reach a milestone achievement—mapping 95 percent of the plants on the Garden’s 86 acres.
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Each plant at the Garden is tagged with a unique accession number. at identification number along with the location, size, species, condition, care requirements and disease concerns for each plant is recorded and used to create a living collection map. “e real joy of curating a collection is assembling and arranging plants in a way that tells a story about California flora,” says overstreet. As of three years ago, 75 percent of the Garden’s plants had joined that chronicle. at left approximately 3,000 plants that had not been mapped and inventoried, most of which had been planted at least a decade ago. by August 2011, overstreet, along with a band of four volunteers and an intern, had whittled that number down to 600. roughout the hot days of late summer, the group, armed with maps and plant lists, played detectives—peering into every corner of the Garden. e weekly expeditions, called field checks, tracked down the plants using fixed monuments.
PHoToS by PAuLINE AmELL NASH
overstreet and rSAbG volunteer David Gish review a plant list during last summer’s mapping blitz.
e round brass markers are small and close to the ground but are easy to locate because they are installed on a surveyed 100-foot grid that spans the Garden. ese field checks identify the uncurated plants that are still present. As each plant is found, the information is recorded and the legacy plantings that no longer exist are removed from bG-base, the collection management software that drives rSAbG’s curation database. once recorded, the information is powerful. It can be used to understand the big picture of the Garden’s ecosystems. It provides a guide for rSAbG horticulturists about what should be in each area. A well-groomed database enables visiting researchers and rSAbG scientists to find what they are looking for. In addition to providing stunning displays for visitors, plants at the Garden provide scientists from all over the world with information and material for research projects. And it facilitates informed decisions about new plant selections and locations. overstreet, who focused on threatened and endangered taxa during his four-and-a-half-year tenure, sought to continue to diversify the collection and add underrepresented plant families. In 2007, the American Fern Society asked what ferns were in the Garden. e answer was “not many.” www.rsabg.org
“I went through bG-base and looked at the distribution of plants at the family level and looked at the fern families to see how many plants we had,” says overstreet. at query and subsequent research helped identify the need and bring a larger contingency of ferns into the collection. Several new fern taxa were introduced as a result including Sonoran maiden fern (elypteris puberula var. sonorensis) and several species of lip ferns (Cheilanthes). is fall as part of his doctoral studies, overstreet is researching the possibility of reducing global warming by replacing some of the 90 million acres of corn grown in the u.S. annually with large tracts of oak forest that would help to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Acorn crops have the potential to be substituted for the corn currently used for food, animal feed and industrial purposes. rSAbG recently hired Helen Smisko as overstreet’s successor. As the plant records manager, Smisko will pick up where overstreet left off. A retired software engineer, she has geographical information systems and horticultural certifications under her belt. And as a rSAbG volunteer, Smisko worked directly with overstreet mapping the Garden for the last nine months. Fall 2011
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hen Steve and Paula Albrigo took on relandscaping, their goal was a green yard. Not the green often used to describe environmentally friendly landscapes (although the results are certainly eco-minded), but to fill their 7,000-square-foot front yard with a mini-forest of native plants—a spectrum of green. “I wanted people to look at our yard and say that they never imagined a native California landscape could be so green and beautiful,” says Steve Albrigo. e result is a striking, beautiful domestic space that showcases native plants. e corner lot has been transformed from manicured turf to a carefully crafted woodsy wildscape that reminds the Albrigos of the serene mountain retreats they love. e new green yard was part of the Albrigos’ project to restore their 100-year-old Craftsmanstyle home in La Verne, Calif. In 2003, they began renovating, refinishing and redecorating in the original style of the home in anticipation of its historic anniversary this fall. of course, it was more than aesthetics that prompted the dramatic landscape makeover.
