Volunteers from Benicia High helped celebrate Earth Day Weekend 2023 at this Adopt-a-Highway site on April 22nd. We checked conditions on seven of the 16 native trees growing here. All seem to be responding vigorously from all the moisture we had this winter. Weeds were huge and green, but the soil was easy to dig at.
Caltrans will probably mow in late May. Protective cages and stakes were installed around each tree for protection from the Caltrans mower. This protection wasn’t a match for vehicles. One location was taken out several months ago by a vehicle leaving the pavement.
Caltrans cleared some Eucalyptus trees from this offramp in early 2020 as part of a larger project to remove dead or dying drought-damaged trees in four North Bay counties. We found the Eucalyptus stumps sprouting branches. Each year we need to cut back the stump sprouts so the native trees have more space to grow.
The trees suffered during the drought, five of the original 22 trees died from drought stress. Last year these trees were watered in June and August, 4-5 gallons each time. We haven’t decided whether to water the trees this summer. Hopefully we will get more rain.
The project site is below some condominiums where goats (some looked like sheep) started grazing at 9:30. They had eaten a fair amount of grass by the time we left at 11:30. The grass was very green and very high, if that wasn’t already mentioned.
Next Saturday we will be planting trees at Benicia High. Click here to register.
Goats enter condominium open space at 9:30 AM adjacent the the trees.
