On June 27, volunteers helped the Shasta Chapter nursery harvest blue-eyed-grass cultivated by long-time chapter member, Jim Nelson. Jim has been sowing seeds and magnifying wildflower patches on his property for years. Our volunteers graciously and spontaneously met the moment, which was almost the last possible moment to harvest these seeds in bulk for the year! Blue-eyed-grass (Sisyrinchium bellum) blooms in April. You can extend the bloom by irrigating lightly as the soil begins to dry in spring.
On the prior weekend, Jim offered one of his blue-eyed-grass patches for seed collecting before it would be trimmed shorter. At our earliest opportunity, we “seized the day” to accept his generous offer. In only a couple hours, the nursery obtained nearly 90,000 seeds! We now have enough seed to offer packets of this popular perennial native iris in our Fall Sale. We all had a very pleasant time chatting and learning Jim’s method of using graduated soil sieves to filter plant chaff from the tiny, 1 millimeter, spherical seeds.
There is more than one way to volunteer and support the nursery! If you want to help and you have non-hybridized, native species from known sources, with seeds or cuttings to spare, you can reach the nursery at shastacnps@gmail.com. The nursery is completely run by volunteers, and the proceeds support Shasta Chapter activities, scholarships, internships, and grants for organizations to make native plant and pollinator gardens.
We may be going into our hottest month of the year, but while we’re staying cool, we can all dream and plan to start or improve pollinator habitats in our own backyards and patios this fall. The Fall Sale in mid-October will be an opportunity to find native plants that interest you and will bring native bees and butterflies close to observe and enjoy both their diversity, and the fact that your efforts provide habitat for them. – MaryAnn McCrary