Spring 2007 Greenbrae Landscaping Report
By Scott Sherman, Ph.D.
(Greenbrae neighbor and GPOA Landscaping Chairman;
M.S., Horticulture/Viticulture—UCD, Certified Arborist, Landscape Contractor)
Key Items in this Issue
It's been a lighter-than-normal rainy season…yet, finally we're getting rains that benefit all our landscaping—new and established. It's warming up and flowers and new leaves are pushing out everywhere! It's time to celebrate our landscaping successes and to seek even more improvements in our community. After all, it's our home and the more beautiful and sustainable our landscaping, the more enjoyable our outdoor experiences…and the more we and others value our community.
In February, we pruned numerous heritage and street trees across Greenbrae. And this March and April we will install 4 Barn Owl boxes in median islands to encourage local owls to join our community. (They are voracious consumers of rodents (gophers, rats, moles, voles) that promise to really help control our rodent populations without the need for us to use pesticides.) And you've possibly noticed the intensive mulching of our islands and parks with arborist chips that's been going on for months. This controls weeds (significantly limiting our need for herbicides) and, as the chips break down, really improves our soil and the health of our landscapes.
Our Block Captains continue to help and alert us when issues come up and GPOA continuously posts new landscaping and community items on our web site, www.greenbrae.org.
Our New 'Owl Boxes' to Control Rodents
This spring, we are installing 4 specialized 'owl boxes' in median islands across Greenbrae to diminish significantly the rodent population that lives in our ivy, lawns, hillsides, and gardens. The barn owls that eventually will take residence here already live in west and north Marin and recently a family took up residence in a similar box at the Marin Art and Garden Center (MAGC). So, barn owls now live nearby and we hope to benefit from them locally. The beauty of this 'biocontrol' is that it is sustainable and promises to preclude the use of poisons to kill rodent pests. We ask that residents refrain from poisoning rodents, since the owls, in their nighttime hunting, will eat poisoned or dying rodents and die as well…thus, defeating our program.
The Hungry Owl Project sells nest boxes for a range of beneficial predators. They focus on Barn Owls, thought to be the most beneficial of all predators. Being non-territorial and easily attracted to using a nest box means we can attract and retain as many owls as there is food and available nesting boxes. Family sizes range from 3-11 owls; here in Marin the average seems to be 5-7 with sometimes two clutches a year. With each chick eating up to 6 rodents a night, it's a great solution to controlling a rodent population.
Barn owls must be part of an 'integrated pest management' program. If you have rodent problems (whether it's gophers and moles in your garden or mice and rats in or near your home), first exclude, prevent, and try to trap them; plus, encourage the owls. The Hungry Owl Project (HOP) can recommend pest control companies that don't use poison and can help with any concerns and there is information on their website www.hungryowl.org and at (415) 454-4587.
As related by Alex Godbe, who runs HOP, “Having Barn Owls in the community is such a joy. I have found that once the owls move into a neighborhood they soon become the celebrities and are furiously protected ... they become 'our owls.' Building nesting boxes as a community and family project can be wonderful. Seeing a glimpse of these pale, ethereal hunters of the night never fails to be inspiring and if you are lucky enough to have a family move into a nesting box close by, it will be irresistible to go and watch them each night along with your neighbors. Please do respect that these magnificent little birds need to be left in peace and do not disturb the boxes in any way. Once the juvenile owls fledge, anytime from May to August, you will be able to see the youngsters just after the sun goes down in the trees close to their nest box for several weeks before they disperse. Listen at night for the Barn Owls eerie scream, which can be heard at www.owlpages.com.”
Annual Landscape Maintenance Calendar
Below is a calendar of our major landscaping activities. A local landscaping company, Gardeners' Guild, performs ongoing maintenance and improvements. We have a signed agreement with very specific weekly and monthly activities identified over many years working together. Right now they are incredibly busy dealing with the abundance of weeds that grew tall with the season's rains, as well as pruning and mulching to keep our islands open and beautiful.
| Spring | Summer | Fall | Winter | |
| Ongoing Maintenance | X | X | X | X |
| Heritage Tree Pruning | X | |||
| Oak & Pine Spraying | X | X | ||
| Shrub Pruning | X | X | ||
| Landscaping Improvements (larger projects) | X | X | ||
| Hydroseeding of wildflowers | X |
Other professionals also help us with tree pruning, disease and insect control and installing landscape improvements such as the large project recently completed on Bretano Way. Every winter we prune our community's heritage trees in our medians and along curbs to ensure their long-term health, beauty, and safety. Many of us are quite aware of the recent disease affecting many cherished trees and shrubs, Sudden Oak Death (SOD). We have top University of California and commercial experts consulting on and treating our trees when appropriate. There is a new treatment, the first of its kind approved for oaks with SOD, and we sprayed all our major oaks last fall.
