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Welcome to the Test Plot log. Please check back for seasonal updates and research findings from our volunteers and stewards. 

BY PLOT
Elysian | RIo de Los Angeles | Baldwin Hills | USC Campus | Debs | Elephant Hill | San Bruno (Eucalyptus) | Catalina Island | Starr King | Burn Scar | LHS Ohlone Hillside | Puente Hills | La Esquinita | Interesting topics

AUTHORS




2025
7/27 HEAVY HITTERS
by Tom Hurst

6/13 SEED COLLECTION
by Will Macfarlane

5/23 GETTING AHEAD OF BRUSH CLEARANCE
by Jen Toy

5/01 GARDENING IN THE GERMAN SPEAKING WORLD
by Max Kanter

4/04 VINEGAR SPRAY TRIALS
by Jen Toy

3/31 “PLANT MVPS” UNDER THE EUCALYPTUS 
by Jen Toy

3/30 PHASE 2 AT STARR KING
by Théa Ryan

2/28 FERRY BOATS, VANS, & A BIT OF MAINTENANCE
by Scott Applebaum and Berit Cummings

2/27 BURN SCAR SEEDLINGS
by Hannah Pae 



2024

11/21 STARR KING TEST PLOT PHASE 2 BEGINS
by Elena Fox

10/24 RAINBOW CANYON KICKOFF 
by Tatianna Velicer 

10/22 GREEN RAVINE  @ CATALINA ISLAND TURNS 1!
by Alex Robinson

7/14 JULY AT THE BURN SCAR
by Hannah Pae

7/08 DISTURBANCE, ELYSIAN
by Jenny Jones

6/20 SUMMER SOLSTICE CHECK-IN
by Anthony Martin

6/08 BALDWIN HILLS TURNS 3!
by Jen Toy

6/07 DEBS FIRST FRIDAYS
by Cody Porter

5/25  EUCALYPTUS UNDERSTORY 
1 YEAR EVALUATION
by Jen Toy

5/17 MAY AT THE BURN SCAR
by Hannah Pae

1/15 EUCALYPTUS 2nd PLANTING
by Jen Toy



2023

11/13 UNDER THE EUCALYPTUS
by Victoria Bevington

11/06 STARR KING INTRO
by Terremoto SF

10/16 WATCHING WEATHER
Q&A with Joey Farewell

9/18 CATALINA SOIL TEST #1
Q&A with Alia Harris and Emersyn Klick

7/10 DEBS FIELD SKETCHES
by Hannah Pae

6/08 IT’S RAINING OAKS 
by Joey Farewell

5/25 SECRET SUPERBLOOM
by Jenny Jones

3/29 RAINBOW RIVER
by Dani Vonlehe, Jenny Jones, Dante Inguinez

3/23 VERTICAL MULCH
by Nina Weithorn

3/10 SPRING AT DEBS
by Adrian Tenney

3/07 WHAT’S IN BLOOM AT BALDWIN
by Arely Media Perez

2/15 USC NEW PLANTS
by Nina Weithorn

VALENTINE’S DAY AT RIO
by Daniela Velazco

1/30 ELEPHANT HILL RAINS
by Joey Farewell


2022

FIELD DRAWINGS FROM SAN BRUNO MOUNTAIN
by Lian Mae Tualla, Tera Johnson

10/22 RIO FIELD NOTES
by Daniela Velazco

STARTING THE USC CAMPUS PLOTS
by Alex Robinson

10/13 ELYSIAN AFTER 3 YEARS
Q&A with Jenny Jones

10/06 RIO AFTER 2 YEARS
Q&A with Jen Toy


2021

STARTING BALDWIN HILLS
by Daniela Velazco



MEET THE SUPER STEWARDS
All interviews by Daniela Velazco + Hannah Flynn

TANIA ROMERO

DANTE INIGUEZ + ANTHONY MARTIN

LUIS RINCON


POST-JANUARY LA FIRES CHECK IN

Burn Scar Test Plot 
By Hannah Pae
Terremoto

 DATE:  February 27, 2025

It’s been about two months since the wildfires started in Los Angeles at the start of the year, and life before the fires seems like a distant past that we will never be able to go back to. Amidst the immediate fear, destabilization, and heart-wrenching grief over our city and our collective unknown future, I’ve experienced glimmers of hope while observing the resilience of the native flora and fauna during the times I’ve come back to Burn Scar post- LA fires to check in on how everything has been holding up after the extreme, drying Santa Ana winds, the LA fires, and late winter rain storms the past couple of weeks.

Soon after the brush fire in Elysian Park in fall 2023 that burned through the Burn Scar Test Plot, we noticed toyon sprouting back from charred stumps. A year and four months later today, the toyon sprouting back from the base of a charred branching arch has grown to be almost 5’ tall, with toyon seedlings coming up nearby – a true testament to the resilient nature of our fire adapted ecology.

