Valley’s Edge Update
Presented by Jared Geiser
Jared gives a brief presentation about the Valley’s Edge development proposed for the foothills above Chico. Jared presents the facts about this development and shines a light on the impacts Valley’s Edge would have on bird and other wildlife habitat and on the Chico community.
Neighborhood Habitat Program
Presented by Deborah Halfpenny
AltaCal’s Neighborhood Habitat Certification Program encourages and helps residents in Butte, Tehama, & Glenn counties create beautiful, water-wise gardens, with the goal of retaining and restoring critical habitat needed for the continued survival of our locally threatened wildlife populations – one yard at a time. This month’s presentation will focus on the steps to create a habitat garden in your own yard, as well as the upcoming Water-wise & Habitat-friendly Garden Tour.
Deborah Halfpenny, co-coordinator of the Neighborhood Habitat Certification Program, is a passionate gardener with over 40 years of experience as a professional landscaper, specializing in drought-adapted and California native plants and landscapes.
Visit us at
www.Altacal.org
Facbook: https://www.facebook.com/altacalaudubon/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/altacaldirector/
Altacal Audubon Society has been educating and advocating for birds since 1973. Our mission is to promote the awareness, appreciation, and protection of native birds and their habitats through education, research, and environmental activities.
As a chapter of the National Audubon Society, Altacal is a separately incorporated non-profit organization with a local chapter membership.
all right welcome everybody to our February program um we’re starting still trying to settle down here at the chico Creek Nature Center but I hope uh most of you are settled in at home uh so this is the hybrid program we do zoom and in person um our first Speaker Jared geyser will be uh doing Zoom from his home and our next speaker Deb heny is in person here so uh luckily we can do this and really reach out to a lot of people and tonight’s weather was a little iffy we were just going I wonder if we’ll be able to even get into the Nature Center but it did clear up it’s beautiful outside the frogs are singing and we’re going to have a great evening tonight thank you for coming and people um that are Zoom thank you so what we do is first um give you a bit of an update of what alal is doing an update on upcoming field trips or events uh we ask you if you have any exciting sightings um mostly bird related but it can be other sightings like a UFO or shooting star something anyway so um right now um we just got this is post no Festival it was very successful again it’s pretty much um uh well run well attended festival and we just enjoy it every year to actually introduce people to the incredible Wildlife waterfall and Wildlife we have in our our state so we’re very lucky to have this continue um this was our 24th year so and we’ve reached out to thousands of kids that’s my passion to reach the kids first and so we’d love to have that youth programs nature activities because you know what when I was a youth that’s what got me excited about nature and birds I was introduced to that when I was very young um so right now um the next few months are Pack full of field trips and again that’s where it’s pretty exciting as an adult but I suggest also bring a young person along with you to join these field trips and so our field trip coordinator is here Ken and she’ll talk to got with upcoming right hello everybody okay field trips we’ve had quite a few in um February this month we’ve got uh one left and that’s the chico oxidation ponds which will be next Saturday sad news is it’s closed because we have enough uh participants but if you want to go I say I get on the waiting list because never know people canel and it’s possible that you could still go to that one on March SEC 2nd we have the first Saturday at Pine Creek access so this is a field trip that every first Saturday we’re either going to go to Pine Creek access or we’ll go to another local site here in Chico and um on March 8th uh Li Webster and I will be leaving the um verbina Fields field trip for beginners so if any of you are beginning birs that’s going to be a really good tip to go on slacker Saturday is on March 16th and Skip auger leads those field trips he calls him slacker because he likes to start at 10:00 rather than you know 8:00 like the rest of us and then we have several other field trips in March um and so I would suggest um you know they’re listed in our newsletter they’re listed on the website under the our calendar and also the newsletter is on the website so we uh we post also post the field trips on Facebook so there’s lots of places you can find the the field trip information so come on out and join us we have a lot of fun thank you k okay couple of things we’ like to ask uh the zoom people is to please mute yourself and if you have questions go ahead and put them in the chat room um we will uh visit those after each speaker and because we have two speakers tonight uh we’re going to get going but quickly if you have any sightings that you want to share um Zoom um people can put that in the chat room we’ll revisit those at the end but does anyone in the audience want to share anything they seen out in the wild yes K in my backyard I have a l Sparrow a l Sparrow beautiful Sparrow came to the theater was only there one day okay her lar Sparrow came to the theater and that’s very unusual so the weather is probably pushing them to like scramble and try to find food where they can yeah any other sightings I know I’ve been out in the back roads watching and looking for bald eagles and I’ve seen lots of out there so that’s that’s great um anything else okay well tonight folks um we’re going to have Jared geyser um give us an update and some facts about the uh Valley’s Edge and I’m sure most of you have heard about it um so I’m going to hand it over to Jared um and we welcome your questions just uh wait until after his presentation and we’ll uh go from there so thank you Jared all right thank you Jennifer um can you all see my slides right now should say Valley Ed specific plan yeah suzette’s nodding awesome um yeah I wish I could be there in person today but unfortunately I’ve come down with some sickness I’ve been coughing a whole bunch and I wanted to protect everyone so I’m staying home zooming in and I’m excited to talk about the Valley’s Edge um update and what’s going on so briefly I would just like to say um what Valley’s Edge is really quick so it is a approximately 1500 acre development planned for the Foothills above Chico um and so it’s a prime example of suburban sprawl with sparse housing uh stretching up the ridge line from Stillson Canyon to honeyrun Road basically filling in all the land between but creek and uh little Chico Creek all right and so this development was going through the approval process um but there were some road block for the developer um there was serious controversy over it significant public outcry during the environmental analysis portion of the projects approval process and um continued public resistance to the development and so as a result of the community being organized and um and um standing up against this development a political referendum was done and that political referendum ultimately gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot in the March primary so Valley’s Edge will be decided upon by the chico voters measures o and P will be voted on uh March 5th or at any time so really quick I thought I’d go into some details about the projects and why this relates to Ala Cal as an organization that’s committed to protecting birds and their habitats um so this is the general land use plan for the development what they’re planning on doing we can see um to the western edge of the site on the right it’s the vast majority of it is going to be uh very low density or low density single family homes um large