Have you been down to the South Pasadena nature park recently? Although we are at the end of nearly 10 months with almost no rain at all, the park is looking great. With the cooler temperatures and a sprinkle of rain, quite a few plants – such as penstemons, sagebrush, and bush sunflowers, and others
South Pas nature park
Volunteers Work at Nature Park
Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped out in the park last Saturday. High school students and parents, and Bank of America volunteers accomplished so much. This rainy weather is great for our native plants but unfortunately the weeds are getting a real boost too.
Monarch Butterfly Waystation Opening
Join us this Saturday, April 23, from 10 – noon to celebrate the opening of the Monarch Butterfly Waystation at the South Pasadena nature park (South Pasadena – Arroyo Seco Woodland and Wildlife Park). Volunteers have been hard at work in the park and there are lots of beautiful flowers, birds, lizards, insects, and of
Visit your nature park
It was a beautiful day at the nature park. There were lots of butterflies, plants are greening up, and the weeds are making a big come back. In fact, there were more castor bean seedlings than we have seen in years and years. Check out the following pictures for butterfly, plant and weed id.
Wildflower headshots
It is almost the summer solstice but there are still lots of flowers blooming in the nature park. There is a mighty fine display of California buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum). Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia) is also blooming, a harbinger of lovely red berries in winter. Wild sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are just getting started, standing tall with several blooms per stem.
Arroyo Seco Restoration
I am having nature park withdrawal. I have not been there since last Saturday. Nevertheless, it is very much on my mind. Last week I spent two days talking to environmental science students at South Pas High School about the park. Five different classes of students heard and discussed the history and possible future of
Happy Earth Day from the Nature Park
Although Earth Day 2015 does not officially occur until Wednesday, we had a great celebration at the nature park last week. We had a great group of volunteers for these regularly scheduled cleanups on Wednesday and Saturday. I hope you can see what we accomplished from the following pictures. Thanks to Katherine, Michael, David, Rick, Candy,
It rained – time to plant
Trying to catch the moment between the all day drizzle yesterday and the forecasted heavy rain tomorrow, I went to the nature park with the following ten new plants: 1 – 1g white sage (Salvia apiana) 1 – 1g buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum var. foliosum), collected from Verdugo Mts. 1 – 1g monkeyflower (Mimulus aurantiacus var.
Beats computers
Yesterday I spent most of the day inside trying, unsuccessfully, to “migrate” from a Windows image database (IMatch) to Lightroom. The reason for the move is that I migrated from Windows to Apple about six months ago. I prefer IMatch as an image database but Lightroom has really nice image editing capabilities, and IMatch is
Late rains bring flowers and weeds
Although my own garden is not short on weeds – and being on the Theodore Payne Native Plant Garden Tour this Sunday, it really should be – I spent much of the day bashing, scything, pruning, pulling, wrestling, and cursing the weeds at the nature park. The late rains have brought more wildflowers, lovely clouds,