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Lupines: Helping Create California's Blue and Gold by Glenn Keator, Ph.D. Meet some of California's 70-plus species of colorful lupines and learn which ones are garden worthy and which can be visited in some special wild places. Amazing Lupines: Colorful and Defensive by Greti Séquin Lupines are not only beautiful, they also harbor symbiotic bacteria that enrich soils, contain toxic alkaloids that protect them from herbivores, and present a variety of flower colors created by special organic pigment molecules. Moles are Mean and Other Musings from the Canyon by S.W. Edwards, Ph.D., Garden Director The challenges provided by small plant-destroying animals, microscopic disease-causing organisms, and invasive plants in the garden's semiwild Canyon Section inspire healthy interaction with nature for the garden staff. Growing Lupines in the Garden by Maggie Ingalls If you haven't been as successful as you'd like with lupines in your garden, check out these lupine-growing tips from Anni Jensen, expert propagator at Annie's Annuals and Perennials nursery.

Over some seventy years now, California's four large native botanic gardens--Rancho Santa Ana, Santa Barbara, U.C. Berkeley, and the Regional Parks--have played vital roles in the introduction of native cultivars. These great gardens have joined a number of private nurseries in this endeavor.

Most cultivars are clones, in other words they involve genetically identical plants reproduced vegetatively. A cultivar may begin as a selection made in the field, for instance an unusually floriferous individual that really stands out from run-of-the-mill examples of a common species. Or it may begin as a hybrid individual that unexpectedly appears in a garden setting where two species that could never have a chance to interbreed in the wild are growing together. A cultivar could even begin as a mutant new branch with unusual foliage on a tree that hitherto seemed unremarkable. . .

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The Role of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden in the Preservation of Rare Plants
By Joe Dahl
From Volume 3, Number 2, Summer 1999

With the coming of warmer weather the perennial and deciduous plants of the Regional Parks Botanic Garden have emerged. The warmer weather has brought an increase in visitors who are lured by the pleasant weather and the new, lush, late spring growth that appears to have renewed the Garden. Beds that appeared empty over the winter months are now covered in leafy mounds and flowers of many colors.

Lately, I have been approached by Garden visitors who wish to compliment the staff on the wonderful appearance of the Garden. It occurred to me that there are aspects of the Garden beyond its obvious beauty that many visitors may not be aware of. Not only does the Regional Parks Botanic Garden house an extensive collection of California native plants, but many of the plants in the collection are listed as rare or rare and endangered by the state of California. In the Garden are also examples of plants that have become extinct in the wild...

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