Morro Bay, San Jacinto/101 Intersection Landscaping

Project Title: San Jacinto/101 Intersection

Description: OCE grew and donated flora and helped plant the intersection near Del Mar Liquor and Deli in collaboration with Morro Bay Beautiful.  Of special interest, the Lemonade Berry (Rhus integrifolia) planted on the site were once used by the native Chumash people to mix a tasty brew much like lemonade.  The seeds of the plant were collected locally, at Morro Bay State Park.

Morro Bay, Morro Bay High School Nursury

Morro Bay High School Entrance

Project Title: Morro Bay High School Nursury

Description: OCE has grown between 500 and 1000 trees at Morro Bay High School’s Horticulture Unit with the help of students and teachers for the past ten years.  Students work with OCE to help to start, tend and repot plants as part of classwork or extracirricular activities, learning about native plant biology and ecology and good landscaping practices all along the way. The nursury also provides students with the unique opportunity to watch a small forest grow out of the pots.  Many of the seeds planted at the school are collected within city limits, even as close as interstate exit a block away.  Collecting seeds and growing them in at the school helps acclimate plants to the climate where they will eventually be permanently planted.

Morro Bay, Spencer’s Market Tree Planting

Project Title: Spencer’s Market

Description: OCE donated  island oaks to Spencer’s Market of Morro Bay for use as parking lot trees.  Over the past few years, the empty lot to the north of the market has been revitalized as a collaboration between the markets owners and the local community.  Volunteers helped install a swale which slows, spreads and sinks excess water from the market’s reverse osmosis dispensor.  The market plans to install the first liscensed grey water system in the city, reusing the wash-water from its produce department.  A recycling center now occupies a small corner of the lot.   OCE donated and helped plant many of the trees on site, including island and cork oaks, box elder, Monterey cypress and sycamore.

OCE’s Work History:

2005 - planting

6.13.2009 – tree count

Current Status: Established

Updates:

6.13.2009  – Two parking lot trees started as mere inch-high seedlings have established themselves and stand five feet tall.  The cypress along the northern edge have all survived and are well over six feet high.  A total of 27 trees were counted on the site.

Morro Bay, Morro Bay Power Plant Tree Planting

Project Title: Morro Bay Power Plant

Description: OCE contacted the power plant’s biologist early in 2009 and arranged to plant island oaks and Catalina cherry bushes where the power plant borders the Embarcadero. Acorns were collected from oaks around the Morro Bay Public Library two years prior, and cherry pits were gathered along Interstate 101 near Morro Road. The site hosted mature Monterrey pines, eucalyptus and myaporum, the latter two showed severe twig dieback due to disease and perhaps excessive nitrogen from roosting bird guano. In mid-February at about the middle of Morro Bay’s ‘rainy season‘ OCE worked with a group of 30 youth from the Grizzley Academy to plant 29 two year old Catalina cherry bushes and 31 island oaks. Finally, Morro Bay Beautiful returned to the site and mulched the trees.

OCE’s Work History:

2.22.2009 – initial planting

6.13.2009 – watering, tree count

Current Status: Monitoring

Updates:

6.13.2009 – Nearly four months after the original planting we returned to the site to water the trees deeply before the dry season. Happily, we found 56 of our 60 trees and bushes still alive, giving an optimistic 93% survival rate to the project so far. The mortalities were entirely Catalina cherries with too much solar exposure. – Greg

7.26.2009 – Stopped to water trees again, by hand. Found all previously counted trees surviving, and even some new growth! – Greg