Transcript for:
Creating a Bird-Friendly Garden Tips

in learning tonight we can uh greet you and um try to meet your needs as best we can there's Valerie Litman hello Valerie been learning tonight we can uh greet you and um okay so I have somebody here from Point Race reading Mountain View we had people registering from all over the place Katie from Newark Mike Roberts oh Mike Roberts he was a he wrote the heat pump song Hello Mike Roberts he a great song somebody from San Diego Julie from San Diego I think Adrien from Los Angeles I think it was okay so I think it's uh maybe about time for us to get started uh so welcome everybody thank you for joining us tonight for you can do it 10 tips to creating a bird friendly uh Garden by Brian derking my name is Kathy Kramer and I coordinate the bringing back the native garden tours and the native plant resource teams really happy to have all of you with us I'd like to welcome you to this second presentation in the you can do it series uh this program is being recorded and it will go up on the tours YouTube channel uh subscribe to the channel to be notified when new videos have been uploaded you'll find the channel on the tours website I'd like to introduce Mike May my husband and best friend and IT guy and with whom I have both built a Wonderful Life and without him I would be running a store with a paper and pencil I'd also like to introduce other friends who I am not married to but without whose help we would not be hosting this event tonight and the following people are waiting to answer your bird and plant questions in the chat so please send them in and after this presentation we'll be sending out the links that were posted in the chat so don't have to worry if you you know wish you had caught something and you want to just pay attention to the presentation you can just do that because we'll be sending you the links in the chat along with more links I think that didn't even um maybe appear there I'd like to start by introducing Jennifer Durkin my friend and great colleague the Dynamo creator of those amazing keystone species signs that you can see on the garden tourist website and Jennifer will be online tonight answering questions so thank you for joining us Jennifer and Jeff would you link to the keystone species signs in the chat now uh one of our bird experts this evening is Jeff minker and Jeff was one of the first people I met when I moved up here 35 years ago to the Bay Area Jeff has birded in 42 countries on six uh out of the seven continents he is currently teaching biring classes through the Golden Gate bird Alli sence and of particular interest to this group will be that Jeff a retired High School teacher developed and for five years taught a year-long high school Ornithology class in Gilroy and about this experience Jeff wrote quote I believe Ornithology should Ornithology should be taught in United States high schools because I believe that High School Ornithology can save the world I think Ornithology can save the world because I interact with young people who are on the cusp of figuring out who they are and what they want to do they can become conservation-minded citizens I am convinced that High School Ornithology is an excellent way to achieve that goal I am continually Amazed by the diversity of students who catch the birding bug athletes cheerleaders Stoners Wann toe gang members special education kids African-Americans indigenous Americans euroamerican an asian-americans Rich Kids poor kids quiet kids and Loud kids fashionistas drama queens Hunters vegetarians lgbtq quids I have seen birds take over the lives of every kind of student so you can read the American birding Association magazine article about this High School Ornithology class and Jeff will be putting it into the chat now along with his email so if this is of interest to you I encourage you to contact Jeff afterward and again you'll be getting his email in the chat that we'll be emailing to you afterward we're also fortunate to have three landscape designers with us to help answer questions in the chat tonight Kelly Marshall and Sandra Neva Lee have a number of things in common they are both talented landscape designers the contact information for both of them is listed in the finded designer section on the bringing back the native garden tours website and Jeff will put a link to the find a designer section into the chat now Kelly and Sandra are also both affiliated with their local water districts landscape design Assistance programs and they can both draw you a front yard Garden plan for $200 which uh you can be reimbursed for by your water district when you have removed your lawn and installed a garden in its place so you're joining us probably because you're interested in gardening for birds and you might be interested in making some changes in your garden so I'm going to tell you Kelly Marshall is the owner of Kelly Marshall landscape designed G uh Garden she has uh Gardens that she has designed have been on the tour every year since 2007 if you live in The contracosta Wider District service area and you're planning on removing a lawn and putting in a garden you can get a consultation with Kelly through the contracosta Water District's landscape design assistance program and we'll put the link to that program into the chat now for those of you who don't qualify for the contester waterer District's landscape design assistance program or if you just would like to to pay for a consultation or uh get a garden design yourself Kelly's uh contact information is under find a designer on the website and we'll put her contact information into the chat now and now I'm happy to introduce my friend Sandra Neville Lee owner of Green Thumb Works uh on the day of the tour on either of the last two years you might have seen Cecilia and Steve's Castro Valley Garden which Sandra designed and we'll post links to Sandra's website and to Cecilia and Steve's Garden in the chat and Sandra is on ud's approved list of designers for its landscape design assistance program uh and you may know that in addition to that program EBMUD has a super rebate program where if you plant more than 50% of your garden with natives you get double the standard uh lawn removal rebate meaning $2 a square foot instead of $1 and Sandra neeva Lee can design a garden for you that will qualify you for that rebate so we'll put links to Ed mud's landscape design assistance program and the super rebate program into the chat now our third landscape designer is my friend and bringing back the Native Garden tour's host Valerie matzer it's a pleasure to have Valerie online with us this evening to help answer your questions both about birds and about gardening Valerie is an avid birer and she has a spectacular native plant garden in pedmont and she will be answering questions in the chat and I'd also like to introduce and thank Robin Mitchell great supporter of the tour and our programs who will be uh online with us a a little bit tonight Robin so welcome to have you glad to have you with us and finally I'd like to thank and acknowledge Valerie Litman our everh helpful and knowledgeable it Maven without whom the native plant resource teams in this talk series would not be possible so thank you to all of you for taking the time to help us with this evening's presentation let me turn this over to Jennifer who will take a moment to tell people about the native plant resource teams and how you can join Jennifer thank you Kathy um thanks for the kind introduction and let me just pull up my share really quick I have a very very short slideshow here to um just Orient everybody with what are the native plant resource teams um my own humble opinion is they're the best thing since sliced bread so let's see here we go um everybody see that okay um well great well this is a new program of the bringing back the natives Garden Tour and um there's a little backstory here here very briefly um as everyone on this call probably knows native plants are hot top Hot Topic these days and more and more people realize like that you can save water have a beautiful garden be um uh conservative and but yet most importantly build back biodiversity that we've been losing at such a rapid rate and so um I say here we have hundreds of plants to choose from actually there's over 8,000 California native plants to choose from and so you can just really um go wild with this but there's been so much interest in this that literally thousands of people always contact Kathy and say hey I have an idea or I've got some questions or I could use some help and Kathy's just one person and so she had a really brilliant idea um to bring people together um and have them kind of organized by interest area or um or by our geographical area and create some real change together so last November uh she and eileene her friend hosted a small gathering Ing and they thought they'd have about 25 folks show up and instead there were 90 um and teams at that event started to form based on their geography and interest areas and um have continued to to convene with each other to organize and um there's I say over 500 members now I think now with this event we're up to 600 members so hope if anybody's on this call and hasn't joined you really consider it and what do we do well we convene in person or on Zoom like this um or both uh we learn uh from each other and we teach each other how to advocate for native plants and share our success stories and attend lectures give presentations um one thing that's really been popular is sharing plants and seeds we've had quite a few get togethers like the one pictured in the lower left here where there's big plant swaps and uh everyone really enjoys that um I'm G to have somebody help my dogs stop howling hope nobody hears that um let's look at a few of the teams we have though we have um a home gardens team organizing events like this one where we all learn about different ways of gardening uh different aspects um we have the pollinator Pathways and public gardens for people who are involved in like uh trying to fix up those hell strips or uh work in school Gardens things like that uh we have a sharing seeds and plants team uh we get together every other month and uh talk about upcoming events