homes um on on bigger lots and then towards the um left bottom leftand side or the southeast sorry Southwest I misspoke along the Steve Harrison Memorial bike path there is a little bit of commercial going on and then there are some preserves and so yeah this really is in the Foothills you can see on the map on the left the topography it is very very steep here and about half of the housing units are expected to be are planned to be senior only housing um and so this went through environmental review and despite their best efforts to mitigate the impacts in writing if not in reality there were still two environmental impacts that could not be mitigated even with creative um mitigations and so that’s climate change and Aesthetics and so um we’re going to get into that a little bit and so the project will have significant and unavoidable impacts on greenhouse gas emission so this would then obstruct the Chico’s climate action plan which has a goal of reducing carbon emissions to protect the safety and wellbeing of our community as well as the the Earth that we are all dependent upon and so I add these little Graphics from the United Nations at the bottom just kind of showing the difference and the importance of taking action now to mitigate climate change because um you know some people might think we’re doomed or climate change is such a big issue um but the degree to which we reduce carbon emissions uh directly correlates to the degree at which we’ll be facing impact so the the degree of the impact would be more intense if we get to the three degrees of warming and so we want to we want to minimize the the global warming um for us and for the birds and so for those of you who have not heard um the national Autobon Society came out with a report titled 389 species on the brink and um the report was scathing and it shows how how two-thirds of North American birds are at risk of Extinction from climate change and so this really is an issue for for humans this really is an issue for for birds and for all the ecosystems of the all right so habitat loss this is the the big concern here and before I get into what Valley’s Edge would do to bird habitat I just want to kind of give us all some context as to where we are in 20 24 or as this chart shows 2017 um we’re really at a time where we’ve seen birds disappear at an alarming rate they estimate the coronal lab of ornithology through their scientific ific research that almost three billion birds have um have quite literally disappeared just in the past 50 years so the scale of of habitat loss and degradation is um is quite out of line and we really need to re that in and and protect the habitat that remains um because habitat loss and degradation is the biggest uh threat to birds and so their habitat needs to be protected and enhanced so let’s look at the habitat on the Valley’s Edge site um as you can see here and this kind of turquoise is green that’s grasslands over 900 Acres of the site or consists of grasslands um and then you can see this yellow area the yellow area is blue Oak Foothill Pine woodlands so think of um think of kind of maybe Oak Savannah maybe denser blue Oak scattered in in certain areas as well as some Foothill Pines mixed into this kind of Savannah Woodland environment and then in purple we see that there is Valley Oak raran so commanche Creek there I believe um there is some Valley Oak Woodland as well and um the two major habitats that will be impacted by the development are the grasslands and the oak Woodlands um but the development will be negatively impacting Wetlands as well all right so just how much are we talking so this table here kind of just reiterates the acreage we looked at on the last one and um this page on the right shows um 569 Acres of grasslands would be are proposed to be developed on from the Valley’s Edge 200 Acres of of Oak woodlands and so what does this mean for birds and we’ll get into this a little bit more but we can just look at this table on the bottom of some of the impacts of species so burrowing burrowing owl nesting and foraging habitat Bing owls would lose 570 Acres of that from the development pallad bat tree roosting habitat 213 Acres other bat tree roosting habitat same acreage and The Bu County metapo would be losing habitat as well so let’s really get into it so 200 Acres of Oak Woodland that’s a lot of Oak Woodlands especially with the statistic in mind that we’ve already lost 95% of California’s Oak woodlands and so the birds that depend upon these really biodiverse ecosystems are already in are already in Peril and and quite frankly need their habitat and so here we can see some massive Oaks um serving his habitat you know you guys are all probably well aware that Oaks support you know out of wildlife species UC Davis scientists estimate um over 250 different species of of life of Living beings are interacting with this Oak and so all these little grubs all these little insects um are all food for the birds and then the acorns themselves are um major food source for wildlife and has historically been a major food source for humans as well all right so what birds are we actually talking about um we’re talking about the yellow Bild Magpie Louis is woodpecker we can see in the corner here eating a Little Acorn loggerhead shrike evening grast beak and the oak tip Mouse and it’s not just important to protect these birds habitat because we love these Birds um but it’s also important to protect them because um these species are already facing pretty significant declines um most of them or sorry all all five of these bird species have declined by over 50% since the 1970s in the case of the Lewis’s woodpecker and the yellow build magpie seen a 76% decline in their population in in California in the past 50 years so so yeah pretty significant and then we look at the grassland habitat so 569 Acres of the 900 or so total would be directly lost to development uh here’s a photo from Karen llo of a northern harrier flying over a grassland with the historic rock wall in the photo too so yeah the site is located I kind of showed you some maps earlier but the site is located on the Southeastern edge of Chico in the Foothills um yeah and so it’s really wide and open because grasslands make up the majority of the site um but also also those Oaks and so back back to the grasslands we’d be seeing loss of habitat for for these bird species as well the burrowing owl the um white tailed kite you know Al’s very own mascot the um swainson’s Hawk the northern harrier the horned Lark and uh and the brewi Blackbird so yep I don’t need to remind everyone that these Birds um are already facing declines um significant declines and then to the Wetland habitat so this site actually does not contain a significant amount of wetland when you look at the whole site it’s only about six acres or so of wetland habitat five about six acres and so about one and a quar acre would be directly developed and um if you can read my public comment in the environmental impact report that um hydrologic disruption would be occurring as well for the wetlands that might not be directly developed but are down slope from development by the addition of impervious surfaces such as homes and Roads and all that infrastructure on top of these different groundwater seepage areas or Springs by developing on these Springs and seepage areas we would be altering the hydrology of the site and altering the flow of water to these wetlands and so when you look at all the maps showing habitat and all that they just lump Wetlands into grassland all right so what are our other options CU you might be hearing a lot of people say we need Valley’s Edge we need housing and while there is a housing shortage um there is no shortage of places to develop housing and so in purple here you can see all these different opportunity sites in Orange you see these different special planning areas and so the opportunity sites are quite exciting from my point of view there are 15 of them identified in the