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California freeway "wildflowers"


>Isn't it frightening to see on your evening news shots of the freeways
>showing South African springflowers with the announcer glowing about the
>wonders of Spring and our native springflowers! Our beloved CALTRANS has
>sowed miles of our Interstate freeways with Namaqualand Daisies and planted
>large areas with yellow and orange mesembryanthemums (no details, that's
>not the point). In this part of the State they look terrific at this time
>of year and are not doing any harm so this is not criticism of CALTRANS for
>planting them. However, it is tragic that our news stations cannot inform
>the public that these are not our plants and it is appaling that the only
>roadsign I see announces 'Wildflowers' or 'Wildflower Section' and the name
>of the company sponsoring them. What is a 'Wildflower'? Hardly one that has
>been sprayed in place with paper pulp and fertilizer.
>
>I think we should post CALTRANS with demands that information about
>plantings be located in a strategic places. The local news stations are
>probably beyond all hope, at least here in San Diego.

>Andrew Wilson

HI everyone....

Funny to come back from a roadtrip through california and find this
posting.  As we drove from San Diego up highway 5 to 99 and on to Lake
TAhoe, I kept thinking "wouldn't it be great if there were a law that
Caltrans (the California highway transportation authority) had to plant
natives along the highways and freeways of California!"  After all, the
plants that grow best in any one area are the plants native to that area.
So instead of the infernal oleander and so called "freeway daisys" that
Andrew is referring to, we could have ceanothus, california poppies,
lupines, shrubs, trees, etc that represented the landscape that the freeway
had replaced.  Seems fitting....

So what do you say, shall we petition Cal Trans to change their policy?

Nan

P.S.  Visited a terrific nursery in Fresno that I want to recommend to you
all, but more about that in a later posting!

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Nan Sterman, Master Composter in Residency
Olivenhain, California
Sunset Zone 24, USDA Zone 10b or 11
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So goes an old chinese proverb:
         If you want to be happy for a few hours, get drunk;
         If you want to be happy for a week-end get married;
         If you want to be happy for a week, barbeque a pig;
         If you want to be happy all your life long become a gardener
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