The Much Maligned Western Juniper: The Role of Juniperus occidentalis in Central Oregon

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Old growth Junipers near Cline Buttes. These two rooted down long ago on top of this lava flow. Much of the lavas here were produced during the Deschutes Formation over many thousands of years more than 5 million years ago. Surface lavas, cliffs and slopes define the area with a few sediment filled basins dominated by Sagebrush and Bitterbrush.

The Western Juniper is the  singular native tree of Dry Canyon and the immediate Redmond area. I grew up with it here in Central Oregon. When we moved here in ’61 i remember driving north after passing through miles and miles of various Pine forests, which eventually yielded, riding in our VW bus, as we left Bend. Bend sits within the ecotone, the relatively narrow transition zone, between Ponderosa Pine forest and Juniper steppe. What were these trees? Coming from California’s Salinas Valley, the landscape could hardly be more different to a six year old. So different in form and detail, Junipers squatted darkly across the landscape, nothing like the tall, majestic Pines or Oaks I was more familiar with or even the Lodgepole Pine we drove through across the pumice plain of the LaPine area. Continue reading →

Two Summers into Our New Garden in Redmond, Oregon’s High Desert Country

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Part of the S’W Arc Garden’ featuring plants from the SW US. My Cupressus grayii Sulphurea showing the damage wrought by a rutting buck last fall. The low berm was created from the material produced by regrading the abrupt drop to the sidewalk. The rock was used here and in back. I also collected a couple tons of rock to use from elsewhere on undeveloped parts of ‘Dry Canyon Village’ and placed an additional almost 20 yds of topsoil.

We’ve just gone through our second summer season in the new garden beginning with a blank slate other than the local weeds. While I grew up here we’d been ‘gone’ in Portland where we lived, worked and gardened between the Fall of ’85 and ’22. It’s a world of difference here three USDA hardiness zones colder where our last two winter’s have subjected us to long Zn 6b conditions, -5F while Portland experienced its far shorter winter and cold down into the mid-teens, which is colder than their new ‘normal’ range of lows which puts them in Zn 9. One of the biggest differences is that in the past rain year, running from Oct. 1 – Sept. 30. we’ve received only 6.66″ of precip around 2.5″ less than our 9″ or so normal. It’s colder here; the growing season is far shorter, yesterday, Oct. 5, we dropped to 30ºF; drier; the wind blows more consistently and the solar radiation is more intense at 3,000′; all of which greatly effect both what you can grow here and how it performs. Gardening ‘know how’ can only get you so far. I’m not really going to get into the deer problem here and it is a problem as we are on the edge of town adjacent to a major Mule Deer wintering area. Anyway, as gardening is always at least a bit of an adventure, these last two have been far more than a ‘bit’. Continue reading →

Origin Story: The Trials of Charles Darwin, A Review

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Evolution, natural selection and Darwin are often triggers for many conservatives. On their announcement people will often enter into angry diatribes which nearly just as often sets off others into a defense of shared ancestors, adaptation and descent, sometimes with a reciprocal attack against a determining role for God. It quickly moves into a polarized argument, one side embracing a christian, all knowing and powerful God who created all things in their particular ‘fixed’ forms, with man in God’s ‘image’, railing against those who would have us descending from monkeys, as if one day a monkey simply ‘birthed’ a modern human, an idea that completely ignores the substance of Darwin’s theory. The public argument seems to remain the same despite the passing of decades with little change, the battle lines firmly established, arguments entrenched. So, it is interesting to read, “Origin Story: The Trials of Charles Darwin”, by medical doctor and author, Howard Markel, which came out earlier this year, 2024. This divisive, get nowhere, pattern was set from the very beginning. Continue reading →

