Earth Day at Quarryhill, Scotch broom abounds

Hobbling along the trail

Although I am sorely tempted, I promise not to dedicate this entire column to the flora of spring. However, I will soon get to that theme, and express a few unpopular views. But first, let’s catch up on who’s on the trail and what exciting events are available to you this spring. 

On a recent evening stroll through Glen Ellen’s Sonoma Valley Regional Park, I was overtaken on the trail by two old friends, Cathy Wedell, a language arts teacher at Adele Harrison Middle School, and her college graduate son, Andrew Wedell, guiding two lively dogs down the trail. 

It is my fashion to hobble along with my rainbow-colored “stick” (aka, a cane) and it’s not difficult to pass me. But, to my surprise and delight, as the two Wedells approached, they stopped for a quick catch-up visit. Turns out that Andrew is doing graduate work at San Francisco State University while living back at home with his parents. He says he doesn’t mind the commute, and Cathy claims she’s thrilled to have one of her three boys back home. I totally get that. All of her sons are now college graduates, pursuing various graduate degrees. Andrew already has his official Sonoma Valley substitute certificate and Cathy says he would be a great adjunct to her language arts classes. 

Meanwhile, Cathy just completed a unit on Jack London with her eighth-grade students. Her enthusiasm for her students (and for her three sons) made for a lively, happy visit. 

Earth Day in a big way

Heads up on a few great events coming up this month and next. The good folks at Quarryhill will soon be celebrating Earth Day in a big way.  Families will find lots to do at the botanical gardens from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m., on Saturday, April 25. Everything is free, and by everything, I do mean plenty of great activities. From arts and crafts, games and face painting for kids to tea tasting and art shows for the adults, the whole family will surely find something entertaining. For me, best of all, it is simply wandering the beautiful gardens with plants from all around the world. 

Well, that, and their once-a-year plant sale. That begins one hour before the start of the Earth Day festivities and continues throughout the day. I can’t guarantee that your garden will be as beautiful as the one that Bill McNamara and his fine staff have curated over the decades, but it’s a chance to add some exotic beauties to your life. This one is a “don’t miss” for flower fans.  

Ann Bauer sent me good news. She and Todd Evans (a fellow Bouverie docent) invite you to join friends and neighbors on April 29 for World Hunger Awareness Day. Eat out at one of the participating restaurants that have pledged to donate up to 20 percent of their proceeds that day to End World Hunger. Funds raised will go directly to One Acre Fund and Gardens For Health, International, in East Africa, who are battling hunger around the world. One-hundred percent of funds raised will pass through to these organizations. See participating restaurants and partner organizations on the End World Hunger website, endworldhunger2030.org.

Music at Happy Walls

Finally for great outings this spring, on May 10 a concert is planned as part of the “Composers Series,” presented by the Jack London State Historic Park. The concert takes place at 2 p.m. and continues until 4:30. If you pack a light lunch, you can dine in the park prior to the concert, and maybe even add a post-prandial, pre-concert stroll. The concert is held in the House of Happy Walls, Charmian’s tribute to her soul partner, mateman Jack. Tickets (which include parking) are $20, available in advance at the museum store, online at jacklondonpark.com or by calling 938-5216. Performance space entails a stairway (though not Charmian’s secret one). If you need more information about access, please call 938-5216.

Aliens taller than mustard

Back to our springtime flora and more. Maybe even a light rant. Here it is straight out: I love Scotch broom, the beautiful, bright yellow, non-native, invasive shrub that lines our valley roads and trails. Scotch broom is like a breath of fresh spring air after the short-lived daffodils fade. 

Broom is a lively legume, scientifically known as Cytisus scoparius. Native to Europe, the hardy legume has happily found fresh soil throughout the Americas, and particularly in Northern California.

On a recent car trip to Eureka with my friend Judy Laursen, we passed through miles of golden broom, brightening the roadsides. Throughout the spring and summer the tall shrubs are covered in profuse golden yellow flowers. Later, their seedpods mature, blacken and dry. On hot summer days, they burst open with an audible crack, forcibly throwing the seed from the parent plant. 

Like our more fashionable and praised vineyard addition wild mustard, broom can also fix nitrogen in the soil through a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria. Why do vineyardists worship mustard and disdain broom? The mustard is also a non-native, invasive plant, but I don’t see anyone ripping it out of the ground. 

Just to do a little name-dropping (for those of you who care about such trivial matters), Scotch broom served as the official plant of the House of Plantagenet, the rulers of England in the Middle Ages. Broom decorated the Heraldic Badge of the Plantagenet kings, as well as Charles VI of France. As for me, I would gladly have it decorate my grave, hopefully many years from now. 

Aliens taller than tall

In addition to a Celtic worship of broom, I have a fundamental, profound affection for eucalyptus, a tree species that may well have been introduced to all of California by our most famous local author, Jack London. Jack was looking for a good source of firewood. Instead, he introduced one of our most maligned non-native invasive plants. Why so maligned?

Eucalyptus has not always been the California enemy. In the 1960s, Harold Gilliam, venerable nature columnist for the San Franicsco Chronicle and Examiner declared: “Eucalyptus seems an indispensable element of this State’s landscapes, as indigenously Californian as the redwoods, the poppy fields, the long white coastal beaches, the gleaming granite of the High Sierra.”

One of my favorite walks at the Jack London State Historic Park remains the long downhill avenue through the tall overhanging eucalyptus. The fresh smells, the pale green of the arching branches, the cool bark that invites touching. It’s a corridor of delight. 

In an essay from January 2014, author Jared Farmer states the plight of the eucalyptus, blue gum trees of the San Francisco Bay Area, “After the Berkeley Hills Firestorm disaster of 1991, many California residents disowned eucalypts and, borrowing from conservation biology, reclassified them as giant weeds and alien invaders. Strange scenes unfolded in the Bay Area. Euc-hating environmentalists fought tree-huggers and defenders of migrating monarch butterflies, which roost in coastal eucalypts.”

As a child, I collected eucalyptus pods and leaves, neatly layering them under my pillows. Lumpy, uncomfortable? Not at all. The soothing smells inhabited my dreams with a benign and loving natural world. I still love eucalyptus and often think of that beautiful piece of art at the Hess Collection in Napa. Ditto for the eucalyptus fence that is part of the gardens at Cornerstone in Sonoma. These simple leaves become a powerful, moving art form, dream weavers in their own right.  

Himalayan aliens invade from Armenia

Finally, what’s the beef with sweet Himalayan berries? Actually Rubus armeniacus hails not from the Himalayans, but Armenia. At least those that our late neighbor Luther Burbank brought to us. And they are the berries that we find abundant in August. 

For me, they are a sure sign of hot summer days, a sultry summer treat, sweet and divine. Who could not love them? Winter blackberry jam is a treat that brings a summer day right into your cold winter mornings. A berry pie in August is a circle of family happiness. 

As for our beleaguered honeybees, they apparently love Himalayan berries, not caring a wit about political correctness. I concur. I have long loved berries of all types, from the tiny huckleberries that populated the steep redwood gullies of Humboldt County to the huge ripe red strawberries currently being offered at the roadside shacks on Arnold Drive. 

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The Folks in Glen Ellen column also appears online. Look for my column on the Index-Tribune website sonomanews.com under the category Lifestyle. Click on Sylvia Crawford for current and old columns. Want to see your own name in the news? Call or write me at 707 996-5995 or P.O. Box 518, GE 95442. Or email me at Creekbottom@earthlink.net.