general plan and many of them have been designated for mixed use higher density residential development or or other uses compatible with the existing areas and so we can look at these purple sites you know there’s one on Park Avenue one on 20th Street one on Mangrove one on West East Avenue North Esplanade these are these are substantial um these these sites have substantial opportunity for Housing Development and housing development of a wide range of income levels as well they could they could develop housing um that would meet meet the needs of lower income residents moderate income residents as well as higher income residents whereas unfortunately Valley’s Edge the vast majority of it would be targeted towards um those those residents with above moderate income levels um as less than 1% of all the land for residential development is um is required to be affordable so vast majority of it is going to be housing for people of above moderate income all right so I encourage everyone to dive deeper into this because I couldn’t dive very deep in this short little time so go to outow website under our conservation tab you can click Valley’s Edge we have some good information on there you can download um the habitat lost factual summary I created last winter and uh you can watch this awesome video that that Ryan filmed at the uh Women’s Club just maybe the Friday before last February 9th where there was a panel of land use and planning and conservation experts um speaking about the proposed development so go to our website a lot of good stuff there um I’m happy to answer any questions questions reach out to me over email um happy to talk with anyone and um share information and share resources um other websites I as I mentioned alac cal.org you can do back vea oh no lost my screen also um stop valys edge.org if you go to their arguments tab you can see a lot of good information about some of the issues they’ve identified um and I also encourage you to get information from the horse’s mouth so I would just Google if you’re interested in going to the city Chico getting information from them city of Chico Valley’s Edge you can Google that included this web link here that includes some information about um about the primary election about the development as well and um and yeah I obtained most of my knowledge about this development from doing really thorough analysis of the environmental impact report couple years ago and um have been following this since as I’m someone deeply concerned about uh the wildlife habitat and the and the shrinking of it all right happy to answer any questions it looks like Joan has a question PA Cedro successfully stopped the development of 166 homes slated for 716 Acres look up Shasta patrol. org there’s a presentation about Wildlife that had a big impact all right I will take a look at that great all right any other questions from people in the audience or people on Zoom I think we’re fine here Jared all right well thank you all so much for the time to speak all right Jared thanks so much for your updating information this helps a lot um and it’s important to get out there and vote so anyway your ballots by March 5th so right now um we’re gonna take about a five minute break we’re going to have our next speaker on uh Al Cal’s uh C ified habitat program so um this is a time to get up and stretch and uh get some refreshments and we’ll get back to you in about five minutes thank you all right folks uh we are ready and um we sure appreciated Jared giving us this update on Valley’s Edge um and you know what this next program is quite important because uh we did hear about about habitat destruction and you know we really see it I mean in our backyards I just don’t get as many birds as I did 10 15 years ago so I know I eventually been switching out putting in more and more native plants so it’s made an improvement so we are going to hear how all this works to create habitat for wildlife and birds through one of our great programs is Al theow so Deb have Penny we’ll talk about that thank you all for coming out on this really brainy Blustery Day I’m really surprised to see as many of you here as are here um yes please thank you you know if you can’t hear me I have a tendency to speak a little softly um I when I grow up I want to be Jared geyser and learn how to talk like he does I just i’ love to do that so so um so I’m here to speak to you about the about the um neighborhood habitat certification program um what the way oh I I recognize some people here who have certified Gardens is there anybody else here who has a certified Garden already anybody here know much about the program little bit good good okay that’s wonderful um so um so to start out let me see I got to figure out how to you just uh oh just go ahead and do this yeah okay so uh we’re really lucky Jared had already spoken about a lot of things I was going to speak about but he did it much more eloquently than I did so uh what um I’m going to talk to you a little bit about why I think the program is extremely important and then I’ll tell you a little bit about the requirements that group that are necessary to be in the program and then lastly I’m going to speak to you about the thing I know most about which is how do you make a habitat Garden so I’m going to try to go through the stuff that Jared already covered as quickly as I can um and if you can because I think it might be a little long uh you can hold your questions to the end I appreciate that okay so so this is Al to Cal it’s a bird program so why i showing you a picture of monarch butterfly well because because I I have this my program set up to help the homeowner who probably doesn’t know a lot about habitat loss and about um how to make their Garden habitat friendly so a monarch is you know everybody knows what the Monarch is in Northern California there’s very few people who probably don’t know what a monarch is and there very few people who do not understand the incredible decline in population that the monarchs are going through through um this this butterfly is particularly uh precious to me because I grew up in a place where they have an overwintering site two years ago zero butterflies showed up to the overwintering site in Pacific Grove broke my heart um but this year the zerc society has just set out their numbers from their uh Thanksgiving butterfly count and the numbers that they came up with over all of the overwintering sites in the on the west coast of the United States was 233,000 like oh that’s a great that’s a great lift and it is that that’s only 5% of what used to be here in the 1980s so this is the importance of habitat having a habitat program and having habitat in your yard okay but the but the monarchs are not the only thing going through habitat I mean species decl you can see I do know of the birds and Jared you know spoke about that much more eloquently than I can and so the birds especially grassland Birds on insects mammals and fr Meats except humans so you think there might be a correlation um so I’m going to speak to you a little bit about insects um and then you I’ll tell you why uh the insect apocalypse is a really important and problematic thing for birds in particular and a lot of other species um and oh the format changed um uh what is the reasons for this huge population in insects and birds well the first of it is is that the our use of insecticides and herbicides another part of it which Jared talked about so well is the loss of habitat and I was going to point out to you to make sure that you take note of that when you start to make your considerations about Valley Edge um so um the loss of habitat you know 50% of our land use in in on the planet is used for agriculture the other loss of habitat comes from Urban Development the introduction of invasive plants and animals and light pollution which we could talk about a little bit at a later time yeah and another reason to talk about insects is because they are food 96% of all bird species rely on insects