we're going to host um under construction right now there's been some meetings and some interest around City trees and public policy and a lot of work done in that area an HOA group's gotten together a few times and also electrified homes um these don't have a consistent leader consistent meeting schedule but if you're interested in leading something like this we're happy to help you and then geographically West Contra Costa County team very active uh Tri Valley so if you live in some these areas and even if you don't I've gone to events for each of these and really had a great time so I like to travel from San Carlos to see what's going on in the East Bay um there's a Berkeley team um that covers kind of that region and we're just starting up one over here on the peninsula because a lot of these have been very focused on the East Bay or North Bay and we're starting to get a lot of members on the peninsula and then what are some of the things we do well we've had some uh field trips we call them Choose Your Own Adventure because you can kind of hop on to different parts of the field trip um we went to larner seeds we went to a nursery we went to out to dinner um a group went to Berkeley and toured a few nurseries um we've been out to Livermore and even had a little class on propagation out there we went to Sebastapol and went to Cal Flora nursery and lunch at Hot Monk Tavern and halberg butterfly gardens and you know even if you can't make it on one of these you can look at our itineraries and consider field trips on your own um we're doing one August 3rd I'll give you a little bit more details about that in a minute but it Dub tals with this bird talk so hold that date um and then even more field trips less the multi-stop ones but you know going to Martinez and seeing some Gardens there or um getting a pruning demonstration or a propagation lecture uh these are some of the types of activities that you can participate in and um a little more detail on August 3rd uh following on this talk we're going to have folks come visit our garden here in St Carlos up on the left which um we have completely oriented toward feeding bees butterflies and birds in particular our backyard is a bird Haven with lots of bird plants Brian's going to talk about tonight um we're going to see a Native Garden uh next to our library at the San Carlo Civic Center and then go see the 50-year-old Woodside Library garden so these field trips are open to anybody who joins the native plant resource teams and the reminders and the link links and the addresses all get sent to that group so if you're listening tonight you're not in the group here's links to sign up and this will all be sent out as a followup to attendees and um we're also going to go back to learner seeds it was really popular but it was at a rainy time of year so this is another field trip to look up look uh forward to and then again more information about joining spreading the word inviting your friends and um as Kathy often says Let's Be the Change we want to see in the world by really leaning into all of these great native plant resource team activities so I just put the contact information for the people who are administering the team and um a QR code to these slides and there's a few extras that I cut out for brevity but um anybody can hold their camera up to the screen and capture the QR code or like I said this will be sent along with the bird slides after tonight's talk and that I will stop sharing now all right thank you very much Jennifer and let me have one last slide and then we'll go into Brian's talk so let me say that before we start if you would help support the tour and the programs we run by making a donation we'd really be grateful um your funding will go to support the online tour the virtual tour the native plant resource teams talks like this and two conferences that we're going to be holding this fall where we're bringing Doug talami out to speak um you can donate through the tours a website at the please donate section you can donate to um with your credit card or PayPal account and we'll put that link into the chat now you can venmo funds at bringing back the natives or you can mail a check on the addresses there 1718 Hillcrest Road in s Pablo 94806 our website our address is also found on the tour's website under contact me okay so let's get going with tonight's program you can do it 10 steps to creating a bird Garden by Brian derking so Brian has loved gardening from an early age for much of his adult life he's dedicated his leisure time to fruit and vegetable gardening and maintaining a healthy lawn but in 20120 he realized that he could save time money and the planet by converting most of his yard to a native H habitat Garden inspired by Doug Talam Nature's Best hope he has planted hundreds of California native plants in his small scar Garden to create a lush and vibrant Oasis that feeds bees butterflies birds and more now that he is freed from the tyranny of lawn maintenance and expense you can find him lounging in a hammock listening to bird song and admiring the year round blooms and berries in his garden so with that let me turn it over to Brian thank you Gard thank you Brian for joining us tonight Kathy I don't know who wrote that but that's hilarious [Music] you may have noticed that Jennifer and I have the same last name we're actually also in the same room so I'm asking her to mute um let me share my slides there we go okay thanks for joining us tonight um this is part of the native plants resource teams you can do it series as you've seen uh thank you to Kathy Kramer for giving me this opportunity to speak to you all um I'm not an orthologist I'm not a Master Gardener um but I am somebody who loves animals and I love looking at nature in my own yard and so I became curious you know why am I seeing fewer Birds butterflies and bees here in the Bay Area than I did when I was growing up I remember we used to drive down 101 and we had bugs all over the windscreen and and that's all gone um so what I can do is I can share what Jennifer and I have done you know what we've learned from watching talks like these reading books and attending conferences um and that's that's really kind of the um the basis for this um let me just forward my slides so huh okay I'll have to figure that out um so there are uh 10 easy steps for creating a bird friendly Garden um knowing your customers uh choosing your native plants for year round Bounty with both uh with all berries seeds nuts nectar and insects examining your garden situation uh designing your bird friendly garden planting in layers uh with ground covers shrubs trees and Vines um providing shelter with thickets and trees and other structures providing clean water um protecting the birds in your habitat from collisions light pollution and predators um providing a pest free pesticide free and herbicide free Haven and inspiring others to create bird-friendly Gardens and then very important once you've done all this work to relax and enjoy um this bottom image here is a picture I took from my work desk where I'm sitting right now right outside my window uh there's a veritable bird bath party we've lived in this house for 17 years and this is the first time we've seen bluebirds in our yard so from my perspective it's working and I'm very excited about it and I am seriously going to have to just play each slide from the start it looks like I'm stumped by that huh okay well bear with me you would would know that I do this all the time for a living um so one of the things that has really made a difference for us is a difference in mindset you know I believe in mindset quite a bit I find that quite often when there's something that I feel like I don't want to do I try and think of a way to make it a game or or somehow change my my perspective on it so that uh it becomes less onerous in this case Jennifer and I we've reoriented our approach from a human Centric Garden to looking the garden as a shared resource uh with the animals that come through it but to do that we need to understand the different birds in our area and what they need says hit F5 F5 okay thank you let's see if that works yeah even that's not very sorry um so most birds will eat a variety Foods um but most have a preference you know and so what we see here are some of the seed eaters um a Dark Eyed junko California toi a house finch and a Golden Crown Sparrow as some examples um and so as part of knowing your customers you need to know what it is that they will eat you need to think about what foods they need to have um and you need to think about these things in terms of how are you going to facilitate having those uh in the seasons when they most need it you know if they're migratory but if they're birds that you see all year round how do you make sure that you've got food for them um in our uh Garden we often leave things like Golden Rod after we they've gone to seed so rather than cut them back we let the birds have a chance to harvest them now you know if you find that you're not quite there yet on the idea of an an animal Centric Garden you know if you're thinking that maybe your mindset is not quite there yet then you can cut them and leave them on the ground so the birds can find them but um but we don't mind you know leaving them on the plant ourselves that's uh that's actually been um nice to see the animals you know using the plant and and getting on the plants and swaying in some cases while they they eat the seeds um a couple other examples uh lesser goldfinch and pine cisin um or some that we see in the yard I'm just going to stay out of the slideshow mode since this isn't going so well here um and then thinking about Berry eaters um you know we see Robins a hermit thrush uh a northern Mocking Bird we have some of these in our area I love when I walk the dogs in the morning um to figure out where is the Mocking Bird uh you know um sitting today and and doing its song um and then we have here a cedar waxwing which I just think is is simply the most beautiful bird in the world of course of course I haven't seen every bir in the world hard to judge that but um I just love these I think they're gorgeous they come to our yard and interesting thing about them they are Gorge eaters