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Environmental and economic factors were at play as well. “Environmentally, we want to do our part to conserve natural resources,” says Paula Albrigo. “We knew the lawn was using lots of water and our bills were super high. We were already rSAbG members and were falling in love with California native plants.” e summer before they removed their lawn, they had water bills as high as $450 for a two-month cycle (these have been cut almost in half since the relandscaping). e economic benefits of changing to a predominantly native plant landscape became apparent as the cost of water increased. “most of us felt the impact of the higher cost of water during the recent drought, and we made the decision to do something that would have a longterm beneficial cost impact on our water bills,” says Steve. “As residents of California, we will continue to have periodic droughts, and population growth brings additional pressure on essentially fixed water resources.”
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ey decided the time was right to ditch the turf, and in Fall 2010 they took the plunge. Working with Joel Shafor, landscape design artist with Sage Leaf Studio in orange County, they drafted a landscape design and made a list of their favorite plants. e couple signed up for a class at rSAbG to help get a handle on the process of nurturing a native plant garden. With the home’s anniversary fast approaching, they were eager to get started. Last September, they stopped watering their front lawn, and after about a month it turned brown. Paula says neighbors became concerned and stopped by to ask if things were ok.
by Pauline Amell Nash
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In November, they bought a truck full of plants at the rSAbG annual Fall Plant Sale and got down to business. e first round of planting included three of Paula’s favorites—narrow leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis), evergreen current (Ribes viburnifolium) and ‘Howard mcminn’ manzanita (Arctostaphylos). Each was tagged and recorded. Steve includes the botanical name on the labels he creates for each new plant to learn the scientific name. “We have had many compliments about the beauty of the plants and the design,” says Steve. “And I enjoyed developing new neural pathways in my brain as a result of learning all of these fancy new plant names!” A year into its transformation, the yard offers a variety of forms, textures, scents and colors. bloom times vary and offer interest throughout each season. e Albrigos chose not to go all au naturel. eir broad plant palette includes some nonnatives as well. ey mingled www.rsabg.org
butterfly and hummingbird garden selections among graceful white birches. mature fruit trees, a rose garden and other ornamental plants continue to thrive in the back and side yards. Steve installed the irrigation system himself, carefully working around established root systems and giving extra consideration for certain areas of the yard. After a discussion with bart o’brien, rSAbG director of special projects, during a visit to a Native Plant Clinic, Steve installed a separate system for the birch trees. before the irrigation system was put into place, Paula took great care to water and check each plant. As a result, there were few plant casualties. “I have tried very hard to learn about each plant’s needs while they became established and I took losses fairly personally,” says Paula. As a happy consequence of the project, the Albrigos have become ecosystem stewards. Wildlife is ever present. many
insects—especially butterflies— have specialized host plant needs and require one or a few plants species as food for larvae and adults. e Albrigos’ landscape, which faces a sea of grass at the neighborhood park, offers a handsome alternative with abundant habitat for wildlife. “We love to sit in our front yard,” says Paula. “We watch the plants change and grow, especially this first year when every stage has been new. ere is just more nature around us—birds, bees, butterflies and lots of insects!” read more native plant landscaping experiences at www.rsabg.org.
An Invitation rSAbG members are invited to see the transformation of the Albrigos’ home and garden, Nov. 12, 2011. representatives from rSAbG and the La Verne Historic Society and Joel Shafor, landscape designer, will be there. more information at www.rsabg.org.
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| membership Spotlight
Best Secret Garden?
R an ch o Sa n t a A n a B o t a n i c Gard en is now more t h a n 3 , 0 0 0 m e m bers st ro ng. e landmark member, Troy murphree, joined rSAbG in June, just five days shy of the end of rSAbG’s fiscal year. “I bought the membership so I could visit the Garden and butterfly [Pavilion] with my grandsons,” says murphree. e San Diego resident received a small gift basket as a token of appreciation for her support and helping rSAbG reach 3,000 members. Garden membership has more than doubled since 2007. New programming (especially for Gold Card members), the expansion of
Grow Native Nursery, enticing exhibits such as the butterfly Pavilion, a commitment to native California plant conservation and the implementation of admission fees are among the many reasons given for joining. membership dues provide vital operating support that sustains programming in horticulture, research, conservation and education. no matter your reason for joining—it makes a difference and is appreciated. Help keep the momentum growing. Encourage friends to visit and become members.
