Secret Garden

Closed off for more than a decade, the weathered remnants of Earthside Nature Center hold forth. Like the Secret Garden, it waits to be restored.

In its heyday, Earthside was a wonderful garden of native plants and wildflowers on grounds shaded by sycamores and oaks and surrounded by grape vines. Naturalists held guided tours to teach others about native plants. In 1989 Earthside won the American Horticultural Society’s award for Urban Beautification.

Earthside Nature Center was photographed and described in the book The Natural Habitat Garden:

“At Earthside Nature Center, a two-acre garden only for natives founded in 1971, [Kevin] Connelly and naturalist-author Elna Bakker work with more than color combinations in mind. Though the place is positively brilliant, what was first in the gardeners’ minds was a desire to see plants with their natural companions.” The book describes two acres of flat gardens with pathways zig- zagging down the hillside next to the wash.

Connelly and Bakker were forward-thinking and quite accomplished. They combined their talents to make Earthside. Bakker was a noted naturalist who wrote many books including "An Island Called California: an introduction to its natural communities" published by UC California Press. She died in 1995 and was remembered in this article which now appears at the Sierra Club website. The Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club awards the Elna Bakker Nature Interpretation Plaque for outstanding achievement and creativity. Kevin Connelly was active with the Theodore Payne Foundation, which published his book A Gardner's Guide to Wildflowers. He also wrote Month by Month in a Water-Wise Garden.

Today, you’d need to know exactly where to go to find Earthside. The Earthside remnants sit a couple of hundred yards behind an abandoned child care center on the south side of Del Mar Blvd. But, if you can get past the chain link fence fronting Del Mar, the sign warning of rat traps, the fallen trees, glass and gopher holes, the old Earthside awaits. Earthside (which seems like more than two acres) is bordered on the west by Eaton Wash channel and the Eaton Blanche park and on the east by the Edison power lines. On Saturday, my son and I walked the area. The sky was gray, but hopefully these pictures are enough to get your imagination going.


Also, thanks to Richard Janisch for uncovering this gem!

One of the terraced paths leading down the hill beside the wash.

A potting shed with bench and sink to the right. Also, notice how deep the leaves are around the picnic table.


Another trail, now blocked by a fallen tree, heading southward alongside the wash. A 1967 plan approved by the Pasadena Parks Director, but never implemented, designated part of this area east of the wash for overnight group camping.

Grape vines, like those in the foreground, border much of the nature center. This is taken standing on one of the terraced trails looking south from the nature center. That's the Eaton Wash with Eaton Blanche park to the right.

A kiosk that, according to a faded sign, was donated by the Pasadena Rotary Club.

I had to push away old grape vines to see what this sign said. There are bunches of dried grapes on the left of this photo. I wonder what the Dr. Stephen Smith Learning Center was.

Yes, I know this is a repeat of a photo that appears above. But, I can't figure out how to delete just this one picture without deleting the entire post, which I really don't want to do!

Stealth Bomber - out for a Sunday flight (12-9 Update)

While out in the yard Sunday afternoon I heard a rumble from the sky and looked up to see the stealth bomber. We've seen fly overs on New Years mornings to start the Rose Parade. It is an awesome sight. Isaac Garcia's blog reports that this was a practice run for January 1.

UPDATE

As Laurie (of the excellent Glimpses of South Pas blog) commented, the stealth bomber flyover was to commemorate the passing of former Secretary of Air Force Verne Orr. Mr. Orr's funeral was held Sunday afternoon at the Pasadena United Methodist Church, which happens to be on the parade route on Colorado Blvd. This was reported in Frank Girardot's Crime Scene Blog for the SGV Tribune and at http://www.altadenablog.com/. I wondered why the bomber would have to practice flying over the parade route.

Not everyone gets a stealth bomber flyover at his funeral. So, I checked Vern Orr's obituary in the LA Times. As you might guess, he was one of Pasadena's more eminent residents. After serving as a Naval officer in WWII (where he was awarded the purple heart), he returned to Pasadena to run the family car dealership. He went on to head a local bank and then was tapped by Gov. Reagan to head the state DMV and later named by Pres. Reagan to serve as Sec. of the Air Force. In the later role he oversaw inception of the stealth bomber program. He served as dean of the University of La Verne School of Business. Then, four years ago at the age of 88, he earned his doctorate degree from Claremont Graduate School.