to feed their young without insects there are no birds but so are you know but insects are also food for reptiles amphibians fish mammals other insect ofor insects and even a few plants at this point people say well I don’t want insects in my yard I worked really hard to get rid of them like do you want Birds well yeah you can’t have Birds without the insects they also pollinate all you know 15 12 to 15% of all of our food crops are pollinated by insects and 80% of all plants period the really really important to to uh have to have an our guard gens and have on this planet this is a picture if you’re familiar with this this is a picture of a male carpenter bee real popular here in Chico and it’s just it’s called the Teddy Bear be I just I just think it’s adorable but those are kind of a bad statistics and it can be a little overwhelming for a lot of people to hear that go oh what can I do well you can you can change the way you landscape when you think about it 78 to 80% % of all the land in the United States is privately owned we cannot rely on government agencies or Parks or other things like that to have to create these habitat boards and not do anything on our own property we all everything everything we do in our property you know affects the the ecosystem around us so what you do makes a big difference so now these are the requirements for the program and the easy things that you can do even if you don’t Rel landscape or regen your property first avoid using the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers period really watch it carefully it makes a big difference and this also includes organic fertilizers I mean not not organic fertilizer but Organic pesticides as well they all have an effect and why chemical fertilizers because because it uh makes it uninhabitable for all the microbes and insects and and Mycelia that live in the S get rid of your lawn get rid of your lawn when I moved to Chico I moved to Chico seven years ago and I came from a place well I told you from the Pacific Grove area mon peninsula there is no water there nobody has a lawn if you do well let me let me rephrase that if you’re rich enough to not care you have a lawn the water bills were phenomenal I had clients who had water bills of $3,000 a month so when I moved to Chico and I saw all these Lawns I was just appalled and flabbergasted but you do have more water here but not that much so it’s really important to get rid of as much long you can besides the fact that it saves a lot of water it has almost no habitat value and I’ve had people say well yeah but I see the robins are coming out and they’re eating on the lawn and the Rapids coming The Ether lawn that’s really minor and superficial they really has no habitat value for the insects and Wildlife that live here uh they require a lot of they require outside of water they require most people use a lot of um fertilizers and herbicides and it takes a lot of time and maintenance which create water and air pollution and noise pollution so another thing is use as many native plants as you can when I first took over uh when I first took the program over this last year Carla who does a program with who says now don’t be a native Nazi because I come from the Native Plant World well and I said okay okay yeah um current research is showing scientific research is showing that you don’t have to necessarily you know do a full restoration job on your on the area around your living space but to have a really good balanced habitat in your yard you should aim for 70% native plants that’s to some people is pretty hard to do especially if you have existing mature landscape but aim towards that um the reason is that the native plants and the native insects and the N other native Wildlife they are have they have a uh they depend on each other for their existence they have a necessary and reciprocal relationship one cannot live without the other we need we need the insects to pollinate our plants and plants need the insects to reproduce as well so this is you know so here we have my my Monarch again with its native uh habitat plant the milkweed um not all milk weeds are the best for monarchs using Local Natives is the best uh and we can help you with that if you don’t know what they are uh this is another another one that you should be more familiar probably more familiar with because we see so many more of them around here the this is a pipe the pipeline swallow tail its only host plant is the Dutchman’s pipe aisal Opia californica um we have a couple out here in the native plant garden uh it lays its eggs only on the pipeline the caterpillars eat only the PIP fine leaves and fruit and then uh then then they’ll they’ll go off and they they’ll get nectar from other sources they need that plant to to reproduce so when you’re going to so as far as local far as uh plants native plants for your garden you say well I can only have a few I have a very small space what could I use my suggestion is to make sure that you try to put in local Keystone plants and why are they called Keystone plants because like the picture of the Stone Arch up here the Keystone is a thing that holds that arch in place without that keystone arch does not Arch just falls apart same thing in our our native and habitat food programs and ecosystems these are the plants that um have the biggest impact for the biggest buck you know you buy you buy one oak tree you are going to be H and put in your yard you will be creating habitat for 257 different species of wildlife that need that plant to survive so then so here are the ones what you know I took the list the list of top tone plants for our area uh and these are the Local Natives of that of those varieties do not worry about trying to figure this out all the stuff is on our website online I also have handouts over here that have the information um um oakus number one with 257 species there actually another there’s actually one or two other trees that have even more species um as uh the more more important they they they they post more species and that’s our local Willow and sometimes cotton wood the reason I don’t have that on this list is because this is a garden centered program really do not encourage people to plant uh Willows native Willows or Cottonwood in their yard unless you have a lot of acreage and a and a running stream they’re extremely water needy they’re extremely aggressive with their roots and you have those in your yard you won’t have much of anything else so you know everybody place it’s going to be a little bit different you have to make that call for yourself but Oaks you can’t go wrong with them here in in our area uh one another one we have another requirement is try to remove invasive species from your from your um Garden area uh there are a lot of native speed lot of invasive plants around here these two are my personal Bugaboo this year these are the ones I see in most people’s Gardens that I go to see uh if you’re familiar with them this is uh stot tenisa the Mexican feather grass and this one I can’t remember the Botanical on is poke weed okay anybody in here like poke weed after I said there you go thank you Karen I don’t care yes the birds love these plants the birds take the plants they love the berries in the end of summer they’ll flap into the tree poop them out and then you’ve got poke berries po everywhere it would be okay it was just a you know minor sh but it gets to be 12 15 feet tall here in Chico and if and it’s not an annual if you chop that down the root stays and after a year or two you have got a root that’s like this in the ground and then you’re out there with crowbars if you’re trying to get that out get it out as soon as you can okay um other things that are um invasive in our area in Chico in particular privet Ivy uh star thisle um yeah you probably can run through all kind blackberries in some people’s yards there’s there are plenty of invasive things that to get them out it take they what they do is they steal space and uh water and