[APWG] Native "invaders"? Love them and plant them every year.

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear Wayne and All,

 I love the concept of “Native Invaders”, and am getting ready to utilize
them in the test plot that I am setting up right now in the Palo Alto
hills.  It is at the park that I painted a 180 degree panorama “before”
picture of, showing the solid weed cover at
http://www.ecoseeds.com/arastradero.JPG

 The title of that painting: "ARASTRADERO PRESERVE choosing a new path of
health, after over 200 years of going down the wrong path of the
destruction of California grasslands at 37.39N Lat and 122.175W Long.,
and there is currently little awareness of the environmental damages,
because it is difficult to see what is wrong with this
picture--especially when it shows an seemingly idyllic green hillside in
a public preserve in the hills of Palo Alto on April 29, 2011--but it is
the sad remains of a ruined native grassland that should be a solid
hillside of flowers and native bunchgrasses this time of year, and the
ruins extend deep into the soil level, where the soil potassium was so
completely removed by the cows and sheep grazing, that only weeds like
medusahead and Italian thistle can grow in places in the nutrient-poor,
depauperate soils, and in the distance to the left, you can see a line of
native live oaks, but in the middle distance, is a line of introduced
Australian eucalyptus trees near the western border of Stanford
University, and the 70 acres in this picture will need all the weeds
managed, that currently sprout at the rate of 30 seedlings per square
inch, and adequate potassium put back into the soil, that is needed by
each species of the native seedlings that once grew there, and the local
native seeds replanted, like the sun-loving bunchgrasses such as Melica,
Stipa, Squirreltail, Western Fescue and the Danthonia grasses and the
mosaics of wildflowers replanted, and it will cost at least a few
thousand ounces of pure gold, and once we start on this new path, we will
change geologic history away from the destructive Anthropocene Era, to an
environmentally-aware Anthropocene Era, and you will be able to see the
change in the geologic soil layers, and you can see on the far right, a
single native buckeye tree that was recently planted, to start the
process."

 This morning, I am going to drive 400 miles round-trip just to get two
bales of native grass straw to use as much, and to buy some seeds of
those invasive local native species, so I can have a successful contest
this spring, against the invasive exotics that have occupied this area
for over 200 years, because this is old Spanish Rancho Grant lands.

I play a lot of chess, so I look at the dozen or so exotics species, as
the pieces on the other side of the board, and I need to put the correct
number of native pieces on my side of the board, which represent the
different native plant families.

 I am sure, that a lot of times, the so-called invasive exotics are just
winning by default when we do not have enough local native family members
on our side of the board?  Like the wild oats, Ripgut grass, cheatgrass
and Yellow star thistle here in the West?

Along with the email discussions about the invasive natives, it would be
nice to hear of others who are successfully utilizing the invasive natives
in projects, especially here in the arid West, Southwest, the Dust Bowl
area and the Great Basin, and getting good results.  My goal for my 30 x
40 foot test plot, is 99.5% native cover by March 1, 2013.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann  (650) 325-7333