I edited this in after you posted. Right now I’ve got California Poppies, Black Sage seedlings and Coyote Mint seedlings. There’s an epilobium species growing here that might be native and edible or non-native and poisonous (I’m an experienced and cautions forager; seems like epilobiums can be kinda bastards to tell apart, so I’m not going to proceed further there), and red clover. I’m looking into getting some Nodding Needlegrass, Three-awn grass, and some Triteleia spp. I was looking at Owl Clover, but it’s parasitic on grasses, and I don’t to piss off the neighborhood by setting off an epidemic of parasitic owl clover (my power level isn’t quite that high yet). I’ve also scattered some nettle-leaf hyssop seeds, but I seem to be coming up zeroes on that front. Now, my neighbor is a heavy irrigator and always floods my side yard after years of asking them to manage it better. Nothing grows there but mud or water-loving non-native grasses, so I got my hands on some cattail seeds (and dill and fennel) and scattered them in there. I’m curious to see if I can get some cattails going.
Lmao, I’m hoping I might get a reaction when swamp plants start coming up on their side of the fence. At any rate, cattails are such a dead useful plant, if I get a good crop of them (or better, a mix of them and dill/fennel), I won’t be too mad at the neighbor.
It’s taken years of small, persistent effort, and it’s an ongoing process. One day, I aspire to become a forest spirit that randomly terrorizes too-well-manicured suburbs and gets featured in creepypastas. Anyone can do it, it just takes time, interest, a bit of applied effort, and some luck. If you find an already experienced botany nerd in your area, you can really give yourself a boost, but YouTube U is a pretty decent substitute. There’s lots of good books that your local library can help you get a hold of too!
One that I’m really enjoying (though it’s kind of a tome) is “Tending The Wild” by M. Kat Anderson. It goes into the interdependent relationships the native Americans had with the local flora and fauna and how the arrival of European settlement blew that ecology right out of the airlock. There’s a lot of really good information both about the horrors of colonialism and genocide as well as the ways that various native species were used and cultivated.
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I edited this in after you posted. Right now I’ve got California Poppies, Black Sage seedlings and Coyote Mint seedlings. There’s an epilobium species growing here that might be native and edible or non-native and poisonous (I’m an experienced and cautions forager; seems like epilobiums can be kinda bastards to tell apart, so I’m not going to proceed further there), and red clover. I’m looking into getting some Nodding Needlegrass, Three-awn grass, and some Triteleia spp. I was looking at Owl Clover, but it’s parasitic on grasses, and I don’t to piss off the neighborhood by setting off an epidemic of parasitic owl clover (my power level isn’t quite that high yet). I’ve also scattered some nettle-leaf hyssop seeds, but I seem to be coming up zeroes on that front. Now, my neighbor is a heavy irrigator and always floods my side yard after years of asking them to manage it better. Nothing grows there but mud or water-loving non-native grasses, so I got my hands on some cattail seeds (and dill and fennel) and scattered them in there. I’m curious to see if I can get some cattails going.
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Lmao, I’m hoping I might get a reaction when swamp plants start coming up on their side of the fence. At any rate, cattails are such a dead useful plant, if I get a good crop of them (or better, a mix of them and dill/fennel), I won’t be too mad at the neighbor.
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It’s taken years of small, persistent effort, and it’s an ongoing process. One day, I aspire to become a forest spirit that randomly terrorizes too-well-manicured suburbs and gets featured in creepypastas. Anyone can do it, it just takes time, interest, a bit of applied effort, and some luck. If you find an already experienced botany nerd in your area, you can really give yourself a boost, but YouTube U is a pretty decent substitute. There’s lots of good books that your local library can help you get a hold of too!
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One that I’m really enjoying (though it’s kind of a tome) is “Tending The Wild” by M. Kat Anderson. It goes into the interdependent relationships the native Americans had with the local flora and fauna and how the arrival of European settlement blew that ecology right out of the airlock. There’s a lot of really good information both about the horrors of colonialism and genocide as well as the ways that various native species were used and cultivated.
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Fennel is actually an invasive species in CA so I wouldn’t recommend this.
However, foraging for it is great. Plenty to go around already.
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