Egg!

Excitement all over the house. We have an egg! When I went out this morning to check the chickens, this is what I found. The egg has been passed around and we've all held it. We don't know which of the hens is responsible for the egg, but they all got rewarded with tomatoes, which they love.

For several weeks we have been checking for eggs - sometimes many times a day. A week ago someone suggested placing a golf ball in the nesting box. I guess the notion is that the ball would give the chickens an idea of what they were supposed to be doing. Well, they got their golf ball and we got an egg!

It was mid June when we got six one-day old chicks. Now about five and one-half months later we have an egg!

Backyard Buried Treasure

One of the fun things about working on an old house is that you never know what you're going to find. This is some glass and pottery we've found while digging around in the yard. The cut glass and colored glass is really beautiful. And the old transfer ware, like the blue and white piece in the upper right corner, is particularly nice. I don't know why, but there is a lot of this old stuff about a foot or so underground. I keep waiting to find a whole plate or cup, but all we seem to get are pieces.



I've found lots of bones. These bones and teeth are the most interesting and were found lodged together. When I dug these up, there was a small fang that hooked down from the right edge of the top bone. The fang dropped out though and is now lost. I dug around for other bones, but didn't see much. Have no idea what animal this was. Any thoughts?


These are old square cut nails we've found when working on the house. These predate the mass produced wire nails that we use today. Large scale production of today's wire nails started around the turn of the century. These are square cut nails, made by shearing slabs of metal at a bias, and were often used in construction prior to 1900.

Picking and Curing Olives

We were walking down our street and we noticed a neighbor's olive trees. The trees still had some fruit on them, but the ground was littered with loads of black and green olives. We talked about what it would be like to cure olives. The next thing I knew, Marcia was sending out a message to our neighborhood email list asking whether anyone with an olive tree would mind if we picked the fruit. Several neighbors responded and here is the result of her effort.

We are generally following the curing process described at the Milkwood site -- an Australian olive grower. There is also some great olive information available at this Caltech website . Caltech has an olive harvest coming up on November 7.

I don't know how the olives are going to turn out, but they sure look nice. Oh, if you taste a raw and uncured olive be prepared for a shock. They are incredibly bitter.

The San Gabriel Mountains: Our "Dominant Scenic Assets"

San Gabriel Valley ca. 1890
Pasadena Cal: C.J. Randall
Courtesy of the California History Room, California State Library, Sacramento

I've posted on this before, but I like the old panoramic views of the mountains. There is a dramatic and awe inspiring feel to these old photos.

In 1930, a group of eminent landscape architects examined the sprawling Los Angeles region. At a time when land was still available, they wrote an ambitious plan for parks and open spaces. They had this to say about our mountains:

“The mountains, which are the dominant scenic assets, are slowly losing value because of the intensive urban growth. On the one hand, such growth is steadily cutting off views of the mountains, views that can be obtained only across open foregrounds sufficient in scale to complete and unify the landscape. The constant process of building upon open areas, the confinement of highways between rows of dwellings, stores, advertising structures and other nearby obstructions is gradually eliminating the enjoyment of the inspiring mountain scenery from the plains. This is a great loss which can be stopped only by reservation of occasional public foregrounds.”

(Quoted from “Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region” a 1930 plan prepared by the Olmsted Brothers and Harland Bartholomew & Associates and submitted to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.)

The Olmstead plan appears in the excellent book, Eden By Design: the 1930 Olmstead-Bartholmew Plan for the Los Angeles Region, by Greg Hise and William Deverell. In their book, Hise and Deverell tell the story of the Olmstead plan and its ambitious recommendations for parks and open spaces. As they explain, the plan was quickly shelved and never implemented. The story is a good one and the Olmstead plan is fascinating.

In a future post, I'll take a look at East Pasadena's mountain views.

Garden Update

We gardened this year like we never have before. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and cucumbers were probably the best producers. But, experiments with cantalopes and corn were fun too. The whole family got into the act -- from preparing the soil last winter to pulling the weeds to picking the vegetables. And its kind of fun toward the evening to say "let's go out and pick some tomatoes and basil for dinner."

It sure seems to me like more and more people are growing their own vegetables. Marcia found a group of local gardeners who swap their extra produce and we've been able to trade for grapefruit and other fruits we don't grow. The group was profiled in an LA Times piece last week.