so they will eat a lot of food um and one particular plant that we've found is heavily bamboo um is actually has is poisonous has toxic and has you know at a certain amount of it uh can can kill the birds um and so that was one plant that Jennifer and I decided we're just going to get rid of heavenly bamboo in our yard um and so this one's eating Toyon which is something that we have a lot of in our yard we've planted that to to try and encourage the the Cedar Wax wings and for many other properties of the toyons um some examples of nut eaters uh Scrub Jays Acorn woodpeckers you can see the acorn woodpeckers have placed acorns here in the tree so they'll actually use the tree as a granery and and save those they have a fascinating uh life cycle and their social organism ations are very interesting um there are some really good talks about that that that we've enjoyed quite a bit um a crow um and then a Stellar's Jay um and interesting again you know as we've listened to these talks we've heard about some of the behaviors of some of these birds and so Jennifer and I sat through a talk one night and they talked about Scrub Jays and um how they take you know Oak um acorns and they'll fly you know as much as a mile away from the tree and so they're spreading out the uh the acorns that way um but but when they go and they hide those um they'll look around and see if anybody's watching them and see if there's uh there's anybody looking and um if they think that they're being seen then they will take the the acorn back out and rehid it and so Jennifer and I were down in Pacific Grove and we saw a scrub jay grab an acorn and and then start burying it and then we saw it look at us and then we saw it dig it back out and fly away we said oh we know what you're doing we found that very interesting um so those are some great examples of nut eaters um some insect eaters the bluebird that I was just talking about as well as this piggy nut hatch we have all over our oak tree out front Oak tip Mouse and Chestnut back chick so just gorgeous birds in their variety um and then insect eaters like this Buick Ren we've had these nest in our yard as well as uh a town since warbler which is gorgeous I haven't seen those in our yard um and Bush tits we see quite often as well um and then we have um you know nectar Birds um so everybody sees hummingbirds constantly going and and uh taking nectar I think this is a sticky monkey flower here from one example um but for hummingbirds only 20% of their diet is nectar and so we'll talk about that a little bit more and then hooded Orioles which are not native to our area uh they tend to be more in the Central Valley and maybe you get them in the East Bay we're over on the peninsula um but at the height of the drought we did actually see one come through our neighborhood which is a huge surprise and and very thrilling so um so let's talk a little bit more about insect eaters this is a great picture um and this is actually something we didn't realize uh that 80% of the diet for uh hummingbirds is is insects and only 20% nectar and we've seen hummingbirds go you know along the fence or in our ug tree and and kind of you know be poking at spiderwebs and stuff but it wasn't until again we heard one of these talks and we learned more about that and this picture is actually exemplifies what Jennifer saw one night as we were sitting under our oak tree and she could see the hummingbird's tongue going out and it was darting and it wasn't until um the light kind of changed and all of a sudden she could see the shadow of the gnats and the fact the the hummingbird was eating those uh eating those gats and stuff so um so these are you know some examples of the the types of insects that they eat but um very important you know in terms of being able to feed this ecosystem not everybody's living on things like nectar or pollen uh when it comes to the birds um and then hummingbird babies eat almost exclusively insects um so that becomes very important as well and I think a lot of this really kind of crystallized for Jennifer and I when we saw Doug talmy's uh talk on Nature's Best hope um Doug states that uh 96% of terrestrial Birds you know rely on insects to feed their youngs and the most important uh source of of that food is caterpillars for a number of different reasons um caterpillars are are rich in coraid they provide a lot of the things that you know baby birds need in order to grow um they're very soft um so literally you know the the parents are able to push them down into the stomachs of the of the babies um and then you know they're very economical in terms of being able to hunt for them you know one caterpillar can represent 250 aphids you think about the amount of work that it would take to Corral 250 apid and deliver those but the interesting thing is that these caterpillars generally if co-evolved to eat only certain native host plants um and so they're looking for a particular plant uh on which you know to to survive and and this is where the butterflies and um moths then lay their eggs so you may be familiar with for instance um monarch butterflies and their need for milkweed as a place to to be able to put their caterpillars but most of the um you know butterflies and and moths that we see in California same thing they're they're you know Co involved with a particular plant in many cases there are some that that can you know survive with multiple plants um but it becomes very important for us to make sure that we have uh that we give them access to these plants and that we're using uh these plants in our gardening in order to to provide that that capability um and to provide the the food that they need question Advan slides for you I think I'm okay some people are chattering about that um sure if you if you could share I know that'd be great all right Jennifer's going to share and then she can advance the slides for me thank you Jennifer meanwhile I will um continue to talk a little bit about Doug talami and um the slide that I was on um where there's a great big article from The New York Times saying the insect apocalypse is here you know obviously newspaper headlines tend be pretty dramatic um but I I think it's true in this case there's there's a lot of of things that we're dealing with here um and so what that means is you know for the future of our Birds um we don't see enough food supply and that is why I think we're seeing fewer Birds um to some degree you know the war on bugs has has been won and uh and there's just not as much food so in a recent talk Dr talami said that we could hit the point of no return in about 16 years um the critical mass of insects has declined to the point they can no longer support our ecosystems you know we hear about pollinators as as one you know particular type of insect that we care about but as we just mentioned the role of feeding Birds the role of breaking down waste products there's all sorts of roles for insects that we need um and there are so many insects that are crucial to the way that the world Works um so what is causing this severe decline let's see if Jennifer if we've caught up or we in sync okay thank you uh so we see you know development amongst other things uh that is causing you know a lot of problems um there is just such a volume of development happening our homes are built on land that had previously sustained insects for millions of years um we see introduced plant species we've replaced native species with species that don't provide food for caterpillars and other insects um we've see the increase in in agriculture and monoculture and tilling that stress land use uh the use of pesticides um which kills pollinators and their ability to function and herbicides which kill the DAT of plants that feed so many of these insects at their laral stage and then with climate change we have extreme weather and fire impact uh you know impacting insect survival so we may feel helpless you know in the face of all this but we can actually start to make this change right here in our own backyard and in your own communities and I think that that's the positive message that comes out of this is there is a way that we can actually have an impact and uh Native gardening has a big element of that so let's see here jump to that okay thank you um so plants you know have such a key role because they serve as a basis for life on Earth they convert carbon dioxide into oxygen they convert the sun's energy into food um you know our native plants have co-evolved with these various insects and other animals to provide food for the entire ecosystem they are the biggest converter of the sun's energy and uh in particular Keystone native plants for you know your particular region obviously there's different native plants for every region that people live in um you know our Focus here tonight is mostly about the Bay Area um but you know the number one food source for all these Global ecosystems and there's uh you know a lot of different elements to this this story but let's go on to the next slide here for a second and Jennifer and I consider ourselves caterpillar Farmers um so we think about how can we grow more caterpillars and therefore more birds you know and we need to feed them and so what we see are green bars on the left that are the California Native Keystone plants things like Oaks which Support over 250 different types of of bugs um and lepidota um we see a holly leaf Cherry there the pris solos aolia we see currents California Lilac or cus um so we see a number of different plants that we're familiar with and these plants are actually providing um food for for the lepidota you know at their many different stages of their life cycle on the right unfortunately we see a lot of the imported plants that create what we call a food desert you know Acacia agapanthus eucalyptus ice plant Ivy you know all these things have been uh brought in and started and and are used all the time in gardening and the thing about it is to me the native plants are are more beautiful and more varied and have so much more capability to provide a really Lush Garden for folks um and quite often you know a lot easier to maintain um that we just again it's about mindset we need to change this mindset and get people on board