Judy Worley’s 50-year-old bottlebrush tree turns into a blossom festival for wild rose-ringed parakeets every spring. Photo by Michelle Beck

Judy Worley’s family calls the birds “parakeets of destruction,” due to the mess they leave after ripping blossoms off her bottlebrush tree. Photo by Michelle Beck

By Michelle Beck

In honor of Earth Day, I thought it would be useful to share some ideas regarding organic lawn care and composting. I am not a person who is terribly interested in lawn care. I prefer flowers, chemicals make me sneeze, and I have no problem with a lawn of neatly mowed weeds – unlike my neighbor, who patrols his perfectly shorn Bermuda grass, bottle of weed killer in hand. My attitude changed a year or two ago, when our lawn became infested with stickers. My husband and I tried pulling the plants individually, but that was an exercise in futility. As my family will tell you, he deserves a medal for patience. In desperation, after picking stickers out of my dog’s fur and my own feet, I reluctantly bought some weed killer. The results were mediocre at best. This spring, I finally decided to take some interest in the lawn, since it was looking very yellow and pitiful. Additionally, it’s a little embarrassing to look at my neighbors’ lawns and see golf course, golf course, our lawn, golf course, golf course.

Organic lawn care

I looked online and found a couple of good sources. I particularly enjoyed RichSoil.com. I also found EarthEasy.com to be helpful.

Following the advice on the RichSoil site, I went to Gardener’s Supply at 2920 Landco Drive, just north of Rosedale Highway, and talked to them about soil analysis. Gardener’s Supply does free soil analysis, so I took the sample tubes home and the returned with the sample. My soil turned out to be very alkaline, with depleted stores of pretty much everything, so the guys at Gardener’s Supply helped me pick the right amendments. They were supportive about my desire to use natural products and spent quite a bit of time helping me. I have also seen Scott’s Organic Lawn Care at the big box home improvement stores, and it looks to be a decent product.

I decided to overseed, because I want to grow something that can be mowed tall to help shade out the weeds. For this, I chose Gardener’s Supply’s Bakersfield Mix grass seed. White clover is a legume that will put nitrogen back into the soil, so I will add some of that as well.

In the interest of conserving water, I try to have as little lawn as possible. I have huge flowerbeds, which are watered with a drip system and microsprayers. I looked into drought-tolerant grasses, but they won’t work with my current sprinkler system. Buffalograss looks like an excellent choice for our valley. Information is available here.

Our soil has a large percentage of clay and was compacted, so we did some aerating to help the nutrients and water better penetrate. I also put about 1/2” of compost on top of the lawn.

After almost three weeks, our lawn is very green and the grass is growing well. In fact, it is obvious that I did not apply the lawn food as evenly as I had thought. In a few months, we’ll see if this method ultimately helps with weed control. For the moment, at least, I don’t feel like I need to wear a disguise when spending time on my lawn.

Composting

Composting is a great way to reduce the amount of garbage you produce and a cheap way to obtain fertilizer for your yard.  Here is some basic information about composting.

Both Lowe’s and Costco have nice spin composters for about $100. Spin composters are compact, so they don’t take up much yard space, and the spin component eliminates the need for manual turning of the compost.

Many kitchen scraps can be composted, including fruit and vegetable peels and cores, decaying fruits and vegetables, eggshells, coffee grounds and bread. Yard debris, such as grass clippings, leaves and weeds can also be composted. Do not compost meat or dairy products, as they will only become rancid. I wouldn’t compost weeds because of the possibility of weed seeds in your compost. Do make sure you have a mixture of “green” materials, such as food scraps, and “brown” materials, such as small branches and leaves.

An online company, also confusingly called Gardener’s Supply, but not related to our local store, carries a variety of compost crocks. Compost crocks can be used to collect kitchen scraps, to avoid multiple trips to the composter.

Compost starter can help get your compost “cooking” by raising the temperature. Gardener’s Supply on Landco Drive carries compost starter by the box.

More green gardening info

Earthworm castings (poop) are an excellent compost. I had never seen it in town, and was very happy to find bags of it at Costco.

Terracycle is a very cool company that makes a terrific all-natural fertilizer out of worm castings. They package their products in recycled drink bottles. They also encourage people to send them their wrappers to be made into various products.  Click here for more information about the company and their trash recycling program. Miracle-Gro tried to run them out of business a few years ago, so I am glad to see the company doing well.

I also saw that Home Depot has a raised garden bed kit and a nice-looking rain barrel. It’s nice to see these items becoming more available!

Birds and bird feeders

I have a couple of seed feeders and a couple of hummingbird feeders in my yard. It is so fun to watch the little guys. If you decide to start feeding hummingbirds, be sure you clean the feeder regularly. Also, there is no need to buy the red hummingbird food. It is cheap and easy to make your own hummingbird food, and some think the red dye in the pre-made foods is bad for the birds. To make hummingbird food, simply combine sugar and water in a ratio of one part sugar to four parts water. Pour the mixture into a pan and heat until boiling. Let it cool to room temperature before pouring into the feeders. The food does not need to be colored, because the feeders themselves are colored to attract hummingbirds.

The rose-ringed parakeets of destruction

I can’t write about Bakersfield birds without mentioning the “parakeets of destruction.” When first spotted, they are a novelty. Wild parrots in Bakersfield? Bakersfield’s rose-ringed parakeets are also very cute. They are bigger than a standard parakeet, with green feathers and a ring around their necks that gave them their name. I have seen the parakeets flying between the trees along the river across from Cal State Bakersfield and drinking from gutters in the Oleander area. The original birds apparently escaped during the famous dust storm of 1977, when the roof of a pet store blew off. They have multiplied since then, and Bakersfield has one of the largest populations in the state.

Now – and this is related – my aunt, Judith Worley, has the biggest bottlebrush tree I have ever seen. Bottlebrush trees are a member of the myrtle family and are native to Australia. It is a Callistemon Speciosus, which is a different (and much bigger) variety than the ones usually seen around town. It is spectacular. At 50 years old, it is at least 30 feet tall and covered with flowers in the spring. It is the centerpiece of her back yard.

As it turns out, bottlebrush flowers are to rose-ringed parakeets what catnip is to cats. The little devils fill her tree this time of year, squawking to each other while ripping the blossoms off the tree and throwing them on the ground. They first appeared about 12 years ago and focused their destructive abilities on the green almonds growing on Judy’s backyard tree. Then they discovered the joys of bottlebrush blossoms, and now attack them voraciously. Needless to say, Judy doesn’t find them charming. She told me that the only other bottlebrush tree she has seen like hers is located in the infield at Santa Anita racetrack. She is thinking of putting a compass and map up in the tree, and hoping the parakeets take a hint.

If you are interested in birds, especially city birds, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is an excellent documentary. It is available through Netflix and other movie sources, and, as far as I can tell, no bottlebrush trees were hurt during the filming.