Hello!

I am a second year Master’s student in the process of working on a newly offered master’s capstone project thesis track route for the Wildland Management Master’s degree.

The area I’m working on is a 1.3 acre grassy slope at about 1350ft above sea level overlooking the Bass Lake/Folsom Lake area.

This area used to be the site of especially high historic native plant species diversity but like the rest of California’s grasslands it experienced possibly the fastest rapid non-native plant invasions/take-overs in the world.

changes in plant specifically is extremely native plant species rich—especially in the forb dense meadows that surrounded mature Blue Oak trees that now tend to be surrounded by excessive invasive understory thatch build-up, which likely makes it far more difficult for new Blue Oaks to make it past the seedling stage.

The guy the California Plant Taxonomy book is named after (Wilis Jepson) was submitting herbarium samples from sites he collected in within in this specific area and considered it an area of exceptionally high species compositions and high species endemism. The hillsides John Muir used to describe found in this area is hardly recognizable in the suburban development zones today.

The goal with a project like this is to capture public imagination with a higher amount of intact functional biodiversity in a spot that might have otherwise been overlooked and the amount of facilitative native species a site like this could hypothetically support if looking to a combination of sources and strategies and implementing them on a several year timeline.

every single weed in the seedbank is a potential competitor and niche a native could potentially fill or there is something on my end that I can do and have prepared the site over the last few years with this mindset on top of utilizing lower cost cover-crops, utilizing syntropic succession with native pioneer plants, and heavy amounts of winter bagging/seed hand-pulling.

I also do targeted mowing, circumstantial Fluazifop treatments, and a bit of mulching.

I have already spent about $600ish-700ish on this in total.

It wasn’t my original plan but I believe with another $200 I can go a step further and restore a functional historic ecotone (a rose Limnanthes/Sierra tidytips vernal swath area) that I am finding two years of evidence so far that the field is lending itself to it.

the end result would not only seem surprising and hopeful for a suburban environment but it would help seal in the gaps for invasive plant species intrusions and fortify the existing project plans/seedbank I have already spent hundreds of dollars on and thousands of hours of exercise downtime on.

any donations would be helping me with getting:

a weed torch for the fall (I have a burn permit/burn background)

Between SteeleAcres, Seedhunt, and any other sources I can find here are some examples:

Allium peninsulare var. peninsulare

Allium sanbornii var. sanbornii

Allium cratericola

Allium memorandum

Cardamine oligantha

Cardamine Californica

Lessingia leptoclada

Lessingia virgata

Lessingia nana

Thysanocarpus lacinata

Thysanocarpus radians

Castilleja foliolosa

Delphinium palens ssp. hansenii

Grindelia hirsutala

Hypericum concinnum

Heuchera micrantha

Hordeum jubatum

Iris hartwegii

Juncus nevadensis ssp. pauciflora

Silene lacinata. ssp. lacinata

Layia sierrae ssp. albida

Layia chrysanthemumoides

Layia fremontii

Limnanthes douglasii ssp. rosea

Limnanthes douglasii ssp. nivea

Agrostis elliottiana

Agrostis microphylla

Leptosiphon ciliatus

Navarettia Filipes

Navarettia intertexta

Navarettia leucocephala

Navarettia pubescens

Navarettia viscidula

Ozmoryhiza (California native species)

Pycanthemum californicum

Acmispon wrangelianus

Acmispon parviflorus

Carex barbarae

Carex brainerdii

Eriogonum elongatum

Lathyrus sulphureus

Lepidium strictum

Lepidium nitidium

Leerzia oryzoides

Calochortus superbus

Calochortus luteus

Sedella pumila

Nemophila heterophylla

Nemophila maculata

Lepidium virginicum

Panicum capillare

Stachys albens

Solanum xanti

Antirrhinum vexillocalyculatum

Antirrhinum leptaleum

Angelica californica

Cyperus Niger

Centromadia fitchii

Odontostomum hartwegii

Iris hartwegii

Asarum hartwegii

Cynoglossum grande

Stellaria nitens

Geranium carolinianum

Galium bolanderi

Galium porrigens

Gallium triflorum

Micranthes californica

Micranthes fallax

Micranthes integrifolia

Mentha arvensis

Marah fabacea

Polygala cornuta var. cornuta

Clematis lasiantha

Clematis ligusticfolia

Euthamia occidentalis

Erigeron foliosus var. hartwegii

Fragaria vesca

Fritillaria micrantha

Gilia achilleifolia

Lonicera hispidula

Lonicera interrupta

Lupinus stiversii

Nemophila parviflora

Festuca octoflora

Plagiobothrys fulvus, glyptocarpus, greenei, scriptus, stipitatus, austiniae, canescens, or tenellus

When I get to it I will also try to at least replace the two small exotic trees/shrubs along the fence line replaced with natives.

Again, the goal is showcasing an example of functional meadow diversity meaning it’a also also less likely to create high temperature fires, keep invasives out on their own or with minimal interference, showcase local ecology, need less mowing, etc.