with understanding what the value is of these native plants our entire nation's planted with imported plants and one big example is the 40 million Acres of lawn which is creating a huge food deficit for pollinators and other insects um that is the biggest crop in all of America um and you know that's obviously sucking up all sorts of water and other types of resources it's causing people to use things like fertilizers and other kinds of things um so they really you know trying to make that conversion like we did you know we we made the choice to move from a lawn to native plants um is is a huge part of this as well um okay so next slide thank you Jennifer um let's talk about step two now choosing our native plants and the rest of these steps are going to go much faster or so um we need to think about growing berries for the birds that we talked about that are Berry eaters um and so plants that are in the sun like this elder Berry simuka Mexicana on the on the left here with these gorgeous uh blue um berries that actually are edible by humans too you can do things with them like make Elderberry wine or things and then mananita as well which is just such a a Workforce plant in California there's a Manzanita for every occasion you know they they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes they have all sorts of different requirements um so it's such a great flexible plant uh for us to use um let's go on to the next slide um Toyon uh as we love you know and we just talked about a little bit for the Cedar Wax Wings two different varieties here um the lower one is the toy on Davis Gold um Jennifer and I are growing both of these in our yard although um our Davis gold is not yet um come forth with berries and stuff but we're still early in our stages and so um so we'll look forward to any of you that come to the tour to be able to see both our uh our standard toyons and our Toyon Davis Gold um okay next slide great thank you um a couple of uh Berry Growers that are part shade and Sun for shrubs uh this nevan's Barberry bers neai uh which is one that we have have looked at and and love quite a bit and then Oregan grape which is uh we have one example in our yard as well um so let's go to the next slide I'm flip through these fairly quickly because I know we have a lot of questions um coffee Berry and um if you see coffee Berry in our yard you'll see that it is used and from the moment literally like while it was still in the pots we started seeing um holes appearing in there as as caterpillars and leaf cutter bees were immediately attracted to it um we got ours from um California Native Landscape Nursery in uh in mil Valley um the plants were so healthy and immediately the bees came it was they were starting to bloom and everything um so a tremendous plant um that you'll see used all throughout our garden um and then Evergreen Huckleberry which is a newer one to us but uh we're starting to plant that as well okay next slide thank you Pete um and then for ground covers uh who knew that there were Native strawberries in California um this is a woodland strawberry as one example there is also a beach strawberry example you'll see both in our yard uh one is meant for for Sun and one is meant for shade in our case we actually mixed them up but they're so hearty they've they've thrived anyway so in spite of our mistakes they're they're continuing to live U and then a bearberry another araos uh type of a um and we have a typo that with araus apologies um and then growing nectar um so here are some shrubs for part shade uh Raby sanguini or pink flowered currant um this is one of our favorites we have some of these in our yard and the r rivy speciosum or fuchsia flowered goose B which is probably the thorniest plant in the world Jennifer got pricked by one and got an infection uh we have a couple of examples of these in our yard as well they are gorgeous the hummingbirds love the flowers so much um we always joke about this being a plant that if there's some place where you don't want uh people or animals to go to it's a great plant to go ahead and put in that place um so um we have a beautiful SNS smoth here uh which is nectaring on a hummingbird sage um we have some of that in our yard as well and Native honeysuckle we replaced a uh old Chilean Jasmine Jasmine that we had with this native honeysuckle so we're very excited about that as well um we have uh next some sticky monkey flow um which we have a very wonderful uh example it's actually a couple of different plants but they're all growing together and they make this big bushy area um that's going very well we love those um and then be plants so these are great for part shade to full sun um B Plant we have growing you know underneath our oak tree so it's it's pretty tolerant and and has managed to survive that but um but these are some great examples of of things and then a Manzanita here um I'm not sure exactly which Manzanita this is but um Pete could probably tell us you know Pete is the expert on mananas and so whenever we you know do our tour we love to pick a Friday and say okay we're we've got the weekend to plant things we're going to do a tour and we'll make sure that we stop by and and cped along the way and and make that one of our stops um we've bought many plants there gorgeous uh plants that are very healthy we put them in the ground they just immediately take and start growing like crazy um and then a sage here as well and you'll see a couple examples of these in our yard um and frankly those are the plants that if you put them in a sunny enough spot if you put them in a sunny enough spot you're going to be clipping them back you know you're going to be telling hold on there you know we have to have other plants so uh so they're great they're they're really good especially in very hot sunny spots um for Growing Seeds uh buckwheats of All Sorts um you know here we have this this beautiful red buckwheat we have a number of different varieties in our yard um the sage I mentioned um we have asers we have purple Hayes right now uh blooming in our front yard um they're gorgeous and the bees love them um Golden Rod as I mentioned for uh for seeds um and California poies Jennifer showed that one picture where you could see on our front yard we had the Moonglow poppies all along the front walkway uh last year which was a great way for us to kick off the the tour so and then um grasses you know for Growing Seeds um you know a couple things I love about grasses they root very deep um because of that they're great for um erosion control and they're also great for sequestering carbon they take a lot of carbon out of the air and push it in the ground and they provide Beautiful Textures um and so that's one of the things that you know that you'll see um as you as you look at um um you know some of the gardens that are designed um is it Nancy that has the the signature Kelly sorry Kelly has that signature uh plant of meno reedgrass I believe it is we're growing some of that in our yard we had originally tried to do a kind of a meadow underneath our our oak tree that didn't work out so well so we've switched to the Menino reg grass which is really starting to come along um but these are great ways to grow seeds and then um growing nuts um so oak trees of you know anything of the quira species we have a wonderful huge probably 200y Old Valley Oak in our front yard what a great way to start your Native Garden you to have something like that already there and established so very fortunate to start with that um big tasel nut uh Southern California black walnut um and the California wax myrtle here at the bottom where uh the the uh the seeds that are very the nuts are very small they're almost like seeds so um okay step examine your garden situation is it big or is it small you know where is the Sun and where is the shade where is it wet where is it dry what kind of soil do you have clay sand or LOM um we did find that for us when we started leaving the leaves from our oak tree our clay soil started to break down and become much more receptive both to plants and to a shovel which was great for me um so those are some of the things that you can look at um this picture at the top I believe is from the uh Woodside Library garden which is gorgeous and that is of the places that we're going to oh it actually says there in the caption one of the places that we're going to tour on the day that we have folks over so um look forward to sharing that with you it's wonderful okay next one um this is an example of designing your own bird friendly Garden uh first off there's three books on the left here that we highly recommend um designing California Native Gardens California Native Gardens uh plants for the garden and the California wildlife habitat Garden um we read these and we found them extremely useful to help us to start to categorize eyes um you know where to put different plants um you know finding the right plants for your area you know using something like calscape to be able to to figure out what's going to make the most sense um figuring out things like how tall the plants are and thinking about how you stack the plants you know in a way that they're visually appearing so they they continue to further on throughout the yard as you look at it um we attended virtual and inperson gardeners I remember our first tour that we attended uh that Kathy put on and just immediately we were just blown away at how Lush the garden for how the native plants can really provide a beautiful Lush uh you know Garden for folks um so you can sketch out ideas or you can hire a professional as Kathy mentioned um or you don't need fancy software skills you could do what we did and Jennifer got out her colored pencils and sketched our garden um so you could see in the lower left the ql crus labata that's our Our Big Valley Oak Tree um you can see the things that we are growing around it I will say this is two to three years old and has gone through a lot of change since we originally started this um so uh you can come see where it ended up or at least it where it currently is at this point in its life um but this is a great way to list the plants we're considering uh referring back to those books and thinking about plant communities