Climate Change and the Limits to Life: a couple reviews and examination

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Not to ‘rain on anyone’s parade’, but walking home last night at 10:30 from a neighbor’s, the air was still, it was 81F and 51% humidity…ugh. Normally, it cools off significantly here in the high desert once the sun goes down. This summer is different.
Today, August 2, we’re forecasted to break 100F again. That will be the 26th day over 90 this year, the ninth over 100F…with less than 1/4” of rain since June 1. I’ve mentioned before that our average high temp for July is 85F. We were at or below that only four days in July.
Our old normals no longer hold. They are shifting consistently higher from year to year. This is happening worldwide. Its effects are greater, and more devastating, at equatorial latitudes and polar.
It is estimated that at or above a wet bulb (W/B) temperature of 35C the human body cannot cool itself. We cool down by evaporating away sweat on our skin surface. W/B temps mimic this by placing a wet cloth sleeve around a thermometer bulb, the evaporation taking away heat in the same way. W/B temps are then cooler, ‘chilled’ by the water evaporating away, drawing heat away from the thermometer’s temperature sensitive bulb, than ‘dry bulb temps. When these rise higher than W/B 35C, our internal organs and systems begin to falter and will fail in relatively short order, depending on our state of health. Some of us will have greater tolerance than others, but all will die at these levels if they have no way to cool their core temperatures. Some argue that this begins happening below this. Many areas are already experiencing such ‘events’. Governments are still slow to act We continue to build out our cities in patterns that maximize energy use and consume resources and products from around the world which must be transported to us, removed from where they other wise occur. Profit driven businesses, still refuse to change their practices and goals, insisting that the market will solve this…the same market that has created the problem…and we ‘demand’ this, these patterns, goods and services, ever more ‘divorced’ from the places we actually live, the limits and constraints with which we’d otherwise have to live.

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Weeds: What We Need to Do at DCVS

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Looking NE from the gate at Northwest Way, other than a handful of juvenile Juniper there is literally nothing native of value across this roughly 9 acre spread. The other two undeveloped phases are equally bad, having a similar mix of weeds.

The question I keep hearing is, ‘What do we do?’ Many, if not most people living here now, have expressed frustration and more about the Dry Canyon Village South, DCVS’s, landscapes, specifically the berm, the mini-parks,  the Circle and the 25+ acres of undeveloped, uncared, for property we share space with. They ask me because they know I cared for Park landscapes, as a field horticulturist, for almost 30 years, Parks which often included natural areas of over 100 acres, to little neighborhood parks and intensively developed and used urban parks in the downtown core. I also haven’t been shy about my criticism of the lack of care, or of even a plan, for the neglected property we are saddled with. Anyone who has cared for a landscape can see the problem here. Leaving disturbed and neglected properties on their own is not a plan and can lead only to their further deterioration and continuing, worsening, ‘weed pressure on the adjacent developed landscapes. Continue reading →

On Healing: Life, Place and Relationship in Oregon’s Great Basin Country

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The massive fault block of Hart Mountain, Poker Jim Rim in the distance to the north. The gravel county road switchbacks up the more than 3,000′ beginning from the center in the distance here. From here this is how you get to Steens Mountain without doing miles of backtracking.

I woke up this morning to the sound of bird song…nothing else. There were Western Meadowlarks and a multitude of others, I’m sorry to say I don’t know, but beautiful and distinct. I was laying in bed, atop our truck, thinking about how rare an event this is for so many of us…not that the birds aren’t here greeting the morning every day, but that so many of us aren’t ‘available’ to hear them, sequestered away safely in our homes, otherwise occupied or, more commonly, the birds literally excluded from our urbanized and ‘modern’ places of residence, their own places developed/destroyed. Entire neighborhoods and cities excluding all but the most common songbirds and passerine species.  Little quarter is afforded most wildlife in modern development…and that upon which their lives depend.  Continue reading →

Weeds, Weeding and the Health of Our Public and Private Landscapes: an example from the ‘hood

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Every gardener is a weeder. Gardens are created landscapes, often expressions of the individual gardener or, lacking of intent and design sense, those of a chosen designer. We live in our landscapes as active, responsible, creators, participants and stewards. Gardeners are trying to create a particular look or to grow particular plants native to their area, or with ornamental value or food plants to feed themselves and their families. Some of us are simply pursuing what we understand to be a healthy relationship with one’s place, to undo the damage and allow a new healthy and vital landscape to grow. These are landscapes of our choice. Our intention and control results in various volunteers and weeds finding their own place and so follows the need for weeding. 