nutrients from made plants that actually support Wildlife um another here’s another one U requirement try to put different layers of vegetation in your Gardens um this is a a chart that was put out by the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife kind of uh telling about which birds like to Nest at which out you know which which parts of of the the tree canopy or Str canopy in your in on properties um it’s really wonderful uh ideally if you can get five of those layers on your property you will qualify for a gold certificate yet uh put through the program um but uh I’m not going to be here in Chico I’m not going to hold people to this for these for the different L levels of the of the program the reason is is that many people especially those up in Cal Park or people who live in north of town um have a really hard time growing trees uh the soil the lava flow under the under the soil so it’s very shallow those trees really cannot survive so we do take that into consideration you know when we’re looking for certification we’re not going to be really rigid about that if you can though plant some uh another thing is to is to use low volume irrigation uh especially if you’re doing a lawn conversion um you have probably have sprinklers you let you take out the lawn you’re going to need to you know change out those sprinklers for drip it’s not it’s not difficult to do uh here I have shown two different two different types this is a this is a a neim what I um type of uh irrigation what it does it has it has emitters in the line every 6 to 12 18 inches depending on what you get you put it on in a grid and and it it soaks the area that is really good if you’re doing a spreading plant you want to do a ground cover something that requires a little more water um if you’re doing things uh with more drought on with shrubs larger shrubs and with spaces in between them drip irrigation is a better option because it just gets the area around the roots of the plant wet um then um part part of the certification is to add some Wildlife features some things that you know little special things water is a really wonderful thing to have in your yard if you have a large yard and you can put in a pond that’s great but very few of us do a bird bath is fine even a saucer with water or saucer with pebbles and some water for bees and and butterflies is a is a great thing to have in your habitat Garden um Birds you know have bird houses um the program that that the that alal has been doing somebody’s been making bird houses out of new wood uh Jared has told me that the birds don’t seem to care go for those for quite a few years until that wood gets old so if you have old fence boards and stuff like that great thing to make um bird houses out of we have information on how to do these things on our in our resource packet um link there are links to people who know what they’re do do um another thing to do is make sure you leave a little bare space bare spaces on your property for uh ground nesting insects um our native bees a lot of them are soil dwellers they go into the ground during the winter and spend the winter there and and emerge again in the spring they uh you know this is a picture right next to a path the path is has bark I mean the bed has bark the path doesn’t have bark and that’s where these bees decided to um make their nests but you know it doesn’t have to be a big deal just you know just patches here and there so that they can find them uh and have some water retention um systems in in place in your in your landscape um you can go full and put on rooftop water uh catchment systems or or you know you can do something as simple as you know build a rain Garden which is simply uh a depression in the soil with maybe a couple plants that like water but something that holds the rain water for a while while um while it’s there and then that’s a drain in the idea is to try to keep as much water on your property instead of having it drain off down the sewers and out into the rivers and and and ocean um it it it’s very very helpful for the trees uh and the and the shrubs because the water stays in the ground um you do not have to do anything as fancy as as a dry stream bed that seems to be a real popular thing to do not my particular favorite that’s just personal preference uh what I did at my house before I landscaped is I took the rain gutters the the down spouts we put in a pipe to Big drain a big uh pit filled it with gravel and we have those things drain into the that you don’t even know it’s there but it’s it’s a um drywell it keeps the water on the property instead of rushing down the down the driveway into the into the gutter so those are the requirements for the program but you don’t have you know that’s stuff that you can do at any point so um I to catch my breath and um uh now I’m GNA give you some steps on the process of building a habitat in your garden uh because this is one of the biggest questions that I have come across since I’ve been working with the Native Plant Society and with the program here is that people go I really want to do that but I don’t have a famous idea where to start so so I built this list to kind of help people know the steps the order of operations if you will about building landscape in your on your property um the first thing that you need to do and and if you’ve lived on your property for a while you probably already know a lot of this stuff but you know where is a sun in shade where uh what type of soil do you have does it drain fast do you have areas that don’t drain at all and the water sits on it for a while what is your function what do you want to use that property for because um this is an extension of your living space as well as all of your Critter Neighbors uh what do you need it to do for you um uh and how do you need to move around it how how you get from to one point how do you get from the dump truck in your front yard to the area W out in the back make sure that you you have access to the places that you need to have access to it’s called traffic um look at the scope of your project this is going to be all very personal stuff look at the scope of your project how big is how much can you do in in a period of Time how much do you want to take on what is your budget and how much time do you have these things are all really really important and they’re just you know things that you need to have to know in your mind before you get started on a project and then my last one is make sure that the people that you live with are in agreement with you that it’s really true it’s really I I’ve had personal experience with with it in my own life I’ve also had this come across when I sit down to talk to clients and they say this is what we’re going to do we do this this is this and the partner says I’m going I didn’t know about that that’s not what I want to do with that area so make sure that you’re in agreement before you start or else you’ll do a bunch of work and then some going to come in and undo it for you and it’ll break your heart okay so after you have this all in your head make a plan okay all right and this is this is the thing about making a plan it does not have to be fancy it does not have to be uh to scale it does not have to be any of that stuff but the more you draw out the easier it’s going to be for you to communicate what you want to do with your with your with your housemates and with any kind of contractor or workers that you want to have come in and help you with your if you do that um uh so make a make a sketch of your property make a sketch of a corner this is a corner of a property okay um and determine where you you know and then determine the things that you that you need for that area is it is it you know do you need Edibles do you need screening from your neighbors do you need to make some Shade that’s my big thing here in Chico more shade I can have the happier I am uh where do you want to need your walkways to be that’s that TR that traffic issue okay uh do you entertain