I was out with my flashlight tonight to see if the native wildflower seeds I planted in my sidewalk garden were sprouting with the rain (shoutout to Larner!). I saw some little slugs but way more exciting, I saw at least six California slender salamanders! Presumably they were hunting the slugs. I’ve been seeing them in my backyard for years but this is my first time seeing them in my (pretty small) sidewalk garden. I love these little guys. I’m in San Francisco.

I have feral cats in my neighborhood and a couple are known to loiter in my native garden, displacing my mulch. A few months ago I had a hardy iris survive the dry summer but it was smothered by a pile of mulch displaced by the cats. A few days ago one of them even uprooted my newly-planted Ribes, but fortunately I was able to re-plant it.

Are there any natural herbs/amendments I can put in my garden to ward the cats away from my natives? Bonus: I'm also allergic to cats and went into sneezing fits while planting last weekend.

I have a California buckeye that has sprouted after only a couple of days in moist soil. I have fed it a bit of fish based fertilizer and it is starting to take off in a small pot. Im nervous it’s growing so fast it might get pot bound. Let me know if and when I should repot and other general care that’s necessary or supplemental. Right now I’m just watering it every other day or so, under a grow light.

I think it helped that it is in the same room as our tortoise which has several heating lamps allowing the room to stay well above 70 degrees. This causes the soil to dry out fast though.

Thanks for any tips!

-Intermediate professional gardener based in SF

10b, a little north of Santa Barbara, coastal town.

I want to fill in the gaps with some native plants. I really like ceanothus, I have a Dark Star I could take cuttings from but that variety seems to be rather large. Open to any suggestions. Thanks

I'm trying to pick a street tree to plant and desperately want it to be a native tree. I'm running into issues with Oakland's approved street tree list. I'm humbly requesting your help (and perhaps creativity) with this.

Background: I'm in North Oakland. Sidewalk well is 3' width, full sun, clay soil. Link to my spreadsheet of City approved trees.

• The 3' width appears to be my limiting factor. The only 2 native species that fit this requirement are Torrey's hybrid oak (Quercus acutidens) and Toyon - Davis Gold (Heteromeles arbutifolia 'Davis Gold'). According to Calscape, the first is unavailable at any nursery and the second is available...in SoCal. Not feasible.
• City permit guidelines require a 15 gallon tree. Seems like native species do better started as smaller sizes. I'm assuming the city won't check if I plant a smaller one.

Things I'm considering, in this order:

1. Call a few local nurseries and beg for the davis gold toyon
2. Plant a native tree (1 or 5 gal max) which may or may not be different from the permit I submit - please give me some suggestions!
3. Plant a native tree without permit, but I have a nosy neighbor who checks permits
4. Road trip to SoCal
5. Give up, plant non-native tree

I really don't want to miss this planting season. Any advice appreciated. Thank you!!

I have two small saplings (what looks like a coast live oak and a california buckeye) that volunteered themselves this year about 10" from my house foundation, probably planted by squirrels. I know that's way too close to the house for a full tree, but is it ok to let them grow for a year or two to see what they look like before removing them? Or is even that enough to risk foundation damage?

I'm a renter and this is my first time having a non-container garden, and I have no idea how much damage tree roots pose to house foundations or how quickly. Any advice appreciated, thank you!

I just planted toyon and holly leaf berry yesterday and now I’m listening to a CNPS dogscaping video and they are saying not to plant toyon. My dogs are older and aren’t as curious about chewing on random things, but one of them does like to meander and explore the yard. I also have two preschool age kids, but I they are good about knowing what they can or can’t eat. Any thoughts/advice?

Or gophers that ate the taproot.

Somebody forgot to tell this showy milkweed it's supposed to go dormant for the winter. The rest of mine all dropped their leaves and died back to the ground like normal this winter, but this one just wants to keep going, I guess. It didn't flower at all this year for me (the ones that died back didn't either).

Just thought I'd bring up a topic to discuss. We FINALLY have some rain here in SoCal and having recently planted a few beds at my new home with some natives and mulching, I had the thought when I was hearing big name native ppl preaching overhead spraying for watering

"hm it seems that a thick layer of mulch could actually keep out moisture from hitting the soil especially in light rain events" (or you need to water much more to just through the mulch)

After about .25" of rain from last night my mulch is soaked but the soil is gone dry... Except the space around the crown that I didn't mulch.

So I guess there are some tradeoffs and things to think about.

-Mulch most ppl use in their garden are bark or mostly bark products where as (in my casual observation) in the wild it is more dead leaves, pine needles, sticks, twigs, rocks.... Which probably doean't really absorb moisture but let's it roll/drip through.

-You can retain moisture better but it could be harder to get moisture in.

-if you have consecutive rain events the mulch will eventually reach its maximum moisture retention I suppose and the rain would drip through more readily

-i read that mulch slowly releases moisture into the soil. Not sure how true that is. If the mulch is wet I don't think it would just slowly drip moisture into the soil below. After the rain events it would just evaporate.

Thoughts?

I have some rabbits nibbling in my 1g manzanitas, ceanothus and gran canon.

Anyone have suggestions on what to use to keep them away while the plants are young?

I have a neighbor w the motion sensor sprinklers but I really don't want to run a hose.

I've seen these solar powered ultrasonic motion activated devices but not sure if they work. Amazon reviews are all from ppl that received them for free. Also, I'd rather avoid using chicken wire :/

Thoughts?

What plant/groundcover would help stabilize the soil between these stepping stones? We’ll have our first rain since April today and I’m thinking mini mudslide. So I want to get something in there that will hold the soil without overwhelming the steps and making them dangerous.

Anyone know of any nurseries near oceanside ca that i could pick up - a couple conchas, manzinitas and some cleveland sages?

Thanks!!