Falling for Fall...well, sort of

The heat waves of the past month have produced a semi-deciduous forest. The leaves pictured here belong to the native bay tree (Umbellularia californica) - also known as 'pepperwood', 'California laurel' and, in Oregon, 'Oregon myrtle', or simply myrtle. This is NOT the leaf found in the store that is sold as a bay leaf (Laurus nobilis). This is yet another late summer drought strategy to reduce the surface area transpiring ever-dimensioning moisture supplies. The lane that leads to my house is littered after a strong wind with needles of the redwoods and the leaves of bay trees. But many needles and leaves remain in this evergreen forest.

We do have leaf fall in my neck of the woods. It’s just a few: the native horse chestnut (Aesculus californica), thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus), wild currants (Ribes spp.), spice bush (Calycanthus occidentalis), and maple (Acer macrophyllum). The colors appear washed out or muddy if there is too much heat. A cool, late summer will make the maples glow yellow against a dark-green evergreen forest. The horse chestnut loses all its shriveled-up brown leaves a month or two before the chance of rain as a drought-protective “strategy”. The only bright and clear colors come from the poison oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) snaking up a Douglas fir or Coast oak, with the most vibrant reds and oranges of any other native plant around my house.

Back in the ‘70s I was experimenting with friends on wild, native, and lesser-known edibles. We skinned the bay fruit, slit the seed’s skin, extracted the nut and proceeded to cook it in a pan until almost a coffee substitute. Tasted “interesting”. It seemed to be only a last-ditch survival food. Little did we know that some lists and books consider the California bay tree to be a toxic plant. This includes the leaves that we so naively used as a free substitute in a sauce for spaghetti – long before it was called “pasta”.

Except for this uncontrollable twitch, I seem fine. So it probably didn’t effect me.

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

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NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

Dripping My Way Through the Forest

For anyone interested in water, a rain-gauge is not only an essential tool and toy, but a great topic for cocktail party chit-chat. Did you know, for example, that one can actually overlook 30 to 60 inches of "rain"?

I live on a high ridge dividing a hotter, dryer inland plain from the more temperate, wetter Pacific Ocean climate some five miles to the west. The non-drought average rainfall on top of my cloud-scraping ridge is about 60 inches per year.

Shortly after moving here, I noticed that a foggy summer evening produced the sound of steady rain beneath the tallest trees—even though a meadow 20 feet away remained bone-dry. I soon learned that in my Mediterranean coastal zone, summer "rain," consisting of droplets of condensed fog, is a frequent occurrence

In this climate, with its summer fogs and winter rains, moist air condenses on the leaves of plants and forms droplets like the hot-weather "sweat" on a bottle of cold soda. The collective needles of the Douglas fir trees near my house offer an immense surface area for this condensation.

I set up a rain-gauge beneath the tallest (125 -foot) Douglas fir tree, and over six years I've discovered that this single tree gathers one or more inches of "rain" each summer night during heavy fogs, and half-again to twice the year-round "rain" of the adjacent open meadow. The month of August usually produces six inches of summer fog drip, or an amazing 163,000 gallons per acre of tree foliage!

To utilize nature's original "drip irrigation" and take direct advantage of this free rain, I plant beneath the dripline of the Douglas firs near my patio The difficulty is finding plants that are somewhat drought-tolerant, shade-loving and deer-resistant. So far my list includes most of the varieties of Daphne (Daphne spp.); wild ginger (Asarum caudatum); native Western ferns; foxgloves (Digitalis spp.); huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum); Forget-me-nots (Myosotis scorpioides); salal from Northern CA, OR and WA (Gaultheria shallon); the native thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus); Euryops pectinatus (gets leggy, must have late evening light); and various ornamental grasses. Soon to be infiltrated by Rhododendrons spp., Azaleas spp., and bear berries (Mahonia spp.)

Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

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NOTE: The comments section at the bottom of the post has disappeared. Click on the "___ Comments" button or the title under the "Blog Archives". Thanks, Robert

A SOD Story, attachment to "my" forest.

Not the loss of lawns, which I can easily get over. But Sudden Oak Death syndrome (SOD).