We watch carefully, monitor the impacts of our work, attempt to understand what result is moving us closer to our goal and which might be indicators of further loss. Landscapes and gardens are incredibly complex systems and anyone who claims to have all of the answers is fooling himself and you. Our landscapes are broken, by us and our predecessors. The Pandora’s Box of weeds and disruption was burst open long ago. The only way ahead is to find a new path.  Weeds are here filling the niches we have collectively made and maintain for them. The more one is surrounded by aggressive, well adapted weeds, the more time we must spend controlling them. While this can be significant, gardeners mostly take the work in stride, a necessity to reach our goal, a goal which may be the simple act itself, of working in concert with our place…open to its teachings. Gardening, is a way of life, a smaller scale version of farming and the management of large ‘natural areas’ with their attendant commitment, rhythms and demands. Continue reading →

The Flushing/Testing of Redmond’s New Municpal Well Into Dry Canyon’s Natural Preserve

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This shows the effected portion of Dry Canyon Park from Antler, at the bottom, where the new municipal well is located, north to the Maple St. Bridge. The Fir connector trail shows up faintly cutting diagonally across the canyon from Fir Ave, 3 blocks north of John Tuck School. West Canyon Rim Park is labelled on the the left. The trail/dam cuts up, northeasterly from it, gray as it is asphalted, faintly in the pic. The water travelled 200 yds north of it, a bit short of halfway up to the Maple Bridge.

I’ve adopted Redmond’s Dry Canyon Park as a project, so I’ve gotten kind of possessive about things that threaten and effect it…but it is a City Park and cities often have competing demands and priorities. In this case the City is under considerable pressure to keep growing. People and businesses are still arriving here at a high rate and this puts demands on its public infrastructure, in this case its water supply. A city of its size also finds itself in need of more Park lands as people’s private space shrinks, population density increases and we all turn to the same limited landscapes for recreation. Compound this with the demand of wildlife and plants for relatively undisturbed landscapes on which they can simply live. Well, this is a case where two of these priorities have come into conflict, and as usual, the utilitarian demands have won out over those for the living natural world (There is no division of the City or local advocacy group, at this point, speaking up for the natural landscape and the life it supports). The utilitarian ‘needs’ of the community are simply a higher priority than those of the natural world. The State is responsible for our water resource and has control over adding new wells and how that is to be done. It is in at least part a health and safety issue. In this role they require that municipalities flush the wells and conduct a flow test to determine rate, drawdown and recovery. This was to be done by running it at full volume 24 hours a day for four days. At 3,500 gals./min. That’s 5 million gals per day. 20 million gals total. That water must go somewhere. It would have overwhelmed our wastewater treatment plant which is running at close to capacity already so it couldn’t be wasted down a manhole…so, it had to be wasted into the landscape of the Canyon itself.

The City contested this amount. This is almost double the amount used by by all residents on a typical winter day of 2.7 million gallons (In summer, due to landscape irrigation the daily amount jumps to 15.8 million gals.). This was all to be ‘wasted’ across the canyon floor. The City had concerns with damage to area infrastructure and paved paths. This requirement was cut in half and eventually to a single 12 hour period as the flooding/washing problem played out. The amount flushed was 2.5 million gals.

April 14, 2024

The filling ‘reservoir’ abutting the north path.

I was unaware of the details of this as I walked the stretch of path this afternoon  going north along the west side dirt path, from the trail connector between the main paved trail, extending from the Fir Ave. stairs. I was surprised at all of the surface erosion on and around the dirt path. In some places a foot or more of path had been scoured away, flushed out into the surrounding landscape, its Bitterbrush, Rabbitbrush and other low plants. This erosion continued north following the contours and the trail.

The northern extreme of the test run, where the flow slowed and settled all of the light organic debris.

As the flow spreads and slows larger denser material settles out. Here sediment was deposited in the trail itself and on the ground where the water fanned out.

The flooding had continued a couple hundred yards to where the flow stopped depositing a layer of organic debris the water had carried along.