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Invite non-members to accompany you to special events or shop at Grow Native Nursery or California Garden Shop. Consider the Garden as the site for your next occasion—garden club meeting, wedding or memorial service—and let the Garden’s serenity speak to your guests. Suggest the Garden as a destination for your children’s school field trips. buy memberships as gift-giving alternatives. ese efforts will bring more visibility to rSAbG and help build support for efforts to safeguard California’s native flora.
– From our friends at California Native Plant Society –
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c hAnce !
The path from the East Alluvial Gardens up to the mesa will now be lit with energy-efficient LED lamp posts, not the halogen lamp posts temporary placed along the path as shown in this image. PHoTo by CArrIE roSEmA
Volunteer Today |
Light up the Night I
f you have ever walked the path up to the mesa after hours, you know how dark it can get in the Garden at night. This summer, rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden volunteers launched a fundraising campaign to illuminate the pathway from the admission kiosk past Fay’s Wildflower meadow up to the east side of the Administration building. Light Up the Night, the entirely volunteer-led initiative, sought to help provide a safer and more enjoyable evening experience for visitors. With seed funding of $591 from the rSAbG Volunteer organization, Light Up the Night was a shining success— raising more than $4,500 toward the purchase and installation of energy efficient LED lights. The planning and organizational efforts were immense and began months in advance.
www.rsabg.org
Volunteers Sally and Skip Prusia and Carol Lerew spearheaded the initiative, the board of Trustees approved and more than 20 volunteers pitched in to help with the installation. Patrick o’Donnell of Practical Lighting in San Clemente, Calif., was selected to install the environmentally friendly landscaping lights. The warm white LED lights use a mere three watts of energy per light. This means that the 27 new, lowwattage, high-intensity lights at the Garden will use about the same amount of energy as two traditional, 75-watt incandescent bulbs. Volunteers and staff worked side by side to install the path
post lamps, in-ground spotlights and graceful, hanging lights. The lights will be fully operational in october. “Through their various and sundry levels of service at rSAbG, our volunteers really know the pulse of the organization. They saw the need for lighting, and understood how it would increase our capacity to improve the visitor experience,” said Patrick Larkin, executive director. “Not only did they raise the money for this effort, they assembled a team of volunteers to help with the installation of the lights. We are fortunate to have such dedicated individuals involved with the Garden.”
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| Calendar oct. 22 ings that Go Bump in the night, 5:30 p.m. bring your family, friends and flashlights and meet the bats, owls, insects, spiders and plants who own the Garden at night. Ticketed event. Tickets available online. oct. 23 create a Woven Bird home 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Welcome feathered-friends home with a handcrafted, stylish abode. using round reed and gathered oct. 8 materials learn step-by-step how to Gathered Materials Basket weave this fanciful bird shelter. 1 p.m. – 4 p.m. is class is for all levels of Create a gathered-materials basket weavers. Includes all materials. Led using plaiting and twining basketry by fiber artist Gloria Flickinger. techniques. Fiber artist Gloria September member: $45; Public: $56 Flickinger leads this workshop Sept. 29 intended for anyone—from oct. 23 and 30 claremont day at l.A. Fair beginning to advanced weavers. tongva living history 12 – 7 p.m. Locally gathered natural materials 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. rSAbG will be joining community are provided. Completed baskets Explore the history and culture of and city partners at the L.A. make great wall art or centerpiece. the original inhabitants of the Los County Fair. Free fair admission on member: $30; Public: $38. Angeles region. Free with paid Claremont Day with a donation of Garden admission. a new or slightly used book. oct. 22 and 23 Autumn Garden Party Grow native nursery Westwood November October bring California home as the fall nov. 5 and 6 oct. 1 planting season opens in Southern 33rd Annual Fall Plant Sale Free native Plant clinic California. Shop a wide selection Shop thousands of beautiful plants 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. of native plants, listen to expert and water-wise solutions for your Plan your fall planting blitz and horticultural speakers, enjoy live home landscape and get the expert get native plant gardening quesmusical entertainment and see advice you expect from California’s tions answered by gardening exfascinating demonstrations. native garden. Grow native perts. November and December Speakers include: John Greenlee, nursery claremont opens for the are the golden months for plant- bart o’brien, Lili Singer and season nov. 9. ing California native plants. Free. Emily Green. Free.
