El Cerrito in Bloom

It's that magical time of year in El Cerrito when the months of Sisyphean effort against the tide of noxious invasive flora pay off in the form of colorful little beachheads of native plants.

My purple Iris started blooming for the first time a couple of days ago. I have a yellow Douglas Iris out front, but it's lost under a tangle of some weedy European grass that apparently thrives on a steady diet of Roundup and cocoa mulch.

The holly leaf cherry that I got from Berkeley Horticultural is getting little fruits on it for the first time this year. It takes a two or three years before it bears fruit, which, from what I understand, is completely unfit for human consumption.

But that's ok. See, I'm a native plant gardener, and holly leaf cherry is a native California plant. So I figure there must be some indigenous animal that eats the cherries and will be attracted to the plant, raccoons or something.

And see, I can always just eat the raccoons.

Kurt "big daddy" True
26 march 2005