Lopez Canyon, Year Six

January's fires roared very close to Lopez Canyon, but mercifully spared it.  We got decent rain last week, so I went up to see how the place was doing. I was relieved: it is as gorgeous and fascinating as ever. The creek bed is now deeper and wider, and the eerie hills and the multi-colored sands still yield a bewilderingly diverse assortment of ancient rocks, clues to the mysteries of LA's complex geology.  

All the habitats - foothill oak woodland, coastal sage scrub, and foothill chaparral are thriving, and the invasive species are mostly in retreat. How the habitats have matured and transformed in six years! Lopez Canyon is a living laboratory for native plant succession, fire resilience, and resistance to human abuse, including dumping and the extreme weather events of global warming.  Once-and-future, it is one of the great beauty spots of Southern California.

 As painted by Herman Herzog, 1877

In February of 2019 I stumbled (literally) across this sensational landscape for the first time. Here is how it looked then:

To see it as it evolved over the past five years, click the link below:

The Transformation of Lopez Canyon

The oak grove is as magical as ever, though sadly, it is still a magnet for litter and dumping.

Coast live oaks, Quercus agrifolia, are well adapted to periodic fires. The thick bark protects the cambium, which is the outer, growing part of the tree. The Creek Fire of 2017 ripped through Lopez Canyon, and adjacent Kagel Canyon and Little Tujunga Creek, from the ground up. Above, the fire seems to have burned out the base and through the interior wood of the trunk as far as head-height. But with the cambium intact, the tree is still spreading a glorious green canopy. Below is another example.

This cholla cactus is one of two left in the canyon. It was savaged by the fire and for a few years presented a very sorry sight. I am glad to see it has fully recovered and has almost doubled its height since 2019.

Hollyleaf cherries, Prunus ilicifolia, dominate the middle canyon. They were nowhere to be seen in 2019.

Elegant mountain mahoganies, Cercocarpus betuloides (foreground above) have colonized, or re-colonized, the meadow in the middle canyon. I counted about a dozen. The morning side-light doesn't do justice to their green freshness, but it does highlight their beauty of form.  

GOOD FORM: Speaking of elegance, check out this bushmallow, which caught my eye with its grace and symmetry. Normally chaparral bushmallow grows in an awkward or droopy tumble-down fashion,  but this beauty got me excited regarding the potential of bushmallow for an ornamental plant. [UPDATE: see next post for the revelation of her true identity!]

The meadow's stand of giant wild rye seems to have been scorched by last summer's blazing 100-degree temperatures. Leymus condensata (annoyingly, also called by its anagram Elymus condensata) is plentiful elsewhere up and down Lopez Canyon, but this was its largest stand. Watch this space to see if it comes back.

Toasted rye.

Blue elderberry, Sambucus cerulea, just coming out of its bundle-of-sticks winter dormancy.

Spiny redberry, Rhamnus crocea (center above), is now very plentiful in the middle canyon.

The thicket on the right, below, is fronted by the fabulous Nevins barberry, Mahonia nevinii. 

This was first specimen of these unicorns of the CFP I ever spotted. So I was cheered to see it thriving, ready to burst into flower, and spangled with morning dew-drops.

Beating out the Nevins in the stakes for the first bloom of the spring, are the golden currants, Ribes aureum. They always win, first week in February.

The Age of Aquarius

Aquarius, the Bringer of Water. 

For many long months Southern California has endured hot temperatures, a searing Santa Ana wind event, and fires, with no rain to quench them.  Right on zodiacal time, in February, Aquarius has finally brought the rains, and all gardeners are glad.

NASA video of the Moon, Jupiter, Mars and Venus in conjunction this month.

When the Moon is in the Seventh House

And Jupiter aligns with Mars

Then Peace will guide the Planets

And Love will steer the Stars

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, 

The Age of Aquarius.

 Aquarius? 

Aquarius!

Harmony... 

...and understanding.

Sympathy and truth (and frost!) abounding.

No more falsehoods or derisions!

Golden living dreams of visions,

Mystic crystal revelations,

And the mind's true liberation...

Aquarius.

Aquarius!

Lyrics of"The Age of Aquarius," by James Rado, Gerome Ragni, and Galt MacDermott.

And remember those camellias that Descanso Gardens rescued from the windfire-stricken Nuccio's Nursery? This month, it looks like they're showing us how much they appreciate it.

"Happy Ego"

"Flower Girl"

"Margaret's Joy"

"Centipede"

After the Wind, After the Fire

Descanso Gardens was spared by the Eaton Fire, but it was hit hard by the 100 mph windstorm that fanned the flames. The staff had grim and grueling work this week to assess the damage and start cleaning it up. Especially beaten up were the deodar cedars, and the live oaks. Their crashing branches, in turn, took it out on our fences and power-lines. 

Altadena, and Nuccio Bros. Nursery

One of the first priorities of the Horticulture department was to send teams out to fire-stricken Altadena, to Nuccio Brothers Nursery, to rescue as many camellias as we could carry. This landmark camellia and azalea nursery, family owned in Altadena for 90 years, and famous for developing many gorgeous varieties, has over the years played a prime role in building Descanso's camellia collection. The Eaton Fire raced right through Nuccios', destroying many buildings and systems, while miraculously sparing much of the plant stock. But now totally cut off from its water supply, the nursery is forced to go out of business. We loaded up about 100 camellias, sadly aware that all the plants we couldn't take, will soon die.

LA Times article: Nuccio closing

Nursery supervisor Frank Obregon led our Horticulture team to retrieve what we could on our last trip to Nuccios'.

We were escorted by a firetruck past the police cordon and through the deserted city of Altadena. Descanso gardener Jenny Perez-Flores took these photos of the devastation.

Altadena is - was? - one of the few remaining middle class, tightly knit, walkable/bikeable, affordable, vibrant, racially mixed communities in Southern California. 

Saving the Nuccios' camellias boosted our morale somewhat through this very trying week. But there was one other event that brought us some cheer and positivity. That was the arrival of eight koi fish, rescued by the Pasadena Humane Society from the backyard pond of a destroyed house in Altadena. We welcomed these new residents, photo-documented them, and released them into our Japanese Garden pond. Here we hope they will have a long, happy, and beautiful life.

   

Horticulture Director David Bare and Display Gardener Shana Babbs greet the new arrivals.

Gardeners Jenny Perez-Flores and Lili Stainbrook 

As of this writing, on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, the fires are contained but still burning in the back country. Worryingly,  Los Angeles weather forecasts are showing another bout of high-speed Santa Ana winds is headed our way this week and could bring more tree damage and even revive the fires. The disaster isn't over for Los Angeles.