that was I think a big deal for us because as Jennifer has marked here in the lower left our Cafe Garden the area that's kind of between the house and the oak tree um very shady area you know so that's one thing um and then as we move up up towards the top where the street is we start to get sunnier and sunnier and as we get over to the right past the courtyard Garden gets very sunny and very hot outside of the drip line of the oak tree and that's where we have like our sages and things like that that really love that heat um and then we've got a number of um arists um we have some Lou Edmund and we have um a beautiful Dr herd uh which is really starting to come on um in terms of its uh growth and and it's huge and I I've seen so many people come to our house and look at that and go whatat is that you know and people start writing down you could tell Pete they're coming to see you we tell we told them to come see you and get get one of those so um so this is an idea of how it could look and you'll be able to see how this compares to uh to the current reality um step five as I mentioned planting in layers you know here we have the red flowered buckwheat and things in the front um but then you know we start to see other things kind of coming up and stacking in the back all the way to the man's Anita and then the red butt at the very back I believe there's even a Ry in here um so this allows us to have a nice visual view um but also notice that we've got small trees um along the fence and along the bird bath and there were some questions about how do we facilitate a bird bath and how do we make that you know available for the birds and thinking about the birds want to have a clear space where they could see around them if there's any Predators but also have a place to quickly jump to if a predator does appear so having a some cover um as an example here um okay let's go to the next one here this is another shot of the same Garden uh from a different angle um and so here you see poppies you see some sulfur buckwheat some penamon um the kind of purple along the walkway there um you know beautiful flowers and and again you know just this burst of color going on here um but these different angles allow you to see again how it's planted for this view um and being able to see different uh different elements of the height um and then can go back one thing I I forgot to point out Jennifer um in this one the bird bath notice is kind of got a clear view of the um windows and just like Jennifer and I did and that's how I was able to get the the bluebird photo is the bird bath is somewhere approximate to the windows enough that you could see the view but also you want to have it far enough away so that it doesn't provide um a problem for the birds that they start bouncing into the windows and and having collisions and stuff so I just want to note that because I think that picture illustrates it very well okay let's roll forward one more there we go um so there is actually our our bird bath right there um right and the coffee Berry in the foreground you can see um which you know it's got a lot of little holes in it and stuff from the bug guess what once you step back five or 10 feet you can't see those anymore but it's it's providing you know uh food for and and tools for you know in the case of the um the leaf cutter bees tools for them to to you know have their babies and stuff as habitat gardeners we love this every time we see a plant that's getting used we're like that's successful in our back we have some apricot mows that literally the the leaves started to disappear it was like lace for a while and then they're almost gone we're like okay something's really eating that we went out and got six more you know we're putting those in the ground so um that's again a mindset our mindset is we're trying to feed all these animals and really uh provide a place where where they can feel at home and stuff um so that's our Cafe Garden um and then I mentioned about providing shelter so one of the key things here is prune conservatively don't prune um during the nesting times of year um so we always wait and kind of prune uh kind of more October like right before the rains and stuff um but again pruning can you know leave us exposed to rain wind Sun cats and other Predators uh so be very careful about that all right next slide and then providing shelter um luckily for us our Valley Yol provides shelter for a lot of cavity nesters um we also have some old trees that we've left um as they've died we've actually stopped watering our yard for the most part and so we're starting to see some of the trees that were there originally starting to go away um the other way to do it is to uh buy a or make a bird nesting box we put one up and immediately had chickies um in there um there are some best practices you know put it on a pole to avoid predation uh open it away from the direct sun um you don't want it directly in the sun you know where it gets too hot um especially with the Summers we're having um I think this picture is beautiful but you know and it shows the bird the bluebird with the wings spread it violates a couple of those those rules but we'll let that pass that's a beautiful photo okay next one and then providing nesting materials you know leaving things around a little bit again being a little bit less human Centric so um if you're leaving cob webs if you're leaving um you know branches and uh and leaves and different things that um the birds might gather to use to to create their uh or grass clippings and things like that you know just different things that um that could be used um so important to do that we've created a small couple small brush piles in our yard um creating a spot with damp mud is also great that's great for the butterflies who absorb a lot of minerals um through the mud through their feet so that's that's important to provide as well um we also don't put out any synthetic materials you know things like lint from our dryer because so many of our clothes are made of plastic these days um so very important to do that as well um providing water here's my Bluebird picture this is I think the third or fourth time we've seen it tonight um I think the one thing that's hard about bird baths and and bird feeders and things is the maintenance right you really have to keep on them um I think some really key things for us with this one um it's concrete so it's a little harder to clean I think if it was ceramic it'd be a little easier um um scrub it weekly uh we use vinegar um don't use soap because it will break down the oil in the bird's feathers um and don't use bleach because that's unhealthy for them too but a little bit of vinegar doesn't bother them um and so we use that we take that in a scrub brush and kind of scrub this out every week and then protect your bird habitat step eight um you know it's estimated that 600 million to a billion birds are killed in building strikes every year I mean that's just staggering number of birds um and key culprits are windows as we could see here there are a couple of examples and Kathy on the tour we saw one of the Arts they the garden um the owners had done a lot about um being able to avoid collisions it was a really really informative uh visit um and so that's one thing um keeping your feeders and bird baths away from Windows as much as possible using screens or safety film um and then another one that folks don't often think of but reducing light pollution around your house um encouraging your your neighbors to turn off their lights you know um and because it it has a couple of impacts for things like moths it's very confusing uh for birds who are migrating at night it's very confusing as well and who wouldn't rather see the Milky Way than see uh you know just a a dull Sky cover um so I think that's a great example there all right and then there are a lot of questions about cats and I have to admit Jennifer and I love cats uh we have had cats you for quite a few years originally our cats were outdoor cats um but then we started to understand um not just you know how many birds they kill but actually the life expectancy impact on cats I think this is one of the key things if you love cats um an indoor cat life expectancy is 10 to 13 years an outdoor cat 2 to seven years they're hit by cars they get fights they get diseases we lost a couple of cats to things like rat poison in our neighborhood they can get prayed upon by coyotes and the mountain lions um so the big solution that we see is caos so here's some examples of some pretty cool cats enjoying their their caos um and you you might do something modest like this or if you're really audacious on the next slide you might decide to build a ctio that looks like this which is pretty amazing um but you know so it's only limited by your space budget and Imagination okay see where are we at Jennifer how many more slides do we have to go um oh this is such an important Point protecting your bird habitat by leaving the leaves and acorns this made a big difference for us a couple of different ways we left the leaves um definitely there was food going on in the leaves there were things living in the leaves we saw the birds constantly turning over our oak tree leaves and looking underneath of finding food um we left the acorns and all of a sudden we have a lot of volunteer Oaks but I think the the other thing that's interesting is if you have a problem with deer and you have an oak tree don't have your Gardener sweep up all the acorns and take them away the deer come to our yard they eat the acorns and they leave the plants alone they're so much happier with the acorns um but you know we used to have a gardener who would Sweep All That away for us bag it up take it down to the dump and turn into methane gas you know now this is a much uh better you know ecosystem that we have going by by providing those and and leaving those things in um if you do move your leaves around we clear you know our walkways and things like that um you know don't shred them um there are living things in there so if you just move them gently I think that's you know a better um thing but you know it's had such a big impact on our garden and as I mentioned our clay soil suddenly I was able to put