Subject: Re: Need tree/guild suggestions ASAP

From: "John Abdon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:41:56 -0700

The northern reach of the California Condor, you are. I have photos snapped
in my youth of one that spent a single night each year sleeping in the 'huge
old eucalyptus' trees growing in our backyard. That was way down the coast
from your place in then rural Orange County (Garden Grove). The Condor
family, like yours, is trying to make a comeback on this Coast. Tears of
sorrow choked me as I read your letter out loud to Barbara, and with joy we
sat together and recounted our various excursions into your neck of the
woods over the years. We have been witness to the wholesale destruction of
California, and I am no longer able to go to go to the home of my youth for
the heartache it causes.

As the two of us recall, your area is kind of like a pow-pow of guildships,
constantly changing back and forth. A veritable Jacquard Weave of guilds
ranging from Old Growth to parking lot. Constructing a successful associate
guild (or bridge guild) will be strongly influenced by the altitude, the
overall incline, and the fall line (compass direction of average slope) in
addition to the climatologic properties you mention. I have seen varieties
of Eucalyptus that grow in near zero water. The amazing thing about the
southern most reaches of the Pacific Northwest is how steep and rapidly
changing the rain forest there can be. Turn the corner into the shade and
leave a coastal chaparral forest and enter the heart of the Old Redwoods.

The Khurais Bedouins living in the Rub-Al-Kali Dessert of Saudi Arabia come
to mind in contemplating your situation: a unilateral action by a government
sanctioned entity committed violence on an innocent, lovingly created
human-centric guild. I can speak with their authority here: an alliance with
the enemy can be advantageous if not honorable. They would buy as much time
as they could. Pick out the most valuable and healthiest specimens they had
to offer, move them to an isolation nursery, evaluate the root condition of
each plant and tend to any need. If these plants don't turn out to be the
ones you want when your design is finished, then sell/trade/give them to
others using the 'real soon now' website. Markets are learning to grow there
own virtual communities and why not us.

Are humans the only surviving member of this guild? If not, develop a rough
estimation of the percentage distribution of surviving/survivable members.
Best make a little hand drawn map (use a simple paint program, save it as a
black & white image so it will be as lightweight as possible). Walk the
property and record in your own meaningful way what you see and
interrelationships you find in what is left in the aftermath... later on
this map become food for the magical software creature hiding out there
somewhere in virtual mists...

But offhand, go for fast growing, native northern chaparral members or
nearest cousins. And of course, hives of bees at least at first. Sew the
ground immediately with something cheap that will keep the thistle down
during initial years of guild construction. Have a vision of the place 200
years from now. Up here, in the Rain Shadow of the Olympics, the long term
climate increasing fits the pattern of global warming, and if the folks down
there think its an issue, then look South down the Pacific Coast to The Big
Sur for your inspiration. Get your best shot from the power company for now,
but there is usually plenty of time marked in years before you need to put
them into the ground.

I didn't realize 'huge old eucalyptus' trees grew that far north. The
introduction of the species into North America was under the hand of the
Irvine family of turn of the century Orange County, California
(http://www.csg-i.com/oils/html/eucalyptus_trees_-_irvine.html). The twist?
Literally in the Tree and in the plan was a fungus member of the eucalyptus'
new guild. A clue you must contemplate here while indroducing anything new
to the area. If my memory serves me well there are over one hundred
varieties of eucalyptus of essentially any maximum mature height you need.
If the tree was good enough for the last flights of the free Condor,  one of
its cousins may be good enough for the family place. From 'Ten Popular Trees
for Arid Zone Landscaping or "Xeriscape"' at
http://www.landscapeandsprinklers.com/trees_xerisc.html we learn:

"Eucalyptus: (shown: Eucalyptus leucoxylon "Rosea"; common name White
Ironbark) The mighty evergreen Eucalyptus tree comes in many varieties and
is mentioned frequently in text from the ancient world: Turkey, Egypt,
Israel, etc. Most varieties have a blue-green or gray-green foliage with
flowers ranging from white, red, yellow, orange and every hue in between.
Size from large shrub (15' h x 10' w) to full tree, 45' h x 25' w. Growth
rate is moderate, and leaf litter is minimal. They have no thorns and are
hardy into the 15 to 25 degree range."