(I learned on the 17th that this was the result of a test to see what kind of damage might occur and to gauge how the water would spread across the site. This is why the crew was there on the 17th. The test was an attempt to determine the flow pattern so that they could minimize damage.) Continue reading →

Creating a Survey of Redmond’s Dry Canyon Park Flora: getting the table set to create an effective maintenance and master plan

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My wife and I are recently returned Central Oregonians, both having grown up here, me in Redmond. As a child my friends and I spent many hours playing and exploring in the central portion of Redmond’s Dry Canyon, many years before it was a Park. In those days it was all privately owned. Large sections of it had cycled through some years as pasture. Remnants of that era’s ditches are still evident in some areas. For several years plans were being prepared to turn a large portion of it into a golf course, which fortunately, was never built. The result is that as a ‘natural area’ the original plant community is severely degraded. The City’s master plan for the Park designates a large portion, the northern section, north of the dog park and disk golf area, north of Antler, as a natural area preserve.

I still feel a strong connection to the canyon and am beginning work that I hope will contribute to its health and diversity in the years ahead. I’m a retired horticulturist who spent the majority of my career caring for Park lands, previously with time spent maintaining private gardens and installing landscapes, mostly west of the Cascades. I began working for sever landscapers in Central Oregon. Continue reading →

Dry Canyon Proposal: the need for change in maintenance, use and planning

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[The following is a piece I wrote and sent to our local Parks staff, its advisory citizens committee, mayor and city manager…I got little back in response. I’ve developed a relationship with one of the city arborists and the park’s planner as well as have met several active neighbors interested in protecting Dry Canyon’s natural areas, several of whom have natural resources backgrounds with agencies. The City has no natural resource or botanical staff. There is no formalized friends group, nor is their an outreach and public education program that addresses these problems and the role of residents in their solution. Signage is minimal and inadequate. Their horticultural expertise would also seem quite limited. This is understandable as the City’s population has grown very rapidly in recent years. The need for such programs and an increase in expertise on staff will only increase as Redmond’s population continues to grow.]

 

Redmond’s Dry Canyon looking south from the west rim on the Maple Street Bridge. The area in the immediate foreground burned this last summer.

A typical view at the base of a section of relatively unbroken rim on the east side.

The canyon floor is variable, but as this pic shows, a solid layer of hardened lava underlies what soil is here, either blown in or washed in, a limiting factor of what can grow here. Rabbitbrush is a common and ubiquitous native pioneer.

Match of the canyon floor is recovering from pasture use. These areas have relatively deep soils and are still transitioning with many weedy mustards, annual grasses like Cheat and planted grasses like Crested Wheat and Annual Barley. Native Bluebunch Wheat is scattered as are other natives. Gray Rabbitbrush, a native seral species has moved into much of it, but the weeds are dominant. Sagebrush and Bitterbrush are more at the edges and lower rim areas.

This section of bottomland, former pasture, probably burned not that long ago, has quite a colony of Rabbitbrush coming along, all it would appear of even age, suggesting a fire. Rabbitbrush are early colonizers and ‘prepare’ the way for natives to follow. This is just north of the Maple Bridge.

This area, maybe 5 acres, burned in July. It will be interesting to see what comes back and what the City may plant??? Fire kills Sagebrush and Juniper, while it seems to favor Cheatgrass. So far, April ’24, nothing has been replanted. The window for seeding is closed. Rabbitbrush can survive a burn. This site is unfenced, with very fragile soils and we’ve already observed new bike trails in it.

My wife and I are both recent returnees to Central Oregon having both grown up here. We are also frequent walkers in Dry Canyon, a place I spent many hours in playing and exploring as a kid in the 60’s. Redmond has changed a lot over the intervening years…change that continues apace as it grows. I’m not going to whine about the ‘good old days’ and things lost. Much of the change I welcome or at least accept (We did move back!), but population growth, in addition to bringing along economic vitality and stability, new and enriching opportunities and a more diverse community, increases the ‘pressures’ on the naturally limited assets that largely define the place and attract residents. I’m speaking here of the natural landscape, its features and the opportunities which it affords us for recreation and quiet enjoyment. Realtors were once fond of saying that no one is making new land, as a prompt for buying…it is a fixed and limited quantity. This limitation has profound implications for a growing population. We have far more people today ‘enjoying’ a limited, and increasingly over utilized landscape. Continue reading →