the shovel right into the hilt whereas the year before I had had to take a um you know a pick and really to try and plant our mananas um encouraging caterpillars um Jennifer loves caterpillars because frankly they're a lot easier to photograph than butterflies they stay still um but they are gorgeous in their own way I love this one on the Le hand side in the middle looks like a it's going to the prom you know it's got its hair all all up and and everything um but they're you know such an important part of this this ecosystem becoming butterflies and moths and I FR frankly there are a lot of people who don't get it at first and they go oh there's bugs on my plant and they start taking away the caterpillars and then they wonder why they didn't have any butterflies so um and then in the lower right we've got an example of um a uh cocoon that's there on the ground I think for years Jennifer and I saw those things and never realized what they were um but some of these you will overwinter on the ground and so um those are the types of things that you just don't want to sweep away so uh pesticides and herbicides you know Jennifer and I have been organic gardeners since we first met um probably actually frankly all of our Lives even before we met um because we really believe in that balance and and letting things you know go and uh and they'll find its own balance um some of these herbicides such as Roundup have been linked to non- hodkin Loma um you know it's a big part of liver damage like we just don't want to be around them we shop organically um we do find also that quite often you bring home plants from other places uh other nurseries big box nurseries that have been traded uh treated with neon nicotinoids and so all of a sudden the other uh bugs in your in your ecosystem are dying because these plants have been treated this is one of the reasons that we go to the Native Nurseries um and buy plants that we know are are safe for uh for the bugs and stuff um but you know it's just a super important part and and the other thing that we find over and over is these systems have a way of writing themselves Jennifer and I had chickens we started getting a lot of flies we decided not to do anything about it couple weeks later we started noticing phoebes and barn swallows coming into our yard and eating up the Flies and they got things Back in Balance or if you have um you know aits on your plants you know all of a sudden the hummingbirds start discovering the aphids you know and other other Predators um they're good food sources so you don't want to break those chains in the uh in the food um you know uh tree in the way that you know these different things are needed and necessary uh for providing the whole ecosystem okay um engage and Inspire others learn these types of things uh and then start taking part go on the tours and meet a lot of other people who are interested in this that's been super fun for us we've loved that um we have also opened our house to being on tours and we just love talking to people that are into this um this middle picture is from our yard as I mentioned the Moonglow poppies along the front um not there this year but uh but that that was a year or two ago um and then you know we'd love to see you come up here and and give a talk as well because um everybody got something to share and everybody's learned something interesting that they're excited and passionate about and they can share with people all right let's go on to the next one and there's our grandson Trey getting involved um Charlie is also here he's helping with um with some of the questions in the chat and he has taken some of these photos um you know and so we're getting everybody engaged frankly all of our family can't help but be engaged in this process but take action volunteer invite people to come give a talk um and then you know just just start learning more I think the more you share the more you learn and it's it's a fascinating topic okay so great tools if you don't already know about calscape toorgle because calscape is such a tremendous resource for us uh this's a fellow who put together this database when he understood all the purposes of of different types of metadata so now you can go in there and say I want a ground cover or I want a shrub or I want a tree and my spot is you know it's hot and sunny or it's um it's you know it's Shady or um it'll have a lot of water it be very dry and you can then all of a sudden get a list of different plants that will work in your area uh for those different types of of needs and so um this also maps to the lepid optra which butterflies and moths are native to your area and what they need so you can create plant lists and then you can reach out to the nurseries that carry these plants um so highly recommend calscape uh as you start thinking about the different areas of your garden and what you want to put in um I naturalist which we love we are always taking photos of things and wondering what it is and so we'll we'll pop them into in naturalist we have it on our phones um and that becomes a great way to also just you kind of catalog the things you see in our Gardens you know some of the different lizards that we're starting to see um and tracking those for instance um so you can put in your observations you can get other people you know um collaborating with you and providing thoughts about what they're seeing and stuff so U great one there and then um I'm assuming that everybody here knows about Merlin but if you don't um you can thank me later because Merlin is so amazing this is a uh a Sunday morning at our house um and you can see all these different birds we're out in our backyard and and whistling and chirping and cheering and stuff um you know it's just wonderful to sit back there and to be able to to hear all these calls um and this can be an app that you can put on either your iPhone or your Android phone um and then it will save this it will save the recording um it'll list the birds as the birds make calls they light up so you start to get to know what the different uh calls are of the different birds um just can emphasize how much fun this is and and how much we've you know with the kids uh gone out and looked at this and then when we went to Australia Jennifer got the Australia pack and so she was able to identify the date of birds of Australia while we were there which was super she got up at 4 in the morning she's crazy um all right let's go to the next one uh Cornell University's all about birds is a huge Treasure Trove so highly recommend you go there and learn more um let's zip through the last few because I realize I'm going over time now you're not you should take your time Ryan don't the R thank you Kathy uh we have our local uh cnps chapters um and that was actually how we got started it was the Santa Clara Valley cnps Chapter and their talk with um Doug talami uh that really got us go going on on all of this um but we've seen you know Kate Maran child and and uh um John kho and all sorts of people give talks that you know every time we learn something new and we just are so amazed at how these ecosystems have co-evolved in some of the intricacies of how they interact and stuff it's just such a miracle um and I think the more you learn you know the more fascinating it gets so um all right let's try the next one um so these are some resources that you can refer to um and get more access uh let's scroll to the next one here um these are some specific ones about a bird-friendly garden um so different things from cnps and talks the Cornell orthology lab as we just talked about the barrier aabon Society chapters um so those are the Golden Gate bird Alliance in particular um a couple of different places to reach out to and learn more about this so um and some more uh links for you and then let's keep going um I love this Jennifer put this in a final thought habitat gardening helps us develop compassion for those who share the Earth with us and empowers us to help them Thrive and to me you know that's what it's all about I just love looking at these animals and realizing that you know not necessarily they're under my care but that we we you know we coexist and uh and taking care of each other and I feel like there's a communication that goes on we've got a couple of a raccoon and her babies living in our oak tree right now um and it's just so fascinating to see and and to hear when the babies get in there after they've fed at night um they purr our oak tree actually purs I mean just those kinds of interactions that you get you know without you know intruding and stuff it's just it's golden to me I love that so much so um all right so I think uh we'll go to questions here's a little bit of information I put this link into the chat so um I can do that again here as uh go to the Q&A and yeah I'll um Kathy I'll turn it back over to you I think at this point thank you very much Brian so I want to compliment you too on working under pressure there with your slide difficulties I thought you managed very well thanks wasn't what you had thought but it was great from my end it was just great appreciate it before we um go on to questions I'm GNA pause for just a moment and um do a little tour support request if you enjoyed Brian's presentations if you've enjoyed the programs that we put on I hope you'll support us um you can support the Tour by donating now on the garden tourist bringing back the Native Garden tourist website under please donate you can use your credit card or PayPal there through venmo at bringing back the natives or you can mail a check and if you don't get the address now our contact information is on the tour's website under um under contact us so let me now say a few things um people had asked you know how can I get the information that went by rather quickly on these slides so in about an hour I think this program will be up on YouTube and you can go there and you can freeze the frames on YouTube and take pictures of it or copy down what you like we'll also be sending out uh information that was put into the chat um uh after this presentation to everybody that um emailed so would you be interested in sending your slide deck Brian or having a link to your deck for people who just want to access