Garden Activities: September 30, 2025

Today was the last day the Tuesday Crew will meet at 8am this season. Going forward we'll be observing winter hours: 9-11am — unless a Tuesday is projected to be back in the mid to upper 80’s in which case I’ll send a notice around alerting the group that we’ll meet at 8am for that week.

Today the team comprised Bill Dobner, Dale Harshberger, Katie Shank, Nancy Taylor Walker, Marna Wensil, Ann Wright and myself. Bill tended to the compost, and the rest of us went directly up the service road to the top of the hill where we removed the stump sprouts again from the eucalyptus we removed a year or so ago.

Myself and Ann in the before picture.

Dale, Nancy and me finishing the job.

Elsewhere on the top of the hill we found an interesting native CA perennial herb, cliff aster or Malacothrix saxatilis which doesn’t look like much; the sparse blooms come from what otherwise looks like a dead or dormant plant.

On the way down the hill, we inspected the Quercus tomentella or island oak looking for any acorns that we could propagate. Last year we only saw one, and that disappeared before we could collect it. So far this year we only found one that, if still there next week, we’ll put a mesh bag around to keep animals at bay and to keep it from falling to the ground when ripe.

Q. tomentella acorn.

The fall blooming hot lip sages (Salvia microphylia) are in bloom again and looking great.

The common red and white variety in the corner on the right just at the beginning of the service road.

Several S. microphylia hybrids in the “new" salvia garden.

A S. microphylia purple hybrid.

Finally we noticed that the small Malabar nut tree (Justicia adhatoda) across the side trail from the S. African section is in bloom.

It has blooms reminiscent of those of its cousin the shrimp plant of the same genus. The plant is used as a natural treatment for respiratory illnesses among others in India from where It originates.

Thanks to Nancy, Marna and Ann for their images.

Enjoy the garden!    KMM