Charred logs that we’d sawed and laid on the ground have inadvertently taken on the critical role of nurse logs for wildflower seedlings from last year’s seed bank – baby lupine, clarkia, and lacy phacelia – that are taking advantage of the sheltered microclimate created by the logs. A few months before the LA fires, we’d also spread native seeds we’d collected from nearby intact chaparral ecosystems in Elysian Park, and I expect we’ll finally see these seedlings pop up in the next few weeks, now that we’ve finally had a couple long-awaited, bittersweet, winter storm events in LA post-fire.

We’ve had to postpone our volunteer work day in January because of the LA fires, but we are looking forward to having our first volunteer work day of the year in a few weeks – Fri, March 14th – and working in community to care for this land together.



JULY AT THE BURN SCAR
Burn Scar Test Plot 
By Hannah Pae
Terremoto

TIME: 8:00-11:30am
DATE:  July 14, 2024
TEMP: 70-76 deg
WEATHER: partly cloudy
WIND (SPEED/DIRECTION): 3 mph / north
SOIL MOISTURE: dry
PLANTS SIGHTINGS:
-Some CA poppy
-A few late blooming clarkia! 
-American Bird’s Foot Trefoil (Acmispon americanus) + Clustered Tarweed (Deinandra fasciculata) are blooming through the dried out clarkia stalks
WEED SIGHTINGS: Pokeweed and a few small black mustard



MAY AT THE BURN SCAR
Community Workday
By Hannah Pae
Terremoto

TIME: 8:00-11:30am
DATE:  May 17, 2024
TEMP: n/a
WEATHER: overcast
WIND (SPEED/DIRECTION): n/a
SOIL MOISTURE: dry
PLANTS SIGHTINGS: 
-Clarkia superbloom 
-California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica) 
-California Brittlebush (Encelia californica)
WEED SIGHTINGS:
-Black mustard (Brassica nigra)
WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS:
-Eucalyptus leaf beetle larvae (Chrysophtharta m-fuscum)

Brought out the scythes and cut back a lot of the flowering black mustard surrounding the test plot before they went to seed, mulched, and hand-weeded.

Bringing mulch up the hill from the parking lot to the site in wheelbarrows has continued to be a physically strenuous and time consuming affair, so we’ve prioritized mulching around new plants before spreading elsewhere on the test plot.







BURN SCAR COMMUNITY WORKDAY
Burn Scar Test Plot 
By Hannah Pae
Burn Scar volunteer, Terremoto designer

DATE: April 19 2024
TIME: 8:00-11:30am
 ︎ WEATHER: Overcast
SOIL MOISTURE: dry
︎PLANT SIGHTINGS: First wave of CA native wildflowers are coming up in full force (see pics below)
WEED SIGHTINGS: Black Mustard (Brassica nigra), Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana),  Brome (Bromus diandrus?)
︎WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS: Western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) and Spider (species unknown)
︎HUMAN ACTIVITY:  Good number of trail users


SPECIES ADDED (new species*)
  • Big Berry Manzanita (Arctostaphylos glauca)*
  • Black Sage (Salvia mellifera)
  • California Brittlebush (Encelia californica)
  • Climbing Penstemon (Keckiella cordifolia)*
  • Lemonade Berry (Rhus integrifolia)*
  • Purple Sage (Salvia leucophylla)
  • White Sage (Salvia apiana)





MARCH BURN SCAR , TERREMOTO PLANTING DAY  
Burn Scar Test Plot 
By Hannah Pae
Burn Scar volunteer, Terremoto designer

DATE: March 29 2024
TIME: 8:00-11:30am
︎ WEATHER: Sunny, blue skies, some clouds
SOIL MOISTURE: dry
︎PLANT SIGHTINGS: See pics below
WEED SIGHTINGS: Black Mustard (Brassica nigra), Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)
︎WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS: Western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis)
︎HUMAN ACTIVITY: Fair amount of folks walking by on the trail, many w/ pups


SPECIES ADDED (new species*)
  • Black Sage (Salvia mellifera)*
  • California Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)*
  • California Fuschia (Zauschneria californica)*
  • California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica)*
  • Coastal Bush Sunflower (Encelia californica)*
  • Deer Weed (Acmispon glaber)*
  • Sacapellote (Acourtia microcephala)*; local source – San Rafael Hills
  • Southern Black Walnut (Juglans californica)*
  • White Sage (Salvia apiana)*
  • Wild Rye (Leymus condensatus)*









UNDER THE EUCALYPTUS
San Bruno Mountain Test Plot 
By Victoria Bevington
Test Plot and ULAP Fellow

DATE: November 13 2023

This is the first time in a while I’ve been at the Test Plot alone. A nice moment to reflect on just the plants and myself, here in late fall in the middle of the hardest times for these new plantings. It’s good to see who is still here after making it through some lucky late winter rains and the typical dry summer.