your slides yeah I put it in the chat so hopefully anybody can look in the chat um and and see that okay let me just cover a couple things before I open up to questions so the Pete that um Brian was rapiz about is Pete Vu he's the owner of Eastbay Wilds native plant nursery in uh Oakland Pete designs Gardens he does consultations he makes maintains and installs Gardens and he has this fantastic native plant nursery and he's actually online with us tonight so uh if you are interested in purchasing plants or have any questions for Pete you could probably pop some questions into the chat this evening um I want to say that on August the third you can go and see Brian and Jennifer's Garden and uh you can join the native plant resource teams to be able to sign up for that uh multiactivity Choose Your Own Adventure day on August the 3D that will be at there Garden in St Carlos then going to the just really nice uh St Carlos Civic Center to see the pollinator Garden that's been put in there it was a joint project between the city of St Carlos and Master Gardeners then going down to the spectacular uh native plant garden at the Woodside library that Jennifer introduced me to um so let us go now to um and maybe I'll open it up to Jeff and Valerie if you want to pop in and answer any questions I saw that there were uh some questions about bird strikes and um I'd like to say a couple things and then turn it over to anybody on the panel here who'd like to pipe in so I uh know that um you might think well Birds aren't hitting my windows but as uh during the pandemic a researcher who was working at home set up a video camera and noted that he only saw about one in 10 of the bird strikes that occurred on his home so you may think that birds aren't hitting your windows but they probably are and actually most birds I understand don't survive bird strikes you might see them stagger away but they hit hard and fast with their heads and um I I I think that the the idea is they actually don't survive bird strike so uh a great product is available from feather friendly and it's little dots that you can put across your windows and you put them on the outside of the window and they look just great because you can still see through your window between the dots but the birds won't crash into your windows you can also put up screens we put up screens on our house and um they actually have stopped their bird collisions completely uh I just I just put up a link to things to put on your windows so there's a whole bunch of them there in the chat okay great and I know there were a lot of questions about cats and what people can do about cats there's your own cat which is keep it indoors keep it in a ctio and Jeff can you say anything about what to do if it's not your cat it's neighbor's cats it's feral cats I know it's to yeah the first thing is if you know who the owner is talk them and tell them what you're trying to do and if they could please keep their cat inside uh if they're not Cooperative with that or refuse um then I posted a bunch of things in the chat about what to do um I'll post it again right now but basically you can do what someone already said and that is try spraying them with their with your hose uh or you said it that's right with your your uh ar5 ho squirt gun yeah yeah it's a squirt gun I want to make that clear um yeah squirt them with water it doesn't hurt them but they don't like it and if you do it enough times they might stay away um you can also use smells that cats don't like and there's a list in the thing that I just posted oops I'm posting it right um okay there it is uh things like uh homemade repellents made from natural ingredients like citrus coffee garlic ammonia vinegar mustard pipe tobacco citronella eucalyptus or cayenne pepper uh there are some plants that repel cats I don't know how well it works like Rue um you can get motion activated sprinklers although set them up so they don't spray delivery people or the mail person delivering mail um uh let's see uh you can try they're supposedly ultrasonic animal repellents I don't know how well they work you can make digging uncomfortable you can put chicken wire under the soil you can use sharp edged mulch a plastic carpet carpet Runner upside down under the soil so when they try to dig to pee or poo they can it makes them uncomfortable they don't like it um and then remove potential cat shelters places where cats would like to hang out like trim bushes make sure that they can't get into a shed or a garage so that so they're hanging out there um uh you could get a dog that's another solution uh that Lucille has mentioned the cat Bib and Lucille maybe you could just post in the chat if you have used the cat bib yourself or KN anyone who has but cat bibs are a little collar that goes around the cat's neck that has a little bib that hangs in the front so the cats can still move around they can still climb trees but it just slows them down a little bit it slows them down enough so that birds have more of a chance to get away because Bells don't work birds are not bird a bell to a bird doesn't mean I'm in danger it just means oh that's an interesting sound I hear a bell ouch um so you could try a cat bib um I don't have a cat but I have I've heard from people who have owned cats that the bibs are helpful and the cats don't mind them I saw a question about uh bird feeders and Valerie maybe you can pipe in about if you have feeders or how you feel that you provide uh food for Birds I don't have feeders can you hear me Kathy I hear you just fine oh okay I don't have feeders in my garden um I just plant plants that provide what the birds need as much as I can tell using calscape thank goodness for calscape um feeders you know you're always dealing with squirrels and it's very hard to outweight a squirrel you know I can't deal with animals that are smarter than I am squirrels are definitely in that category although there are some cage feeders with cages around them that are pretty good for deterring squirrels but the other issue with feeders is the dropping of the seeds so you have to be prepared to have rodents pretty much if you have not just squirrels as rodents but rats and mice will come under the feeder and it's very hard to keep the area under a feeder free of seed it's just a lot of work so I have uh Rel on the plants basically and I have you know I've had 48 species of birds in my garden and um it's so interesting out there so I I think that uh I don't need the feeders but I understand people who are fascinated by birds and don't have a lot of territory where they can provide all of the the uh food through plants I understand that but when you hang a feeder you just have to realize and the the other thing about feeders is that they tend to be a vector for disease because they bring in so many birds and if just one of those birds is sick it can get communicated to the other birds and of course someone mentioned that the Cooper Hawk had visited their Garden well that's part of the balance of nature too but Cooper's Hawks have really gotten on to feeders so you know if you the birds are just sitting ducks for C Hawks because they're smart birds and they know where it's easy picking um other than that I suppose you could do SE it you know I apparently they have SE it with um pepper hot pepper in it capsacin and the birds don't taste hot peppers that doesn't bother them seed mixtures also have hot peppers and apparently that's discouraging to squirrel so you know you can try all those things for sure I want to say that I had feeders many years ago like probably 30 years ago when I did not have a native plant garden but now I do have a native plant garden and even though my garden is not very large our lot is just 5,000 square feet um we've seen we just got our 37th species of bird that I've seen in our garden over the last 20 years and that's without bird bird feeders we just have a a nice selection of native plants and I leave the seeds on the plants I don't dead head or take down anymore I can't do it ever since I heard a couple of hosts tell me that they went out in the morning and saw native bees sleeping under the dried heads of their yo flowers so what could be more cute than these like Bachelor lonor bees having slumber parties on the dried heads of flowers so I don't even dead head anything anymore and it's been surprising to me like how long the birds are out there pecking at the claria long after I would think all the food food would be gone from them they're still finding insects or seeds or something in there to keep them going so even a small garden like you know mine is relatively small uh can be a great Haven for Birds let's see um somebody asked if it's better to have uh a wide diversity of plant species or uh fewer species and more of them and uh does anybody want to take that question or I can I'd be happy to fewer species more of them uh so that the the butterflies or the moths can find the plants because first they have to find the plant and then there has to be enough uh nectar or pollen for the creature that comes to make it worthwhile so you don't want they don't want to have to fly to like one plant and then you know if they're lucky on the next neighbor's lot they find one plant they need plants that are grouped so really planting uh fewer species of plants in uh greater numbers is better for wildlife um you guys feel free and help me look through these questions and um somebody pointed out that their rats have big fluffy Tails so rats to our yard roof rats those are roof rats yeah okay um so Katherine noted that she raised her bird bath on concrete blocks and she put roses and containers around the base to help keep the hats away I saw somebody who had a large a bird bath on the ground and she put a big wide plastic kind of bib around the bird bath so the birds could fly in and get out but the cats couldn't come up from the ground um Kathy you're getting very faint for me I don't know if for anyone else I I can see her am I visually faint or am my like or faint it was it was getting auditorially faint but maybe it's just me okay let me know if it keeps up um let's see you um Jeff or Valerie uh do you want to talk about like the importance of keeping a bird baths clean or bird