I helped out at #SkylineGardens again yesterday. We picked up trash and weeded invasive plants to give the really beautiful natives like lupine and poppy a better chance. EBMUD (East Bay Municipal Utilities District) has also started clearing some eucalyptus near the trail head, which is great because euc's are highly flammable and do not provide any food for our local animals. It occurred to me that maybe people don't know how the Bay area ended up with so many Eucalyptus and Monterey Pines/Monterey Cypress. Here's what I've learned: The euc's where apparently brought in to be used as fast-growing lumber after all the native redwoods had been killed off by hyper-intesive logging (i.e. cut down once, and then cut down again & dug up when they resprouted from their stumps in the wake of the many fires that destroyed the various early iterations of San Francisco and left people very desperate for building materials and firewood.) However, as the story goes, they imported the wrong species of eucalyptus, one that only makes for decent wood after many decades of growth, and so with that failed plan, the trees were left alone and have since grown all over the Bay Area. As for the Monterey Pines & Cypress, these were brought in during the suburban building booms of 40's & 50's with the thought that "people like trees and want to live in forests" — however these two tree species have shallow root systems and live for about 70 years, which means most of them are now dying off, dropping limbs or tearing straight out of the ground after a drought or big storm. My parents had a gigantuan branch nearly come through their kitchen window two years ago, after which the city of Oakland finally removed most of the Monterey Pines on the city lot across from their house 😰 So that's how we got these neat looking but pretty dangerous giant plants in this region. Thankfully things like Coast Live Oak have deep roots and live much longer, in addition to being native trees that feed & shelter local wildlife, so I do encourage Bay Area folks who want to replace their trees to select the coast live oak to do the job, cause it does a great one! 😊 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsg4qDmFfJU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ifulgictzuc3