I am studying the search engine of NWS Headquarters of the National Weather
Service at URL http://www.websites.noaa.gov/guide/government/w1.html.
Looking for the climatologic members of the guild.

And of course don't forget the good old US Government's Bureau of Land
Management: their internal search engine is a veritable gold mine for data
miners like me. These guys have been working very hard to centralize the
data required to properly design a long-term visionary plan. Look at
http://www2.az.blm.gov/compass. I used "soil" and "rainfall" and "sunlight"
to develop a very cool hypertext page pertinent to your realm. There is hope
shining brightly 'cause the first returned reference was to Biological Soil
Crusts with decent pics of Biological Soil Communities (BLM's phrasing, so
hey BLM... congratulations on priorities (or was it the sorting that did
it?)). We all should constantly watch for development projects and gain
permission to remove soil crust communities for relocation to places just
like yours. Where is Roosevelt's WPA when ya' need it, anyway?

I will send this, search your issues at the BLM's sight, and re-reply to
this message tonight.

Sometimes at night I dream of a list of guilds and their interrelationships
as comprehensive as the human genome project and see that as something at
least as valuable. But Shoeless Joe Jackson (at least in the movie) was
right: build it, and they will come.

    `\\\\\\\\|||/
      (@@)            johnAbdon  [email-masked]
ooO_(_)_Ooo___________________________________
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----- Original Message -----
From: John Schinnerer <[email-masked]>
To: permaculture <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 11:48 AM
Subject: Need tree/guild suggestions ASAP

> Aloha,
>
> I need some quick and simple suggestions for trees and (ideally) related
> guild plants for a particular situation.  Here's the scoop:
>
> The power company has removed some trees (huge old eucalyptus) that were
> threatening their power lines from a strip of land along a rural road.
The
> power company will give us trees to replace what they cut (but not
> eucalyptus or others that will grow right back up and threaten the power
> lines again, obviously...;-).  I'm not sure what all they have available,
> but better to ask for what we want than take whatever they give by
default,
> I'd guess.
>
> The land is part of some family property just outside Fortuna, CA
(Humboldt
> co. - 20 mi. S. of Eureka).  The land slopes up away from the road,
although
> there is a flattish area about the width of a one-lane road between the
road
> and the start of the slope.  The climate is N. CA near-coastal, with
summer
> fog mornings and breezy sunshine afternoons.  The strip of land is on the
> north side of the road and the slope above it is south-facing and fairly
> gentle (but trees across the road intermittently block low AM/PM/winter
> sun).  Edge of the road is brushy/brambly and poison oak is not scarce
> enough...  It was probably all redwoods long ago.
>
> My aunt is supposed to tell the power co. what trees we want this coming
> Monday.  I'm heading down that way Friday, so suggestions by e-mail today
or
> tomorrow are most useful.  I doubt they'll provide understory stuff, but
I'd
> still appreciate suggestions from anyone with experience in that region,
> since we can possibly get understory/guild stuff ourselves.
>
> Also, if there's anyone in that area with appropriate experience who wants
> some tree-planting (possibly guild-planting) work, please holler out (with
> phone number)!  My relatvies, left to themselves, have a tradition of
hiring
> less-than-competent people to do work around the property and I'd like to
> try and break that tradition...!
>
> Thanks,
> John Schinnerer
>
> ---
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From: "John Abdon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:41:56 -0700

`\\\\\\\\|||/

----- Original Message -----
From: John Schinnerer <[email-masked]>
To: permaculture <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 11:48 AM
Subject: Need tree/guild suggestions ASAP

The
default,
(Humboldt
although
road
summer
or
I'd
hiring

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From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 23:47:04 -0400 (EDT)

> Crusts with decent pics of Biological Soil Communities (BLM's phrasing, so

Yep, that's a great website; here's the URL:

http://www.id.blm.gov/iso/931/soil/soil.htm
for the BLM Soil Biological Communities page
with subsets on biological crusts, fungi, bacteria,
protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, soil food web, mammals

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