Global Courant 2023-05-10 17:55:38
There is always something growing in the enclosed courtyard the LA Catholic Worker Hospitality KitchenSkid Row’s food distribution center, better known as the “Hippie Kitchen.”
But this spring has given a huge boost to the trees and lush greenery in the courtyard, providing shade and refuge for the hundreds of local residents who come for the thrice-weekly meals in the kitchen.
“This plant right here — I’ve never seen so many flowers on it,” marveled organizer Matt Harper, pointing to the berry-like blooms on a native lily.
Magenta explosions from bougainvillea foamed over the kitchen gates and the cinder block walls of the vacant lot next door. The Indian coral trees fiery blossoms popped against green leaves. There was even a calla lily blooming from a piece of earth that everyone in the kitchen thought had become barren.
Bougainvillea in the yard of the LA Catholic Worker Hospitality Kitchen on Skid Row in Los Angeles.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
“We used to have all kinds of beautiful flowers here, and then they all died out,” Harper said, looking down at the unexpected blossom. “But with all this rain you realize – the bulbs are there. They’re just waiting to bloom. Nature will sort itself out.”
Everything grows everywhere at once in Southern California.
The lush greenery in city parks, the mustard flowers that wind up the hillsides, the burst of unexpected blossoms from carefully tended gardens and sidewalks – all of this is due to an ideal balance of precipitation and temperature that has catalyzed plant growth across the state.
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Those 31 atmospheric rivers provided steady, nourishing rainfall from October to March. Regional temperatures also remained subdued, with no sudden heat waves in early spring to kill vulnerable baby plants.
The combination of those two factors has spawned “an absolutely glorious spring,” one that has been more vibrantly colorful than ever before, said Jeremy Yodera biologist from Cal State Northridge.
Carpobrotus chilensis, left, is a species of the succulent known as sea fig in Redondo Beach. A bee, right, lands on a Pride of Madeira near a walkway in Redondo Beach.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
Roses have thorns, and this beautiful flower also has thorns. All plants thrive in these conditions, from native wildflowers to invasive weeds.
The growth has revealed truths about our ecosystem that were easier to ignore in drier years: a changing climate has upended blooming schedules, non-native plants have transformed the landscape, and many seemingly fallow fields are in fact just beds of dormant life waiting to bloom. right time to bloom.
There is much to appreciate about the growth around us. There is also a lot to learn from that.
Even before industrialization and the climate change that resulted from manmade greenhouse gas emissions, rainfall in Southern California varied significantly from year to year, Yoder said. As a result, the region’s native wildflowers evolved to withstand periods of drought.
An eastern redbud tree in front of a purple wall in South Los Angeles.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
For a native annual like our state flower, the California poppy“Their whole life cycle is based on rapid flowering and making seeds and getting those seeds into what we call the seed bank in the soil,” he said. “They can hang out there until the next good year,” which could be next season or the next decade. “Then they get a good rain and a cold winter to prime them in advance, and they go crazy.”
In periods of prolonged drought such as we have experienced in recent years, many annuals allow only a selection of their seeds to flower. It’s an evolutionary strategy that allows plants to play the long game: a few seeds from the bank are deployed to flower and drop more seeds, while the rest wait to enter the vulnerable stage of the baby plant until conditions are more promising .
A top year like this is both a visual feast and a down payment on future blooms. Today’s wildflowers will make further deposits in the seed bank that can survive in the soil for years until the right conditions present themselves—provided no one plows them under to build a big store or lay out a parking lot.
Bougainvillea clusters on a wall along Vicente Fernández Street near 1st Street in Boyle Heights.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
“You can go for a walk and under your feet are millions of seeds that are just sitting in the seed bank. That potential for beauty in a landscape that is otherwise basically barren in a not-so-good year is soo cool,” said Nick JensenDirector of Conservation Program California Native Plant Association. “That’s the coolest thing there is. It still amazes me that that potential is there.
If you take nothing else away from this season’s beautiful bloom, let it be this: Don’t confuse a dry brown hill or field with a lifeless wasteland. It could be a nursery of wildflowers waiting for the right time to bloom.
That potential for beauty in an otherwise basically barren landscape in a bad year is so cool.