The treatment is called Agrifos and UC studies show it actually prevents and significantly reduces symptoms of SOD. Keep in mind, only a very few trees in our islands show signs or symptoms of SOD. That's because we closely monitor them and work hard to ensure they get the cultural care they need.
In the winter and spring (and as needed for safety), we prune shrubs back from the roadways. Then, flower buds develop to provide all the color we love in the spring and summer. And our larger landscaping improvement projects tend to be in the spring and fall, avoiding the heavy rain and erosion season, allowing for gentler rains and cooler seasons to establish our plantings. All of these efforts are complemented by the wildflowers and flowering perennials seeded regularly onto our open hillsides. Notice the colorful displays that begin in late winter and continue through early summer. Look on our website, www.greenbrae.org , for (color!) photos of flowering medians from recent springs and summers.
You can order the seed mix directly from S&S Seeds in Carpenteria, (805) 684-0436 (ask for Gilbert). There is a minimum order so you may want to go in with a few friends and neighbors to make up a sufficient order size.
If you see areas for improvement, believe something needs to be done, please let us know via your Block Captain (see the 2nd table below), call our GPOA hotline, 461-7338, or send an email to landscaping@greenbrae.org. If it is a real emergency, call 911 or Gardeners' Guild at 457-0400, as appropriate.
GPOA Landscaping 'Block Captains'
We are fortunate to have many helpful neighbors across Greenbrae who volunteer to represent their block's needs and interests to the GPOA Board of Directors. Please contact them first with ideas and needs. They know the history of local landscaping issues.
Ardith Plimack, 136 Almenar, Block #1
Judy Polsky, 5 Almenar, Block #2
Mark Epstein, 23 Almenar, Block #2
Joe McNamee, 118 Bretano, Block #1
Shelley Freisinger, 265 Bretano, Block #3
Bill Hagler, 30 Corte Cayuga
Tom (Eileen) Harriman, 15 Eliseo, Block #1
Lee Ingress, La Cuesta, Block #1
Arnold and Carolyn Piatti, 118 Los Cerros
Elaine Maurer & Pete Lagarias, 160 Nadina Way
Scott Sherman, 283 North Almenar
Terry Haverkamp, 338 Via la Cumbre, Block #1 (northernmost island)
Herbert Twede, 164 Via la Cumbre, Block #2 (the large, middle island)
Diane Martin, 61 Via la Cumbre, Block #3 (southernmost island)
Fred Brenlin, 64 Via Barranca
Ruth Domush, 60 Via Navarro
Our Community Web Site… www.greenbrae.org
In 2000, GPOA launched www.greenbrae.org to communicate information on 'Sudden Oak Death' and other information of general interest and value to our community. The latest additions include new photos of spring flowers, plus a link to sign up for our electronic Greenbrae mailing list…We will use it sparingly and as needed to keep in touch with all our residents on issues of importance to us all.
On our web site, you'll also find links to Sudden Oak Death publications and professionals working hard to mitigate this problem. The web site also lists our current wildflower seed mix with over 40 species and cultivars, from natives to Mediterranean and other locally successful species, in our ongoing program to beautify and continuously improve our shared landscaping. And there's an aerial, photographic map of the whole community for you to peruse (although, frankly, Google Earth is now even better for this.)
Our Next Landscape Improvements
We are looking at Via la Cumbre as well the Sir Francis Drake frontage as for our next major projects.
Occasionally, neighbors contact us inquiring when their street's median will be improved. In time, we will make improvements to all islands across Greenbrae. It takes time, money, and personal effort (not just telling others you want it done). Medians and small islands with the highest visibility and traffic are being improved first so the greatest number of residents and visitors can appreciate the improvements. And areas where eucalyptus trees were removed years ago after the Oakland Hills fire are a priority (Eliseo, Bretano Way, Almenar, North Almenar, …) To participate in planning improvements to an island near your home, please help by organizing your neighbors and contacting GPOA at 461-7338.
Aiming to Improve all of Greenbrae with a Limited Landscaping Budget
These improvements are increasingly expensive. Our budget comes from our County Service Area 16 (CSA 16) property assessment—not from our voluntary GPOA dues. The Greenbrae bond issue a few years ago to increase our assessment, to allow us to improve more medians faster, did not pass by the required 2/3's majority. Over 900 homeowners voted for an increased assessment, and if 34 persons more had voted 'for' rather than 'against', it would have passed. But, since it was defeated, after paying for maintenance and related costs, we are constrained to limited funds each year for landscape improvements. We have to wait several years to accumulate the resources to do large projects such as Bretano Way.
