A new day dawns in the garden of good and evil

NATURAL PERSPECTIVES

Spring is bursting out all over in the wildlands of Huntington Beach.

On Bolsa Chica and Huntington Mesas, wildflowers and shrubs are a

riot of bloom.

After the storms of the past few weeks, warm sunny days have

worked their magic on the plants. The right combination of sun and

water has yielded spectacular results. This is the best year we’ve

ever seen for color on the mesas, thanks in great part to the work of

the Bolsa Chica Stewards.

About 10 years ago, the Stewards, led by Guy Stivers, began

planting California native shrubs and plants on the Bolsa Chica Mesa

around the gun turret hill overlooking the tide gate area. This is

the season when sage scrub begins to bloom. Daisy-like coast

sunflowers nod above dark green foliage. Bladderpods are full of

yellow blossoms that will become huge bladder-shaped seedpods.

Deerweed is blooming in shades of yellow and orange.

We were surprised at how dense the coastal sage scrub has become

around the gun turret hill. In only 10 years, the area has been

totally transformed from a hillock filled mostly with weeds to a

majestic mesa that more closely resembles what it looked like before

the interference of humans. A walk from the tide gates traveling

north toward Warner Avenue along the mesa will show a progression of

plants in various stages of maturity.

The Stewards continue their work on the mesa, planting more native

plants every month. Some of the shrubs are tiny, struggling twiglets,

just recovering from transplant shock. They are being helped along

with containers of DriWater to provide them with moisture while they

get established. But the shrubs on the overlook hill by the tide

gates have reached maturity. This area is a good example of how a few

people can make a huge difference in our local wildlands.

Spring has just begun on the mesas. The buckwheat has only a few

scattered pink and white blossoms this early in the season. One bush,

monkeyflower, is blooming, but other plants of that species seem to

be waiting. The floral display on Bolsa Chica Mesa will become more

intense as the season progresses.

It’s early in the season for rattlesnakes, too. We found only one

rattlesnake sunning on the rock pile where many of the Bolsa rattlers

den in the winter. It was still pretty sluggish.

Activity in the great blue heron rookery is another sign of

spring. They’re just beginning their nesting season in the eucalyptus

trees east of the overlook. Over the next couple of months, visitors

can watch them build their nests and care for their gangly

fledglings.

We also walked around the other mesa, the one people tend to

forget about. Huntington Mesa is the site of a planned county

regional park. Part of that mesa is owned by the city of Huntington

Beach and part is still owned by Hearthside Homes. A lovely

willow-studded swale crosses that mesa. Fresh water, actually runoff

from the homes and golf course on the south side of Seapoint, flows

through the swale and empties into a freshwater pond on the Bolsa

Chica lowlands. This freshwater pond is a haven for ducks, red-winged

blackbirds and other wildlife.

In the swale, willow catkins are in full bloom. The trees are

atwitter with migrating spring birds. We expected that. What we

didn’t expect was the profusion of wildflowers on Huntington Mesa.

The plant palette there bears little resemblance to the coastal sage

scrub that is blooming on Bolsa Chica Mesa.

We were shocked and pleased to find huge patches of lovely

yellow-orange fiddlenecks waving in the breeze. Scattered between the

bright patches were other surprises: Pomona locoweed, deerweed,

miniature lupine and horehound. The wildflowers are so dense this

year that if you walk down the swale and look back up the slope,

you’d swear you were hours away from town on a wilderness hike.

You can’t see these wonderful sights from the road. You need to

actually walk the mesa trails to fully appreciate the incredible

beauty that blooms among us this spring.

It is a garden of good and evil, and that evil we are referring to

is not the rattlesnake.

The evil that we see lurking on the mesas is the preponderance of

invasive nonnative plants that threaten to crowd out our California

native plants. The waving field of color that you see from the road

on Bolsa Chica Mesa is mostly wild radish and mustard. Wild radish

blooms in shades of white, pink and purple. The mustard is -- do we

dare say it? -- mustard-colored. They’re both pretty, especially when

they cover huge fields. But they don’t belong there.

If you want to see a truly beautiful sight, park along Seapoint

and go for a hike along the lower part of Huntington Mesa, or hike up

to the gun turret hill by the tide gates. In these times of evil that

haunt the world, take a hike through a garden of good and renew your

spirit.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].