With streaks of lightning and claps of thunder an October storm brought well-needed rain to Southern California. While the rest of the country is preparing for the white blanket of winter, our native plants are waking up from a dormancy that helps them survive the hot dry breath of summer.
In the rain the mallow rejoiced and unfurled new blooms.
The katydid rode out the storm on her rose perch. While the days are growing cooler, she still has a month or so to enjoy the new growth.
One hillside resident, however, did not welcome the rain. Damp and homeless, she wandered in under the kitchen door seeking shelter. She stumbled into the web of a cobweb spider and was stuck there about an inch off the ground.
I was startled at first by the size of this visitor. Including her legs, she is about the size of a quarter. At first I thought she might be a young tarantula, but upon closer inspection she has the glossy brown cephlothorax of a trapdoor spider. While a relative of the tarantula, this spider has a softer, more vulnerable appearance. She’s kind of like that geeky cousin with the pale skin that seemed allergic to the sun.
The trapdoor spider colony on our hillside has included 17 locatable and occupied borrows. I haven’t counted in resent months, but it’s usually easy to spot 4 or 5 at any given time. While chance encounters have occurred when underground burrows were mistakenly dug up, I have never seen one of these homebody spiders out walking around.
I’ve seen them holed up with a brood of offspring. Baby trapdoor spiders.
And last spring, heavy rains caused one poorly placed burrow to be damaged. Damaged trapdoor spider burrow.
Did this young female trapdoor spider loose her home in the rain? There doesn’t seem to be any major mud flow areas in the yard.
Was she uprooted by the gopher that has been tunneling on the hillside and relocating dirt where no one wants it? It could be. But if she came from this far section of the yard, she walked at least 50 yards to get to the back door.
Maybe she lost her home to a foraging skunk some time ago and had yet to find a suitable hole when the rain came? Yet, she seems plump and healthy, not a spider on the edge of survival.
A female trapdoor spider spends her whole life in the protective confines of a tunnel. Walking around, she is vulnerable to the California towhees hunting in the leaf litter, skunks prowling at night, and even the wolf spider that seems to have devoured all of the cobweb spiders in the chicken house. While a male might go out looking for a mate, the large rounded abdomen and small pedipaps between her front legs and fangs tell us she is indeed a female.
What is this shy young girl doing wandering about in the big wet world? I don’t know.
While it is fascinating to see out of her tunnel, the yard needs her as a predator and she needs a natural location where she can build a comfortable tunnel burrow. When the rain stops and night falls, I’ll return her to the hillside where she belongs.
The dictionary defines a weed as “a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants.”
I’m letting go of this notion that wild free-growing plants are unwanted. And in doing so, amazing things are growing in my yard.
This wild cucumber or manroot (Mara macrocarpus) creates a beautiful delicate vine with white flowers in early spring. Now the fruit, these amazing prickly orbs the size of baseballs, are maturing and creating an exotic look. Because this vine is a native, it won’t grow out of control. It will die back to just its root during the summer.
But I didn’t plant this beautiful vine; it appeared.
The easiest way to increase native plants in your yard is to embrace the wild plants that show up on their own.
In an attempt to “control” nature, we label things as “weeds” and yank out the hearty native foliage that sprouts in our yards. Yet these plants typically are best suited for our soil, climate and water availability. These plants often are transported by native animals that depend on this vegetation for food and thereby spread the plant’s seeds.
Some plants that appear can be very invasive, but usually these are not native species. In my own yard I have a terrible problem with Oxalis pes-caprae, a South African species. Nothing eats it, it spreads uncontrollably and it pushes out other plants.
Native species usually have some creature or climate adaptation that controls their growth or spread. Before you pull out a new plant in your yard, identify it. Know What You Grow.
Earlier this year I discovered a black nightshade that had been introduced to the yard. At first I didn’t know what it was. But a friend saw my photos and identified the plant. A little research revealed that the black nightshade is an important native food source for some animals. I left it in. It is growing beautifully with purplish fruit, but the two plants have stayed small and have not spread.
I also have stopped trying to control my natives. I let a young mallow take hold about a yard from its original planted parent. Wild plants grow in the spots that are best suited for them. Yes, if a plant sprouts in a pathway I will remove it, but these self-starters are more likely to thrive in the locations they have chosen.
The valley scrub oak (Quercus agrifolia), that we lovingly planted 12 years ago, died in last year’s drought. But the four valley scrub oaks that were naturally planted by scrub jays are all healthy and growing. Toyon, Catalina cherry and holly cherry, are all natives reproducing naturally and becoming vital to erosion control on our hillside.
It’s my intention to create habitat in my yard, so I am letting go of the word “weed.” I’m embracing the wild plants that find their way to grow in our corner of the city and increase our backyard biodiversity.