I was there on the day these plants were put in (March 2023), and I often think back about how fortunate we were that it rained immediately the day after they went into the ground. As much as I want to report on how the activity of the human stewards of this piece of land has affected their survival, so much of it seems to be about fluctuating environmental factors which no one can control. If it had been a winter as thirsty as the previous year’s, how different would things look here?

Our intent when developing the Test Plot was to examine what plants would survive under the eucalyptus canopy, and what some rudimentary maintenance would do to help along their chances. There is no supplementary irrigation, no gopher cages although we’ve established a fence around the plot to keep out the aggressive San Bruno Mountain rabbit population.

Again, our variables are nullified by huge inhuman factors. The eucalypts around us have decided that everything is to be mulched by their leaf fall. The allelopathic qualities of these leaves as they decompose is something else we may want to monitor.



General
  • Mulch vs nonmulch sections don’t make much of a difference - the overhead Eucalyptus have mulched them all
  • A few common weeds returning: grasses, sow thistle, meadow vetch and weedy geraniums
  • Blackberry sprouts everywhere; ones we flipped back along the fence are still alive. They are particularly prolific in freshwater seeps and marsh section; wettest region


Prairie + Grassland Section
  • Some existing miners’ lettuce returning
  • Phacelia californica doing great
  • Clarkia rubicunda dead
  • Gopher activity has done a lot of damage


Oak Woodlands
  • Artemisia douglasiana    doing particularly well

Freshwater Seeps + Marsh
  • Cornus seneca vastly differing in sections, but I suspect the mulch vs nonmulch is not a factor
  • Helenium puberulum + Symphotricum chilense doing well
  • Gopher activity here as well


Coastal Sage Scrub
  • Lovingly planted yarrow and Epilobium doing well




Community Activity

We’ve done so much this past summer and into the fall! In no particular order: work with Yoni Carnice and ULAP, a cultural collective centering the stories and work of Pinoy creators in and around the Bay, particularly around Daly City. We’ve done art and flower-arranging workshops with community elders, and a visit with a legendary Daly City artist, and have further plans for the winter. ULAP also just launched its new website, where you can find resources and records of our various projects.

We’ve done several interpretive events in and around the Test Plot, including a Red Elderberry hike and Eucalyptus Hike. Both walks were an exciting way to further explore the surrounding landscape through the lens of these two specific species. And, of course, we did a number of work days at the site that involved mulching, weeding, planting, and monitoring species composition and survivorship.

My own work involved interviewing members of my family and weaving what I learned with voices from the community. Earlier this year, we put out a community survey that, while asking practical questions about public familiarity and uses of the mountain, also collected more poetic answers to questions like “Why do you think Daly City is so foggy?

I created a zine that enfolds the answers into a written piece, mixed together with interviews I conducted with members of my family. I talked with my mom and my uncles, who themselves were second-generation immigrants, illustrated the difficult experience of growing up Asian-American in a Daly City that had not yet become the Pinoy Capital of the Bay Area. I also interviewed my brother, and with his experiences and mine, tried to briefly sketch a portrait of my family and its complicated diaspora.










 






Visit 11/21/2024
San Francisco TEST PLOT/ November 2024
TERREMOTO SF


TIME: 11:00am
DATE: November 21, 2024
TEMP: 60 degrees
WEATHER: in between rains, windy
WIND (SPEED/DIRECTION): 15 mph wind from the SW
SOIL MOISTURE: wet thanks to the rain!
PLANTS SIGHTINGS: poppy, eriogonum nudum
WEED SIGHTINGS: clover is starting to come up with a vengence 
WILDFLIFE SIGHTINGS: not much this week
HUMAN ACTIVITY: just me and Evita
GENERAL NOTES: the rains have flattened the grasses of last season, revealing rocky soils and new plant life. we planted 18 stipa pulchra plugs and with these rains hopefully they will take hold! only time will tell

EF


South Hill Plot















Visit 7/09/24
San Francisco TEST PLOT/ June 2024
TERREMOTO SF


TIME: 4:12 pm
DATE: June 12, 2024
TEMP: 66 degrees
WEATHER: warm and windy. a few clouds
WIND (SPEED/DIRECTION): 12.3 mph wind from the SW
SOIL MOISTURE: dry :/
PLANTS SIGHTINGS: new buckwheat on the hill
WEED SIGHTINGS: lots of mustard it looks like?
WILDFLIFE SIGHTINGS: not much this week
HUMAN ACTIVITY: just me
GENERAL NOTES: dry and tawny, exciting to see new growth pop up

TR 


South Hill Plot



Pine Plot




Bluff



Buckwheat


Visit 5/22/24
San Francisco TEST PLOT/ May 2024
TERREMOTO SF



ER + SS

South Hill Plot


Desert Parsley in the DeHaro Street area of Starr KingSome kind of Clarkia, seen throughout Starr King