Annual Hydroseeding
In the fall, around Halloween, we spray seeds of wildflowers and flowering perennials onto open spaces in medians across Greenbrae. Look for the green slurry of seeds, mulch, and fertilizer sprayed from a huge truck onto our islands. Within the mulch are a broad variety of spring- and summer-flowering annuals and perennials. Every spring, the show of flowers is stronger as species take hold and sow their seeds, too. We've increased the seed count of the most successful plants to date and added some new shade-tolerant and butterfly-attracting species and others from areas similar to microclimates and conditions across Greenbrae. We do not include any grasses in our mix to minimize potential 'fuel' for fire on our hillsides and islands.
Each median and hillside has unique characteristics of exposure, soil depth, and rock. So, from the same mix of seeds, each area uniquely germinates and establishes itself. Some areas blossom with many species. In other areas we see only a few (or no) species germinating and growing to size. Yet, overall the number of wildflowers is increasing and many new areas are flowering as never before. Our most significant successes are along the Sir Francis Drake frontage and along Almenar, Bretano, and Via la Cumbre—streets with large open hillsides. We will continue to seed these areas as well as Via Cheparro, Via Navarro, Via la Paz, and Via Barranca and hope to see an even better show of flowers everywhere in coming years.
If you are interested in seeding your property, some of the species most successful to date are Clovers (in various colors, good for drawing nitrogen out of the air to the soil); Calendulas; California Poppy; Coreopsis; Farewell-to-Spring; Gazania; Lupines; Pride of Madeira; Tidy tips; Baby Snapdragon; Shasta Daisy; and Yarrow. These are 'common names' and you can find them in the Sunset 'Western Garden Book.'
Designing a Sustainable Community Landscape
For those of you new to Greenbrae, our 'plant palette' and landscaping philosophy include native trees and shrubs (e.g., oaks, red buds, Manzanitas, Matilija Poppies) and other plants (e.g., rosemary, Australian Fuchsia, Plumbago, Lemonade Berry) well adapted to our soils and environment—including our climate, deer, insects, and fungi. Plants are placed and selected according to many seasonal factors including flower color and size, leaf form and colors, and the size and density of the tree or shrub when mature (to provide some privacy yet retain views).
A major objective is to enhance our landscape with beautiful plantings that require only limited maintenance and irrigation once established. This controls maintenance costs, frees up resources (e.g., money and irrigation water) for other improvements, and helps to ensure landscaping that flourishes and matures for generations to come. Other objectives include protection of heritage trees, safety of pedestrians and vehicles, and mitigation of fire hazards.
Pruning
This winter, during the dormant season, we pruned many heritage trees along curbs and in medians. This includes trees planted by Greenbrae's developers, such as Sycamores and Silver Maples, as well as native and planted Oaks, Bays, and Pines. The purpose is to preserve the trees by removing dead and dying branches, to create a strong branch structure to minimize structural failures, to ensure long-term beauty and safety, and to direct growth away from traffic into the islands. We credit the systematic, professional pruning and monitoring of our community trees for the quite limited branch and tree failures in recent winters compared with the past.
Curbside trees are pruned to similar principles and we aim to develop canopied roads. If you want to see how well this approach is working, take a stroll or drive the Eliseo entrance, Corte Morada or the 1st block of Bretano Way. (Manor Road is an exception—PG&E directionally prunes the sycamores to keep growth out of the power lines and the trees don't have the natural canopied look we have developed on Corte Morada and Bretano Way.) Remember: if you have curbside heritage trees, do not prune them. GPOA does it professionally, creating a consistent neighborhood look.
We also prune out diseased and dying branches on small and large shrubs throughout our medians. Older, disfigured and highly woody shrubs are pruned to the ground to rejuvenate them. At first, this creates gaps. Healthy plants rejuvenate with fuller fountains of growth. This helps keep our hillsides green and growing and eliminates fuel that would readily burn in the undesired event of a hillside fire.
Please feel free to let us know what you think—at GPOA's hot line, 461-7338, via your Block Captains, and at landscaping@greenbrae.org. We love to hear the compliments as well as the suggestions. It's only when we really hear from you that we can address specific issues. Here's wishing you a happy and healthy spring and summer!
Scott Sherman
Greenbrae Landscaping Chairman