outside do you barbecue do you need a place to eat these are all things that are really really important so what I’m showing you here is a corner of my yard and this is a little a drawing it’s a sketch and I cleaned it up a little bit to present to somebody else but uh what this shows you is that when I S to make my plan because I’m a professional landscaper I come in and I had grandio ideas I knew exactly what I wanted to see and all this stuff well after looking at my budget and looking at the fact that I was doing it all by myself I didn’t have Crews to do it and the fact that I have a great big dog uh all the plans and ideas I had went out the window and the yard is designed around my dog because she needs the space to run and all my things that I was going to do I was like how am I going to protect it from Grace my dog it’s like I thought I’m going to spend all my time out protecting my plants and and I don’t want to do that so so I build my garden around my dog and so this what this shows is you know how I kind of figure out where she where she was going to run and where we going to play Frisbee so um so my yard is based around her you all have different things maybe you have kids that need a trampoline or something you know um that that’s the things to keep in mind when you’re making your plan then and while you’re making your plan too try to figure out how you’re going to get rid of your lawn this is actually a topic and I don’t have time to go into now it’s big okay um but you know if you turn off your maybe you just going to turn off your water great if you do that make sure you water existing trees of shrubs that you want to save during the drought people turned off their lawn water and killed their trees really an important thing to keep in mind okay um and then remove it in um you know any other plants that you don’t think you want in your yard you know um and then here we have our you know more of our you know invasives exotic invasives uh there are some native plants that are invasive too those aren’t on the list okay then choose your plants okay um like I said Local Natives are really good uh are the best for Habitat uh you might not always find the things that you want so you know you can consider looking at places outside of you know Chico for PL ideas uh the farther you get away from our climate with the plants that you choose from even though they’re California natives the harder it’s going to be for you to keep them alive keep keep our climate in mind um uh so yeah try to use as many native plants as you possibly can um and use a diverse diverse types of plants I’m not saying go out and get one one of everything you see but you know try to have different types of plants that bloom at different times of the year it just kind of helps all the insects as they as they travel through your through your space uh choose plants if you’re looking at you know the corner of your yard that has full sun and is really dry make sure all the plants you choose for that are plants that are like dry and like sun there are plant that like sun that ALS but also want a lot of water you don’t want to mix those two plants types together you keep you reparum plants in with places you keep your dry plants in another don’t try to you know put them next to each other it makes one or the other we not going to make it and so in choosing your plants love a lot of people don’t have a big strong background in native plants so there’s a really great wedd site that I’m going to show you now um it’s called calscape it’s ccap.org it is an interactive landscape plan website that is done through the California Plant Society um and it’s really fun this um this is in process of being updated and a new version coming out that’s that’s my phone you can yeah turn it off please um uh the new version coming out it will not look like this it will not look like this when the new version comes out but they keep postponing the date so I’m going to just show you how it stands right now so you go into Cal stape this is your opening page uh you can enter a California address or zip codes easy too and it will pop up the plants that are native to that specific area it’s fabulous um so then so don’t you have so here for Chico that’s my ZIP code uh you you know 585 different types of native plants indigenous to this area oh okay that’s a lot of plants I’m looking for a shrub so pop in a shrub and then they’ll give you just a list of shrubs from that you go oh I want to look at the Red Bud okay so this is the plant this is the page for Red Bud it shows you where it grows and then it gives you this is just a screenshot so it doesn’t show you it goes down a lot further with a lot more information gives you all its cultural needs how big it gets um and um and and what nurseries you can get it that so it’s really really helpful and it also has uh Wildlife supported um at this point they don’t have a lot on Birds but there’s a lot on butterflies and then they also have a feature of an advanced search so if you just kind of I’m not know you can go in and click off you know the you know what things that you’re looking for and it’ll pop up a lot of plants for you that way as well so a lot of fun I had so much fun with this when I moved to Chico because this I’m here I’m gardening in a completely different environment than the one I have been in for I had to relearn a lot of stuff I had I spent most of my time on this website so much so they asked me to be on the committee to help them redo reformat the new one so after you’ve do that you’ve picked your plant you make a list the first thing you do is you do your your heavy construction anything that you got to do that’s going to be disturbing land you don’t want to put any plants in until your big stuff is done you know and you can see what it does and anything that’s like building you know Pathways uh building fences walkways and patios Boulders if you’re bringing those in uh if you doing have you need to put in irrigation or uh Plumbing for fountains or anything that you do that at this point you do all the tear up of your of your property put in the the the big stuff and then when you’re done with that you do your grading at that point that’s when you can form your burms and sweat whales your rain Gardens or any of this kind of stuff with your water retention things in mind but that’s number one and then after you have that done you got your plan you’ve got your your Construction done then you go and buy the plants if you’re like most people everybody wants to start at the nursery do not do that you’re just going to be wasting money you’re going to go you’re going to buy your plants you’re not going to need to do all this stuff they’re going to sit somewhere your house you’re going to forget to water them they’re going to die and you’re going to go and buy them again you so wait until you’re ready to plant to go get your plants uh like I said there are uh there are four four places in town that are pretty good for getting native plants uh if you’re not familiar with them it’s floral native out on Meridian Road Harvest and habitats here in town and that’s Sherry she we certified her Nursery we had already certified her house we certified Nursery um she has a lot of natives that floral doesn’t have uh little red hand last time I was there had a great selection not a p but a great selection and um Magnolia Nursery uh Depending on time of year we’ll have a fairly good selection some a lot of the plants do come from floral native um the thing about going and buying plants is that um you’re not going to at these places necessarily be able to get the things in quantity if you want to do lots of them or you might not be able to find the plants that you’ve chosen uh be prepared to maybe have to take a trip out of the area to find your plants uh and um and the idea too is like once you once you go to buy your plants go with your list the list that you have from your plan buy only those plants to start you can always get more