Winter 2004 Landscaping Report

By Scott Sherman, Ph.D. (resident neighbor and GPOA Landscaping Chairman, M.S., Horticulture, UCD and Certified Arborist)
 

Our first real rains landed in early November.  From a landscaping point of view, this is great!  We’d just finished ‘hydroseeding’ (see below) millions of wildflower seeds in our median islands and along the Greenbrae frontage on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.  You can easily order the same Greenbrae seed mix online…see our web site, www.greenbrae.org, for specifics.  The rains also mean we can curtail (perhaps even stop, now) our island and park irrigation.  This is important since we are pushing the limits of our ‘water entitlement’ with MMWD and want to avoid having to purchase additional, expensive entitlement.  This water allows us to establish and maintain all the plantings installed over the past decade.  Our annual ‘heritage tree’ pruning is coming this winter.  The sycamores, silver maples, and ash trees that line many of our curbs, as well as major trees in our medians will be pruned, as needed.  And we are just completing updated planting and irrigation plans for Bretano Way.  Construction will start by this spring.  Read on all these topics and more below.
 

Annual Landscape Maintenance Calendar

Neighbors express interest in the calendar of our landscaping activities as outlined in the first table below. A local company, Gardeners’ Guild, performs ongoing maintenance.  We have a signed agreement with very specific weekly and monthly activities identified over the past years working together.

In addition to general landscaping maintenance, other professionals work for us who specialize in pruning and spraying trees and in performing larger-scale landscape improvements such as completed last fall on the west end of Almenar and the north end of Via la Cumbre.  Virtually every winter we prune our large heritage trees, planted along the curbs on many of our streets and in our medians, to ensure their health, beauty, and safety.  Similarly, many of us are quite aware of the recent syndrome affecting a few oak species, Sudden Oak Death (SOD).  We have top University of California and commercial experts consulting on and treating our trees when appropriate.  To date, this involved protective spraying for insects and the SOD pathogen during the year.  Now, there is a new treatment, the first of its kind approved for oaks with SOD, and we are determining how best to apply it in a preventive and therapeutic way.  It’s actually a fertilizer, phosphonate/phosphite, marketed as a fungicide, Agrifos, shown in UC studies to significantly reduce the lesions caused by SOD.  Keep in mind, only a very few trees in our islands show signs or symptoms of SOD.

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 photos of flowering medians from last spring and summer.

If you see areas for improvement, believe something needs to be done, please let us know via your Block Captain (see the 2^nd 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 Annual Landscape Maintenance Calendar

 
GPOA Landscaping ‘Block Captains’

These are 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 typically 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
Howard and Oser, 11 Los Cerros
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 our community web site, www.Greenbrae.org, to communicate information on ‘Sudden Oak Death’ and other information of general interest and value to our community.  On Greenbrae.org are links to Sudden Oak Death publications and professionals working hard to solve this syndrome.  You will see photos and can order the same wildflower and perennial seeds we sprayed this October on acres of open hillsides and medians across Greenbrae.  (Order seeds as soon as possible.  The sooner the seeds are down, the sooner they’ll germinate with the rains.  The price is great and GPOA does not profit from the sale of seeds.)

This year’s seed mix includes 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.  We have a Community Events Calendar for you to easily, and on your own, post activities of interest to the community.  There is a Community Discussion Forum for you to post and discuss issues of interest.  And, soon, we have an aerial, photographic Map of the whole community for you to peruse.  On our Home page, there’s a place for you to share ideas with our GPOA Board of Directors—these are neighbors, just like you, who volunteer their time to support the community.
 

Our Next Landscape Improvements

Last year, we made major improvements the northern end of Via la Cumbre and to the west end of Almenar Drive (to complete the improvements begun when the utilities from Sir Francis Drake Blvd. were moved there years ago).  This year, we worked extensively with our landscape architect and the County to design irrigation and plantings for Bretano Way.  And, with the professional design help of one of our volunteer Board members, we plan to build a decorative entrance wall with a Greenbrae sign at the northern end of Via la Cumbre.

Occasionally, neighbors contact us inquiring when their street’s median will be improved.  In time, we intend to 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.  Thus, the greatest number of us can appreciate the improvements.  As well, areas where eucalyptuses were removed years ago after the Oakland Hills fire are a priority (Eliseo, Bretano Way, Almenar, North Almenar, …)  If you want to participate in planning improvements to an island near your home, please help by organizing your neighbors and contacting GPOA at 461-7338.
 

Landscaping Budget

Our landscape improvements come from our County Service Area 16 (CSA 16) property assessment (not from our voluntary GPOA dues.)  The bond issue 2 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 had voted for it rather than against it, it would have passed.  But, since it was defeated, we are constrained to limited funds each year to make new landscape improvements.  Several homeowners have expressed interest in getting their local neighbors together to fund their local island’s improvements.
 

Annual Hydroseeding

This year at Halloween, we spent 2 days spraying seeds of wildflowers and flowering perennials onto medians across Greenbrae.  You may have noticed the green slurry of seeds, mulch, and fertilizer sprayed from a huge hydroseeding truck onto our islands.  Within the mulch are a broad variety of spring- and summer-flowering annuals and perennials.  Each year the show is stronger as species take hold and self-sow.  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 since 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.  Again, 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.

In case 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; Tidytips; Baby Snapdragon; Shasta Daisy; and Yarrow.  These are ‘common names’ and you can find them in the Sunset ‘Western Garden Book.’
 

Order Your Own Wildflower and Perennial Seeds

On www.greenbrae.org, you can order the same seeds we used, and at a great price!  (GPOA does not profit from the sale of seeds). This year, we added to our successful mix some new shade-tolerant and butterfly-attracting seeds.  We constantly add to and adjust the mix to maximize the show of flowers and to infill areas without plants.  Go to our web site and order the seeds in small or large quantities…and let us know how it works for you.
 

Designing the Landscape for Now and the Future

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).

One goal 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 key goals include the protection of heritage trees, safety of pedestrians and vehicles, and mitigation of fire hazards.
 

Pruning

This winter, during the dormant season, we again will prune 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 the winter 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 1^st 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, with 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 holiday season!

Scott Sherman