Garden Activities for Cinco de Mayo 2026

We had a productive day Tuesday in the garden. Volunteering were: Julia Appelrouth, Bill Dobner, Dale Harshberger, Susanna Mac, Katie Shank, Daryl Stutley, Nancy Taylor Walker,  Marna Wensil, Anna Wiktor-Becker, and myself. Bill was tending the compost, and Katie only put in a brief appearance on her way to the KAG to participate in the 2nd (?) kid’s field trip and series of activities - a new educational program designed by board member (and current chair of the CRPD board) Nellie Cusworth with the collaboration of other CVBG board members.

Before the first order of the day which was to ascertain if there was more work to be done on dismantling and cleaning up the old arbor in the Rare Fruit Orchard, Anna, being mindful of the coming of the Matilja Poppy Festival, didn’t ignore a couple of huge black mustard plants amongst the poppies which she uprooted on her way to the service area from the main entrance.

Anna with her trophies.

We made our way up to the Rare Fruit Orchard by way of the zig zag trail and came across a plant of interest.

Myoporum parvifolium is native to S. Australia, is an excellent ground cover (fast growing, drought tolerant, about a foot high), and, unlike its tree form M. laetum, it is not considered invasive. It can be found on the right hand side of the path approaching Entrance B of the Nature Trail - on the western edge of the Australian Garden. Though it doesn’t come through on a still photo, bees were loving it. 

When we got to the arbor expecting to do more work, this is what we found: 

The work was miraculously all done! Jim Cyr is to thank for this progress. All that is left are 3 metal stakes (that should be reset in the ground so that they are solid and upright), the apple tree, a bit of a grape vine and a pot of dragon fruit that some interested person could take on to relocate to a sunnier location and provide a stand alone arbor.  

Needing an arbor to work on, we settled on the grape arbor at the base of the waterfall in the Bird Habitat. I’m sure there is a strict regimen for how and when to prune grapes properly, so we did the minimum by only cutting away the vines working their way back toward the waterfall covering desirable plants and vines intruding on the paths and seats. Where possible we encouraged some vines to grow across the top of the structure.

Yours truly and Nancy at work.

Nancy, Susanna and Anna rerouting some of the vines onto the ceiling slats.

Tiny fruit just staring.

After working on the grape arbor, there was still time for another small project so we made our way to the S. African Garden and tackled the embarrassment of riches that is CA fuchsia. Because if is a desirable native, we want to leave it where we can which in the S.A. section excludes areas where it chokes out the other plantings.

This could be both the before and after picture as the view wasn’t substantially different. We only cleared fuchsia directly crowding the other plants.

Dale in S. Africa.

Amongst the native milkweed that is now about a foot high Marna found...

… a cobalt milkweed beetle (Chrysochus cobaltinus) found on the U.S. west coast and British Columbia. Because it feeds on the leaves of the milkweed, it does some damage but rarely kills.

And finally, one of my favorite features of the garden is the informal cairn garden within the Tranquility Garden.

Maybe someday we’ll learn the identity of the talented artist just as the world has learned the identity of Banksy!

Many thanks to Marna, Nancy and Daryl for their images!

Enjoy the garden…KMM