later but start with the ones that you have on your list and only those it’s really hard not to go and buy a whole bunch of plants and not know what to do with them and yes um if you go to Floral if you go to um uh Harvest and habitats they grow their own plants they know what the plants have been treated with if you go to big box stores or any retail nurseries they buy their plants in they do not know if the grower treated them with any kind of pesticides really important if you’re a pollinated Garden okay okay so when don’t you get those plants home and here’s another little little goofy sketch you know it’s just a sketch uh with these are the plants and these are the these are what do we do these are the plants we’re going to use and you’re going to buy them and then you’re going to lay them out this is the where the idea of having a plan and goes well why did I do that I’m going to move everything around anyway well that’s okay move your plants around until they look like where you want them to be it’s a to me that’s the funnest part of the whole project like oh that’s why you lay out I don’t like that ended up moving them around anyway okay then you plant okay um so the best times to plant of course are during the rainy season uh I’ve learned the hard way coming from an area where I could plant all year long that I cannot do that here I lost a lot of plants and I’ve never lost plants before by the end of March stop stop adding native plants to your blood they just it’s too hard to keep them irrigated and with the hot weather the combination of water and um and heat will really do a bad number on the roots of the plants so you know keep so try to try to have your planting done by March if you can if that uh it becomes too difficult um when you go go a plant you do not need natives but some of the other with natives you do not need to add fertilizers soil amendments or to till the soil okay uh I will make one uh adjustment to that though if you are removing an a lawn that has been in place for decades and has been treated with chemical fertilizers and uh uh you know herbicides keep weeds out and stuff like that I to go ahead you know and put down a nice layer of Rich compost and some my silia powder on that to help rebuild that soil because it is deeply depleted um it will not hurt the needes but you don’t need it otherwise okay uh so when you go to to plant your plant plant start planting your biggest plants first the ones in the biggest containers uh because they’re going to make the biggest holes um so start by putting those finding those first and dig your holes only as deep as the root ball especially if you live in a place that has clay soil you do not want to form a nice Lo little area under that root ball that collects water and and drowns the plant the roots of the plant it’s always better especially if you’re using a lot of mulch to plant higher then lower than the soil level okay then after planting is done then you install the drip from the from the main lines that you had put in during your construction phase okay um you do have to water native plants uh for the first couple years um because um the root ball until that root ball the roots are out of the the the container soil and into the soil around them uh that soil that in the from the cans is going to be drained much faster and dry out much faster so you have to keep it watered until those plants are really really have their Roots established in the in the surrounding soil add a mulch layer after that after you have all that stuff done then you add your mulch nice thick layer helps retain water helps keep the weed down uh uh I think ground barks are the best for most plants don’t use eucalyptus or or uh Walnut because they have IL pathic properties that that keep not only weeds from growing but your plants as well and do not use Willow or bamboo if you can because if that stuff is not completely dry and you keep it wet it will reroot and you’ll have Willows and bamboo in your garden instead um gravel works for desert plants and Seashore plants um use it sparingly here in Chico if you live in town because of the urban heat problem due to climate change uh rock and gravel uh reflect heat back stored during the night and will make your property hotter so I you know I recommend it’s a very popular thing to do in Chico because it doesn’t take any water but uh just think of the consequences of the heat that you’re creating when you do that uh do not use landscape fabric please or plastic horrible for the soil and landscape fabric does not keep weeds from growing he keep makes weeds grow on top of it instead of underneath it um carboard sheets under mulch is great and there’s a you can do that that works just fine and as part of the sheet mulching regiment that you can do to kill your lawn which is on the website um leave some bare soil for the bees and leave your leaves when they fall in the fall really important for Habitat especially for insects uh for example the Tiger swall Tail Butterfly a toast plant is syore one of it is Sycamore what they’ll do is they’ll stay on the more plant they’ll you know the caterpillars eat you know label eggs the caterpillars will eat the leaves uh and then they’ll form the crysalis on the leaves when those leaves fall they drop to the ground they stay underground they stay under those leaves all winter and then they then they um you know they metamorphy and come out in the spring if you remove those leaves you’ve just taken away all your your swallow tail butterflies um the leaves feed the soil they are messing places for not only swall tail butterflies but a lot of other insects and other creatures as well um they you know they can get a little high if they start to cover your plants brush them aside uh watch you know if you do blow sidewalks and things they can get pretty high along the edges just take part of them and move them to places where you don’t have as much leaves ra a great mulch it doesn’t lasts all year but you don’t have to spend a lot of money constantly replenishing your bark so here’s that same little side Garden again with with with the mulch down and an area for wild flower seeds and then after that’s all done then you add your features you add your bird baths and your bee hotels your bird houses and all that stuff and like I said before avoid outdoor lighting especially up lighting which is so gorgeous in Landscapes to you know to uplight a beautiful specimen tree or shrub it’s like oh it looks so nice really bad for Habitat for insects it really upsets insects insect cycles and a lot of birds that you know more about than I do and then get certified big feel this is really important um these are our websites where you can find information about about the program uh the um I have a little you know little hits out there it hasn’t printed on there for you if you want um uh the waterwise chico is um kind of like a it’s it helps us with with the having the double place to put our information but it’s also where we um advertise and sell tickets for the garden tour which is which I’ll talk about in just a minute okay then enjoy what you what you’ve created and it really is a lot of fun even my husband who spent his whole life working in an office loves being able to go out now and well he’s he’s become a bee person photographs bees and he’s cting birds and he’s got his whirlin app and stuff I never thought I’d see that it’s really cool um other resources here’s some books that I highly recommend uh Nature’s Best hope if you’re not familiar with Doug Tommy he is an eloquent speaker he’s he’s a professor of Entomology at the University of Delaware hugely influential book wonderful wonderful if you haven’t read it please do or you can see his talk on YouTube um you get you can get a real good taste for it right away uh the California Native wildlife habitat Garden book by Nancy Bower great for beginners really nice and then if you want some specific things to know about more about Native plantsing you can get on