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Davis Rewilding Society steps up its efforts to help native wildlife, plants

Here's your chance to help this student-run group connect more people with nature

Yellow lupine and other natives grow in the Davis Rewilding Society's Dome garden in Davis. The group is fundraising to enable more community outreach.

Yellow lupine and other natives grow in the Davis Rewilding Society's Dome garden in Davis. The group is fundraising to enable more community outreach. Courtesy Davis Rewilding Society

Help Davis go wild – again.

The Davis Rewilding Society is holding an online fundraiser to support its efforts to reconnect the community with native wildlife and plants. Its efforts won’t help only Davis but the area’s whole ecosystem – and beyond.

“The Davis Rewilding Society is dedicated to improving Davis’s urban ecosystems, increasing awareness of California's biodiversity, and fostering connections between people and nature through native planting projects,” explains the group.

“We choose native plants that support wildlife and cultivate them both on and off the UC Davis campus. Our volunteer-driven plantings are tailored to provide habitats for specific species – like the imperiled Crotch’s bumblebee and monarch butterfly – while offering experiential learning opportunities and spaces for students and community members to build connections with each other and nature.”

Through Tuesday, Feb. 11, the student-run society was closing in on its goal on the Crowdfund UC Davis page. Supporting the society’s 2025 activities, the fund drive continues through Feb. 28. Find it here:

https://www.givecampus.com/schools/UniversityofCaliforniaDavis/crowdfund-uc-davis-february-2025/pages/davisrewildingsociety?campaign_view=true#about

In addition to monetary contributions, the group also is looking for tools and volunteers.

“Our planting projects require native plants, tools, and eager volunteers to be successful,” say the organizers. “We will utilize the funding from this campaign to provide general support to the Society, including our current goals or purchasing seeds and plants from local nurseries and restoration supply companies. Remaining funds will go towards purchasing gardening tools and food and water for our hardworking volunteers.”

Davis Rewilding Society has grown along with its plants. This fund drive will help the group tackle even more projects this year.

“We’ve grown from one-off planting projects to actively maintaining three native plant gardens, taken our community on field trips to explore California’s biodiversity beyond Davis, and built a thriving, ever-growing community,” the organizers say. “Supporting our project means supporting the continued transformation of neglected spaces in Davis into beautiful native habitat gardens and raising awareness for the wildlife that depends upon interactions with native plants.

“With enough habitat, we may even attract native species unseen in the area since the late 1800s,” they add. “The challenges facing humans and the natural world can feel overwhelming, but we believe that everyone can play a part to ‘rewild’ ourselves and the spaces in which we live.”

Besides planting natives and maintaining native gardens, the group also hosts field trips and workshops including some family-friendly events such as a native plant scavenger hunt. 

The society takes its interest in native plants and wildlife beyond gardening with such creative activities as poetry writing, crafting and painting.  It’s a great way to learn more about the wild world all around us, while giving native plants and critters a helping hand.

For more information on Davis Rewilding Society and its events: https://davisrewildingsociety.weebly.com/

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Garden checklist for week of May 17

With an eye on warmer weather to come, continue to work on the summer vegetable garden:

* Remember to irrigate your tender transplants. The wind can quickly dry out young plants. Seedlings need consistent moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants. Water early in the morning for best results.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers. 

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, calibrachoa, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Put your veggie garden on a regular diet. Set up a monthly feeding program, and keep track on your calendar. Make sure to water your garden before applying any fertilizer to prevent “burning” your plants.

* As spring-flowering shrubs finish blooming, give them a little pruning to shape them, removing old and dead wood. Lightly trim azaleas, fuchsias and marguerites for bushier plants.

* Don’t forget to weed! Those invaders are growing fast.

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Dec. 16: Add asparagus to your edible garden

Dec. 9: Soggy soil and what to do about it

Dec. 2: Plant artichokes now; enjoy for years to come

Nov. 25: It's late November, and your peach tree needs spraying

Nov. 18: What to do with all those fallen leaves?

Nov. 11: Prepare now for colder weather in the edible garden

Nov. 4: Plant a pea patch for you and your garden

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Oct. 20: Change is in the autumn air 

Oct. 13: We don't talk (enough) about beets

Oct. 6: Fava beans do double duty

Sept. 30: Seeds or transplants for cool-season veggies?

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Sept. 2: Summer-to-fall transition time for evaluation, planning

Aug. 26: To pick or not to pick those tomatoes?

Aug. 19: Put worms to work for you

Aug. 12: Grow food while saving water

Aug. 5: Enhance your food with edible flowers

July 29: Why won't my tomatoes turn red?

July 22: A squash plant has mosaic virus, and it's not pretty

July 15: Does this plant need water?

July 8: Tear out that sad plant or baby it? Midsummer decisions

July 1: How to grow summer salad greens

June 24:  Weird stuff that's perfectly normal

SPRING

June 17: Help pollinators help your garden

June 10: Battling early-season tomato pests

June 3: Make your own compost

May 27: Where are the bees when you need them?

May 20: How to help tomatoes thrive on hot days

May 13: Your plants can tell you more than any calendar can

May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success

April 29: What's (already) wrong with my tomato plants?

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