A Simple Guide to Restoration

Restoring California Native Ecosystems.

Ok, really simple, 4000 plants/acre. Mix shrubs, trees and perennials that existed on the site or within a mile or two of the site on the same aspect and soil. Maintain for three years weed free. (Not one weed, dead or alive.)

Contract should read, weed free with 90% plant survival after one year, 80% second year, 70% third year. (All they have to be is alive, not pretty, but alive.) Monitoring should consist of confirming species for site, and for three times, once each year, count live plants, confirm no weeds.(Mowed=weeds, mulch is not a weed, dead weeds are.) If at the end of three years 70% survival not achieved, project starts again for areas that failed, contractor responsible for plants, watering, maintenance, owner (private or public) is responsible for monitoring three more years.

Let the contractor figure out watering, planting and weeding. (Contractor hint, plant 120-150% of needed plants and maintain once every two weeks for first year, about once a month after.)

Revegetation = covering the ground with vegetation(usually non-native). Looks like hell.

Restoration = A planting composed of 100% California native plants with components from the pioneer, sub-climax and climax communities. The ecosystem should represent the native appearance in the 1400's, have no alien, foreign, exotic components present (i.e. weeds, plastics, fertilizers, soil amendments, etc.) , and maintained for 1-3 years with no water.

Weeds+Bare soil are suppressed by Native litter(mulch) and mature native plants. At initial planting the site will look like a landscape, as it matures it should look and behave like a native ecosystem with weed suppression and self generation, if you get it right.

It is very important to understand what is supposed to be there. Just because the hillside is covered with one kind of native plant, doesn't mean that is what is supposed be there. Try to find an old guy (or gal) with no teeth that remembers where some old pictures are that show what was on the hillsides. In the following photo the hillside is covered with Chamise, looks like classic chaparral. Classic chaparral is a stage of chaparral that has burned too many times, too often. This hillside was covered with 20 foot high Big Berried Manzanitas, oak and pines in the 1970's, two fires, one in 1979 another in 1985 knocked out all the native plant species except the crown-sprouters. The is not one pine or manzanita on the hillside, not one. A walk around the hillside and neighboring hillsides reveals about 100 species that were there. Make the plant list what should be there, not what is there now.

If you want native plants in your garden or restoration, kill the weeds.

KILL THE WEEDS!

The site must be maintained until there is canopy closure of perennial native species with full canopy or appropriately mulched and about 70% closure. Exotics are an ecological switch and cannot be allowed.(Johnson and Wedin, 1997; Wilson, 1997) They are like a bacteria infection in a human body, your body can tolerate some infection, but even an ingrown toenail can become infected beyond your body's ability to suppress infection and without antibiotics (herbicides) you'll die. KILL THE WEEDS!

If there are presently live, perennial native plants covering more than 60% of the surface area (canopy closure), and climax species (e.g., oak trees ) are present, no planting is needed. Weeds should be controlled with herbicides and the landscape/restoration maintained weed-free until the landscape is stable, about 3-5 years. On rocky slopes, you may be hard pressed to find even 60% cover, if there are no weeds, that's normal and no inputs are needed.

If there are bare areas or weedy areas larger than 30 ft. (Brush), or 100 ft. (open woodland), plants should be planted to fill-in these holes, weeds should be controlled with herbicides, the area mulched, and maintained weed free until canopy closure. The exceptions are like the rock slope in the picture, seasonally flooded areas, and vernal pools, bare ground is fine in those sites, weeds are not. Large quantities of organic matter do not occur in hillside soils. Amended soil only occurs in some riparian systems and favors bacterial diseases, not natives(Coleman, et. al. 1988).

DO NOT AMEND SOIL.

Fertilizers do not occur in native ecosystems.

A change in fertility levels of a few parts per million will alter the ecosystem . Like a spinning top on a table, who knows where it will go?(Perry, et. al., 1989; Arnolds, Eef. 1991; Vitousek, Peter, et. Al. 1997)

DO NOT FERTILIZE.

Mycorrhizal inoculum is not needed nor appropriate for any site.(Williams and Aldon, 1976;Mitchell and Smith, 1992;Amaranthus,M.P., C.Y. Li and D.A. Perry. Trappe, James. 1988.). Inoculum is a newer version grassing hillsides, both permanently alter the ecosystem into at best an unstable one, at worst a weedy mess.

DO NOT USE Mycorrhizal inoculum. Sometimes if a hydroseeded site has been heavily worked and compacted, specific mycorrhiza can help, but if you're planting containers, use of mycorrhiza may be negative instead of positive.

Erosion: Low on a native site, very high on a grassy site, high on a bare site! (Patric, 1974)

Mulch drives a site to that mulch. Oak mulch plants Oak Trees; Pine needles plants Pine Trees; Straw creates a non-native Pasture; Redwood mulch favors Redwoods and most coastal California plants, Brush chips favors  Conifers or Oaks; Rock Mulch plants desert plants; No mulch favors  rivers, marshes, estuaries; Manure you get the idea.(Read, Francis, and Finlay, 1985; Putten, Van der, C. Van Dijk & B. A. M. Peters. 1993.)

DO USE THE RIGHT KIND OF MULCH!

Do not be cheap! Garbage on garden, garbage in garden.

(Mulch table is adapted from the Vandenberg Landscape Ordinance.(Wilson, Bert, 1996))

The plastic tubes that are billed as 'tree saviors' (or whatever) kill our plants in interior locations.  In others they alter the plants ecology to where plants, that are never browsed, are browsed, and, like when drip is used, the plant's life is dramatically shortened. After five years the numbers seem to be  unsupported. Moreover, Carey and Robertson(1995) found that Bluebirds and other birds die in the shelters attracting rodents that tunnel under, or eat through the plastic and eat the plant. Take your money and spend it on mulch, maintenance, one to five really good waterings, and more plants.