ccape the other little book is a California native plants for the garden and then the then the garden tour okay um I have have have have any of you been on our garden tour yeah it’s really a lot of fun it’s wonderful it’s a way to get around town and uh see what people are doing to create habitat here in town uh small Lots large Lots uh this year really really excited I’ve got two gardens in Paradise Post fire Gardens um it’s going to be a little drrive but uh one of them in particular I was telling Jennifer before the show um it is most of the garden is regrow from the fire she’s lost all her trees but the toy on her standing 15 feet tall the know this it’s just amazing in 5 years it was enough to make her convert over completely to Growing native plants after you saw you saw how resilient they are really amazing so something that something to look forward to um with the garden tour uh we’re still taking Gardens if any of you have Gardens or know somebody who might like to be on the tour uh please let us know uh we also are in desperate need of volunteer help it’s always probably a biggest challenge doing this doing this tour uh I have a signup sheet over there the the uh volunteer work is Bry Miner can be anywhere from you you put helping us with publicity putting posters around town or helping Garden host at their Garden help direct traffic and and that sort of thing everybody who does do the work has a really really good time it’s so it’s a fun fun day so take make note of the date um again here’s our websites if you ever have questions or problems with um you know things that you want to get some help with in creating your garden please email us and you know check it I check it often and we do respond pretty fast um we do have a little social media thing um page on Instagram um but there’s places that you can you can contact us um yes and just remember you know um that every yard does matter and you say well my place is so small what what difference is my little y going to do it does a lot especially when you do it with other people doing the same things around you it’s a cumulative effect it makes a big difference okay I think I got through it all well you know there the list is very very long I took the top 10 or 12 okay yeah no they’re lot yeah uh you know the more species the more species it hosts the more important it is for for that particular ecosystem yes um you mentioned on the website um you like to play around on um you can put your address or zip code have you fooled around with doing a zip code and then compara it with your p and see if there’s any changes because I know my ZIP code in kind of the area that it encompasses and within my ZIP code I would say there’s some variations in microhabitat yeah so it have you ever noticed like a little more of a find uh information if You’ give your passess as opposed your ZIP code no I haven’t I haven’t looked at it that that you know I didn’t have them compared them side by side like that no uh you know doing your specific site I don’t know how I don’t know how I would say that if you go a little broader from your particular site your choices might be a little bit bigger you might have more more options you know and even if uh uh for example here in Chico um you know downtown Chico you’re not going to necessarily find native you know uh mananita for example they like it it’s a little bit higher up in Rocky or soil um doesn’t mean you can’t try that you know the climate is still pretty much the same it’s worth I I just love to experiment you know don’t don’t don’t limit yourself completely to that you know feel free to to you know you can you can you have latitude it’s your garden yeah yeah um over the last couple years put and it’s worked very very well love it um the same period I had a bunch of new neighbors move in and so I’ve live a very small lot with a high Back Fence I have six or eight very large cats that regly come to my yard and kill birds i’ seen them reaching bird nest and kill them two days ago there one up tree [Music] well that’s solutions for you there’s solutions for your neighbors but but uh you know convincing them to keep their cats indoors or to make a ctio or you know that kind of stuff this is the this is the problem of living in urban area um you cannot control what your neighbors do unfortunately you know the cats are a problem another problem for people is that they’re creating this organic natural habitat garden and right across of France they have a pesticide surface that comes and sprays every week it’s like you know what can you it’s like all I can say is that just do your best know that you’re doing the right thing and um that’s that’s the best answer I have if you if you’re in good terms with your neighbor maybe you can convince him I’ve never had that luck so now um there might be some questions on the chat um Ryan yeah excuse me I have a question yes so weing at area not very large and it’s Valley soil it’s it’s Chico it’s beautiful and so often we read about the soil requirements for different native plants and I’m wondering if our soils too rich and do most plants that you know like Magnolia and um floral native these native plants have been grown urban areas like do they tolerate Rich well um couple things to say about that first is if you stay with Local Natives local to your area you’re going to have plants that that will like that s okay that’s first thing second thing is is that it U I haven’t seen huge amount of problem with a lot of natives in that really rich soil uh as long as you stay away from things that are well uh if you really like desert plants for example who do who don’t like that at all and I have a couple of gardens certified Gardens where people live in that are you know that that fine fine alone soil and they want a desert chaperel garden and they bringing and rock and they’re doing all this stuff it’s like from my my perspective what you know you’re doing that out the love because you love those plants uh I really highly suggest using plants that are appropriate for the site not always what you like you know which is hard for gardeners you know um but uh you’ll have so much more success that way um and I’m really surprised by your question because I really thought you were going to ask me about HOA uh ccnr and getting around them so I was a little bit [Laughter] surprised um one last question this project it’s small area it’s just a visual it’s nobody’s backyard um and we I think we left lost the window of opportunity it’s hot to um part to kill the S and um so with all the rain it’s just overgrown with long I mean some of it doesn’t have long because years ago a tree was taken out but um we’re going to plan before the end of March we’ve got to get rid of all the grass and I don’t know just Excavating is the best round at this point yes there there’s and it’s a lot of I mean is it Bermuda grass there’s Bermuda grass but a lot of it’s lawn grass that has had fertilizer in it for since the 70s let’s let’s I’ll I’ll talk to you about it after after the program uh this might be you know important to somebody else but I’m afraid that that I might be going long yes it’s a huge you notice I didn’t touch [Laughter] it oh okay maybe I should just do a program just on how how to get rid of your La um anything so yeah we’re um looking to see if there’s any kind of um um questions from other folks on Zoom um someone said great pre presentation oh that’s sweet um someone wants to know how they can access the recording of this um we’ll get it downloaded and it’ll be on our website the alal website on you um any other questions I don’t see anything else we have a few there um it was just a fabulous presentation really really good um you know let’s get out there and start somewhere get certified yeah get certified so thank you thank you everybody we’ll see you next month um our president of alow went and um aquador anyway he’ll talk about his trip where he actually saw over 400 different species of birds so good night [Music]