Jeepers Creepers! Big Bugs Swarm the Garden next Spring. Dave rogers’ big bug exhibit is coming to rancho Santa Ana botanic Garden April 14 through July 15, 2012. The playful art installation skews scale and creates an environment that shrinks visitors and enlarges common creatures to uncommon proportions!
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Garden hours Daily 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Closed Jan. 1, July 4, anksgiving and Dec. 25
Calendar |
Admission: Free for rSAbG members $8 Adults $6 Seniors (65+) and Students $4 Children (3-12)
Membership: Individual $45 Family $75
nov. 12 cornucopia Basket 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Join us as we weave a time-honored symbol for abundance, gratitude and sharing and then celebrate the anksgiving season by taking your cornucopia home to fill with an assortment of the Earth’s harvest. reed and gathered materials will be used. is class is for all levels of weavers. Includes all materials. Led by fiber artist, Gloria Flickinger. member: $45; Public: $56 nov.19 and 20 Acorn Festival Celebrate the autumn festival of the oak tree and acorn with Tongva dancers, singers, storytellers, artisans and tribal leaders. Free with paid Garden admission. nov. 24 Garden closed
December dec. 4 Winter holiday open house Visit with Santa, make crafts with the kids, find unique gifts and enjoy festive live music, complimentary refreshments, free gift wrapping and prize drawings. Free Garden admission.
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dec. 8 Gold card Member event “Gifts of the Garden: From Art to meadows.” A special, invite-only event honoring the bountiful kindness of Garden benefactors. dec. 25 and Jan. 1 Garden closed
Ongoing Sept. through dec. Yoga Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m. member: $10; Public: $12 for each class. Sept. through dec. tai chi ursdays, 9 a.m. member: $50; Public: $60 for six-week session. oct. 16, nov. 20, dec. 18 Guided tram tour, 10 a.m. See the California coast and mojave Desert in an hour. Ticketed event. Tickets required in addition to standard Garden admission. oct. 1, nov. 5, dec. 3 native Plant clinic Get native plant gardening questions answered by rSAbG gardening experts. Free. oct. 2, nov. 6, dec. 4 Beginning Bird Walk, 8 a.m. bring binoculars and join Pomona Valley Audubon Society on guided bird watching walks. Free event and free Garden admission.
s pring 20 1 2 prev iew Family Bird Fest l Feb. 19 Learn more about the diverse bird life in the Garden. Free with paid Garden admission. Wildflower Show l April 7-9 A Garden signature event, the annual spectacular of wildflowers gathered around the state and brought indoors for a special viewing. Free with paid Garden admission dave Rogers’ Big Bugs exhibit April 14-July 15 It’s all about bugs! Sculptor David rogers carefully creates massive (up to 25 feet long) creepy crawlies from natural materials. Free with paid Garden admission. Garden with a view l May 6 An annual fundraising event that benefits the Garden’s research, horticulture and education programs. Ticketed event. Butterfly Pavilion l May 12-July 30 Walk among and learn about native butterflies and plants. Ticketed event. Mother’s day l May 13 A lovely brunch or lunch served alfresco in the California Container Garden. Ticketed event.
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rANCHo SANTA ANA boTANIC GArDEN 1500 North College Avenue Claremont, CA 91711
Non-Profit organization u.S. Postage PAID Claremont, CA 91711 Permit No. 469
Return Service Requested
Nov. 5 FALLand 6
PLANT SALE
Sat., nov. 5, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Sun., nov. 6, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. Members only: Sat. 8 a.m. -11 a.m. utumn is the best time to plant California native plants. Shop thousands of beautiful plants for your home and get the expert advice you expect from California’s native garden!
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For more information, please call (909) 625-8767 or info@rsabg.org.