After oak falls on her house, Auburn teacher turns once-shady space into pollinator paradise
Christina Bickley of Auburn was one of six "Summer Strong Yard" winners in the Regional Water Authority contest this year. Courtesy BeWaterSmart.info
The transformation of Christina Bickley’s Auburn frontyard started with a boom – literally.
“We ripped out our lawn after our oak tree fell on our house,” she says. “So much sunshine, so we decided to go native to reduce water use and support native pollinators.”
Bickley teaches 7th- and 8th-grade science and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics); she’s familiar with botany. She knew her oak tree was in decline, but its sudden collapse was a shock.
“It was a beautiful tree,” she recalls. “It was near the middle of the lawn. All that lawn – and all that watering – made it susceptible. It was a very vigorous lawn, and the tree got unhealthier and unhealthier.”
A wind storm in 2019 was enough to push it over.
“When it fell, it clipped the front part of the house; the garage and the cars took most of the impact,” Bickley says. “We discovered the oak was infested with ants that had hollowed it out. Without the tree, it made it quite sunny. It was a drastic change."
And an opportunity; it was time for a makeover.
“That definitely got us started,” she says. “It was during the drought; we didn’t want to water anything that wasn’t food.”
For her efforts and her garden’s transformation, Bickley was named a “Summer Strong Yard” winner by the Regional Water Authority. Her garden was featured in an ongoing campaign to inspire other residents to tackle their own water-wise makeovers.
While rethinking her yard, Bickley also became interested in pollinator-friendly native plants and helping wildlife. “My longtime goal is to support bees.”
After the demise of the tree, she suddenly had plenty of sun – a must for tomatoes and most native plants. “Losing the tree tipped the scale,” she says.
Bickley sheet-mulched the lawn with cardboard and wood chips -- a slow process that allows the turf to decompose in place. She installed drip irrigation and did lots of research on native plants.
“We did it all ourselves; it took a year,” she says. “The biggest investment was an earth mover and a big dumpster.”
As for going native, Bickley recommends Calscape.org (an online resource from the California Native Plant Society) and the “Gardens Gone Native” garden tour, hosted by the Sacramento Valley chapter of CNPS. “That tour was a real eye opener; all the different colors and combinations.”
Her new favorites? “I’m just in love with Matilija poppies, the fried egg plant. I also love coyote mint, elegant clarkia, California buckwheat, woolly sunflowers, a ton of sage. The self-seeded poppies are fabulous. I plan to have something blooming year round.”
Bickley is now tackling the rest of her landscape. She’s looking into rebates from her water provider, Placer County Water Agency. “It’s nice to have incentives out there.”
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Food in My Back Yard Series
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers
April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth
March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space
March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds
March 4: Potatoes from the garden
Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later
Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space
Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants
Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting
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Garden Checklist for week of April 20
Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!
* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.
* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.
* Plant onion sets.
* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.
* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.
* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.
* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.
* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.
* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.
* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.
* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.
* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.
* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.
* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.
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