feeders clean they both of the both of them have to be kept clean you you know you just don't put them out and then walk away my feeder my bird bath that they use the most is just a terracotta plant saucer which is onto a drip system for plants on a patio it goes every day it's raised up on a patio so it's pretty safe from cats uh it's about 12 feet off the ground um and I just go out every other day and lift it up and bring it in and wash it off with vinegar and water rinse it well and put it back so I can keep it clean very easily um I know hummingbird feeders are a huge problem if they're not kept clean because the fungal growth in the water kills the hummingbirds and um yeah all of there's a lot of uh care that has to be taken with these these things that we put out Jeff probably has more to add to that uh I would I don't want to discourage people from putting out feeders uh I had feeders out for years when I Liv in Santa Cruz I don't have any yet here in Alama but um yeah you have to watch them and make sure you don't get fungal growth like you said but you know if the if the hummingbirds are coming they'll empty it and you'll have to take it in to put new food in it anyway so you might as well clean it when you're refilling it so that that was my standard if I ever saw you know something growth in there of course I cleaned it very carefully and so on but just pay attention to the feeders keep them clean and you know it doesn't have to be an everyday thing but if you get a smaller hummingbird feeder then of course you'll be filling it and cleaning it more frequently that'd be my advice thank you Jennifer someone had asked about what were the best plants what were the Keystone uh species that would bring butterflies and Ms and birds in would you like to answer that one uh yeah sure um boy all of them so I think the oak um letting the oak really um enjoy its full life cycle of dropping acorns and leaving those leaving the leaves that was probably the best single plant contributor in our garden and best practice instead of sweeping that away um they the birds love buckwheats if you start them from seeds I recommend that you put a screen over it because my buckwheats were coming up as little seedlings and they kept I thought they were dying off but actually a chick was coming and nipping the little greens like a little salad um all the time so buckwheats are great they're great for seeds they grow lots of bugs um we had chickies our our Oak Tre is full for the first time actually now our oak tree has um usually we'd have several bird species but we never had blue birds before this year um and I think I attribute it to a lot of our Keystone plants are growing insects coffee berries growing a lot of insects um apricot mow isn't native to our area it's growing a lot of insects and um I've heard some people kind of freak out like oh caterpillars are eating my whole plant but I watch the chickies take the caterpillars and feed them to their babies and so I love the birds frankly more than I love the apricot mow so I just bought more and planted more and let it get eaten um I don't know Brian if you had other plants that you thought were particularly you know yeah no I was just showing the slide that we' put into the deck because I thought it was a good good reminder um I think the the funny thing to me is always when you see a bird eat a cat pillar there's always that moment of good for the bird but you feel also bad for the caterpillar butterfly that could have been and so um that's just part of part of the course but um yeah I think leaving leaving the leaves for us was a huge thing and then you know adding these plants um and and having the diversity of the plants so there's something for everybody so I noticed somebody talked about the fact they have a small San Francisco Garden don't have room for an oak tree that's certainly true for lots of folks but there are small oak trees too uh there's there's um quirkus Berber aolia which is California scrub Oak it only gets to be 3 to 7even feet tall and it produces acorns and nurtures all those insects so um not every Oak is huge mostly they are though but agree Valerie we have a Valley Oak which is massive but we also see Coast Live Oaks which can be much smaller and then like you said scrub Oaks and then we also see people in our neighborhood who have cut The Oaks in various ways uh to keep them in some cases you know topping them so they didn't grow very tall so it depended upon the situation we have one up the street from us that looks more like a shrub or a bush um but yet it's providing that food and that habitat so um you can can shape them if you get the right type in the right situation I'd like to add that uh duct Talam says that it's a a very few species of plants that provide the bulk of the energy that drives the fub web and he calls those plants keystone species and so using Doug Talam data Jennifer and I work together on creating a list of our local keystone species and if you go to the bringing back the native garden tours website you'll find them about two-thirds of the way down the navigation bar and we have 40 species of native plants that provide uh the largest number of lepidoptera of butterflies and with the plants that they can lay their eggs on so um California lilac 120 species of butterflies and Ms can lay their eggs on them pink flowering currant Mountain mahogany Lupin asers Golden Rod uh gosh I can't even uh Jennifer can you rattle off any of the others that you know are on there uh fuchsia um so you'll find that list uh and Jennifer made those signs and she did such a beautiful job if you've been on the garden tour the last couple years Years you'll see those signs in the gardens but that's a great way for you to think to just select the PowerHouse plants right off the bat and make sure that you're getting as many of those as you can in your garden uh somebody asked how to join the native plant resource team so at this point you can just go to Google and type in native plant resource teams and you'll get to the website and you can join it's free to join it's free to go on our trips um you could also link over there from the bringing back the native garden tours website there's a uh section that will'll take you over um let's see um panelists any other questions that you feel that we didn't uh that we want to answer live here um just scrolling back and seeing I'll take one more spin through the most recent questions um let's see so somebody asked Can you comment on the latest data and research on the benefits to wildlife of using the Straight species uh using Horticultural cultivars do you want to uh talk about that Valerie or is that not your I just remember you know what doug Talam said about that but this is ongoing research I mean we have to understand that but he said one thing that clearly becomes a problem and reduces the value of a so-called native plant to Wildlife is when the flower is doubled because a double flower makes it much more difficult for insects to access the pollen and the nectar so doubling is a problem and the other thing that he mentioned reduces the usefulness to Wildlife is when plants are um bred to have red leaves apparently a lot of uh insects an to think of that that as containing something that is harmful to them anthocyanins I believe is what Doug talami said um but he his feeling was that if it's in the same genus pretty much you know and and there are natural hybrids out there nature is always creating new uh crosses and typically you know with these cultivated varieties they can be cultivated by people or they could be naturally occurring hybrids so um I don't see that as necessarily such a terrible thing and it certainly can create beautiful garden plants but you can be very purist be very purist about it and want only the straight species but in my garden I have a lot of the um cultivated varieties and I see insects all over them so what can you what can you say do you have any thoughts about that Jennifer Brian um I think all of our coffee berries are some type of of cultivar because we have the eve case and the Mount San Bruno I think the mount Vision one is up here um Pete would know oh okay Pete says a lot of the named cultivars are simply selections from the wild so we're good but um yeah I primarily go with what I observe being eaten and sometimes when you're just starting out like all you can find is a cultivar so um you know It's Tricky I think getting to know the different nurseries you know Brian had alluded to we'll do a tour and go over to like East Bay Wilds then Oaktown then Watershed then CNL we'll just do a whole Circuit of nurseries in a day or go out to lunch have an adventure you know but talk to the nursery people at the native plant nurseries to get their take on it I'll say also that if people are interested in getting straight species you can go to the native here Nursery uh near tillen Park uh you can view their plants online and they carry only plants that they have grown from seed collected in Alama and cont Costa County so you can Browse by uh plants from Livermore or plants from Berkeley and see what they have that is actually genetically local to your site so it looks like we are at the end of our time I want to certainly uh thank all of our big team here that helped put this event on thank you so much all of you thank you Brian for the great presentation tonight um I want to say that this uh was recorded and it'll be put up on YouTube in about an hour you can see it that way you could freeze frames if you wanted to see something we'll send out the link to the slide deck along with all the links that were put into the chat um and just one last pitch if you enjoyed this presentation I hope you'll support the tour and the programs that we run so thank you very much everyone thank you Kathy thank you Brian thank you Jennifer yeah will you help save the chat s we have to do anything special looking yes go to where you type your message in the chat and there's a three buttons next to the smiley face click on that and then click save check right C that I've grabbed it as well so everybody saved the chat now we're gonna stop the recording and say thank you again and good night all right thank you everyone Kathy Bye