SOD is decimating “my” forest. This alien disease first appeared in Marin county—the county just south of me—in 1995, although some say it may have been here since the mid ‘80s. It is caused by the water mold disease called Phytophthora ramorum.

The devastation of the tan oak along this ridge is enormous. As I drive home, the last three miles of the forest reveal hundreds of small and large dead and dying trees—some as high as 30 feet. It looks like a botanical firebombing. The dead trees stand out because they don’t loose their dead leaves for years, if not a decade or more. These sentinels are possibly a harbinger of things to come. SOD is decimating “my” forest. 

(A list of potential native host plants is at the end of this blog.)

Already the California bay laurel on this property is looking pretty shaggy and there is die-back on some of the limbs. Tan oaks and California bay tress make up 80% of the trees surrounding my house. Some say “this may merely be one of nature’s ‘house cleanings,’ removing genetically weak or damaged trees and leaving the healthier, stronger ones to produce better, sturdier offspring.” Well, I’m looking at a dead 40-foot high by 50 wide dead tan oak tree just 40 feet from my office and it’s not a pretty picture. I keep telling myself it wouldn’t be so bad if the leaves would fall off so the tree doesn’t look so miserable. But I still resent the death of these trees. These trees may follow the way of the elms that once graced so many yards and streets and the chestnuts that once were the major forest tree in the Eastern woodlands. But I hate it when it’s happening in my forest.

There will be a cascading effect on plants and animals as these trees die in greater numbers. As an example, the acorn woodpecker makes good use of the nuts from this tree. Squirrels nest in it. More than 300 species of animals; including 170 species of birds, 80 or more mammals and 60 varieties of amphibians and reptiles, and more than 5,000 insects make a home out of the habitats provided by the coastal live oak and tan oak trees, according to Bill Tietje, a natural resources specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension. An acre of oak woodlands can have 10 to 100 million individual invertebrates which help to digest the decomposing oak parts to recycle nutrients for new growth. In the words of John Muir, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

The death of tan oaks has been a great struggle at learning how to be unattached to the flow of nature (and mankind for that matter.) Sometimes as I drive home I simply gaze in a way that seems to selectively block out the view of the brown-leaved ghosts of the oak. I use to return from a trip out of state or the country and wonder in amazement at why I went somewhere else when it’s so beautiful here. Now when I return, I’m shocked at the death in the forest that I’ve forgotten about when I traveled. The forest may not cry, but I do. 

The ecological changes that happen will be slow and I probably won’t see the recovery or replacement of this wonderful tree in my lifetime. So the tragedy seems so personal. I am only one piece of the ecology but a very selfish one that doesn’t want to witness the slow demise or partial downfall of this tree that was here long before me. I just can’t let go.


This is the list of those trees and plants known to be host plants for the disease in California.

Scientific Name Common Name(s)
N= Native, MH = Grows around my house.

Acer macrophyllum Bigleaf maple - N
Adiantum aleuticum Western maidenhair fern - N
Adiantum jordanii California maidenhair fern - N
Aesculus californica California buckeye - N, MH
Arbutus menziesii Madrone - N, MH
Arctostaphylos manzanita Manzanita - N. MH
Rhamnus californica California coffeeberry - N
Heteromeles arbutifolia Toyon - N
Lithocarpus densiflorus Tanoak – N, MH
Lonicera hispidula California honeysuckle – N, MH
Pseudotsuga menziesii var.
menziesii & all nursery
grown P. menziesii Douglas fir - N, MH
Quercus agrifolia Coast live oak - N, MH
Quercus chrysolepis Canyon live oak - N
Quercus kelloggii California black oak - N
Quercus parvula var. shrevei
& all nursery grown Q. parvula Shreve’s oak - N
Sequoia sempervirens Coast redwood - N, MH
Trientalis latifolia Western starflower - N
Umbellularia californica CA bay laurel, Oregon myrtle – N, MH
Vaccinium ovatum Evergreen huckleberry - N, MH


Please post a comment - I want to know what you think.

Note: I somehow lost the usual section "Post a comment". To leave a comment, simply click on the area/button that says "___ Comments". Clicking on the title of a Post under "Blog Archive" also gets you to a view that gives the option of leaving a comment. I hope to figure this out soon. Robert

Visit my web site to learn about my gardening books.