– Nick Jensen, California Native Plant Society
The reverse is also true. A brilliantly colored hill doesn’t necessarily mean a thriving, healthy ecosystem is at work.
The vibrant green grass at the foot of the hills, the pops of fuchsia blossoms in undergrowth ice plant on the coastthe yellow flowers of black mustard: None of it is native to Southern California. Much of it is also invasive, heavily weaponized (strong rooting?) resources away from more beneficial native plants and disrupts ecosystem harmony.
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Redvein abutilon, also called Chinese lantern, grows in a yard in the Silver Lake neighborhood.
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The pink trumpet tree blooms at the Watts Towers.
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A residential garden in Pasadena is bursting with color.
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Horticulturist Laura Christianson, center, works at the California Botanic Garden in Claremont.
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Slender wild oats are flecked with water droplets from Los Angeles spring rain.
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Moss rose plants, known as succulent Portulaca grandiflora, grow in a yard in Silver Lake.
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Marigolds line a fence in the front yard of a Boyle Heights home.
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Mountain dandelions in a residential area in Pasadena.
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Douglas iris at the California Botanic Garden in Claremont.
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The California Botanic Garden has a display of Matilija poppies, also known as the “fried egg poppy.”
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Hairy but colorful lupine at the California Botanic Garden in Claremont.
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Trumpet-shaped flowers in Pasadena.
This is not a recent development. Those grasses that turn the hills green after a wet winter were brought here by the Spaniards as early as the 18th century to serve as animal feed. Black mustard arrived around the same time, planted with it according to some accounts El Camino Real on the orders of Spanish missionaries who wanted to mark their route in gold.
“It’s been this 300-year process of colonization of this land, from both native people and native plants,” he said. Jason Wisean environmental educator in Los Angeles.
The result is a landscape that is aesthetically pleasing from some angles, but is fundamentally less resilient in the face of a changing climate.
The native plants of Southern California have evolved to be more fire resistant. The Tongva, Tataviam, Chumash and other indigenous people who originally lived in this land understood that fact and incorporated it into their land management practices through controlled burns that cleared excess growth and catalyzed the release of seeds.
In contrast, many invasive species readily ignite when an unexpected source of fire is introduced — be it lightning, a cigarette butt, or a downed power line — and can quickly escalate into a wildfire that has gotten out of control. Land managers and conservationists fear this will happen this summer as that thicket of black mustard dries out.
“Anytime the season turns to drier conditions and that vegetation isn’t as green anymore, it’s going to be a bigger supply of fuel to burn,” Yoder said.
Crown daisies, or Glebionis coronaria, grow within a fence in a freshly mowed field in Redondo Beach.
(Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times)
Several things can be true at once. There is a complicated story behind many of this spring’s dazzling blooms. Yet they still capture our attention and cheer us up because they’re beautiful – and there’s a lot to be said for appreciating the beauty of life wherever you find it.
Not everyone gets the chance to drive to one of the relatively few areas where wildflowers are protected and observe native plants in all their splendour. There are many places in Southern California where flowering weeds and ornamental shrubs spilling over the highway retaining wall are the most accessible plants available. The feeling of joy they evoke still counts.
When Wise takes groups of kids on nature walks and they see plants bigger than they are, they don’t bother to ask if they’re invasive before exclaiming with delight. Wise says he tries not to suppress that sense of wonder. Instead, he leans into it.
“I’ll say, ‘Yeah, it’s amazing how big these have gotten. All the rain has made them huge! This is where this plant comes from. And what about the other plants around it? They have nice flowers too, but those are kind of in the shade now. What do you think that plant is thinking?”” he said. “Just offering more things to think about, some extra layers, without just saying, ‘No, that’s bad, I don’t like that flower.’ That’s the nuance of a real-life conversation.”
This season’s flowers may leave behind more than the seeds of future flowers. Long after they’re gone, they can spark a renewed desire to protect the country’s ability to surprise and delight us as it has this year. What a legacy that would be.
“The seed bank is really very, very precious, however mysterious. All the seeds of all these beautiful flowers that we see were there and no one could have said it,” said botanist Lucinda McDadedirector of the California Botanical Garden in Claremont. “Plants are great, I tell you.”
