SANDHILLS SHRUBS BLOSSOMING

It is 10 o’clock in the morning, and the day’s first breeze carries the heady honey scent of sandhills chaparral. As sunrays warm millions of manzanita flowers, they release their sweet scent, attracting pollinators. Bumble bees and hummingbirds are easy to see; blossom clusters wiggle, bob, and bounce with these frequent visitors, and the festivities are noisy. Overhead there’s a regular ascending and descending whistling from the musical tail feathers of sky-diving hummingbirds. Across the manzanita canopy, there’s a complex wing buzz orchestra: lower notes of bumble bees, middle notes of honeybees, and the high whine of many species of flower visiting flies.

The County’s Geological Archipelago

The Inland Sandhills of Santa Cruz County are various-sized patches of a geological archipelago: biological islands which are home to many plants and animals that only occur in this extremely rare and fragile habitat. Experts have referred to this archipelago without hyperbole as a terrestrial analog to the Galapagos Islands for its conservation value and precious potential to help us understand evolution. The unique geology includes outcrops of ancient sandstone and related sandy soils, forming a substrate that greatly contrasts to the richer soils of the surrounding area. Step across this geological line and into the sandy areas and you find 90 ‘sandhill indicator’ plant species that you won’t find in the surrounding habitats. The bigger shrubs of these areas, manzanitas and ceanothus, are in bloom right now.

Silvery Manzanita

Silver leaf manzanita is a common inland sandhill indicator shrub, and at the height of its beauty right now. Mature silverleaf manzanitas can be quite tall- up to 20 feet and commonly overhead. The medium sized flower clusters are pure white to pinkish and presented at the end of branch tips surrounded by the canopy of soft, silver-green leaves. Each manzanita species has its own color pallet that includes unique bark. This species has reddish brown, smooth bark on its upright and mostly slim and sometimes many-branched trunks. If you are confused about which manzanita species you might be seeing, kick the soil and if it is loose and sandy, you are seeing the silverleaf kind. But, if the ground is hard and your toe goes ‘clunk’ you are off the sand and you might be seeing the similarly silver crinite manzanita, which also differs in having a big woody burl at the base of each stem. Silver leaf manzanitas make for excellent additions to the landscape, if you have a place for a large shrub. When it is not in bloom its overall shape, silver leaves, and deep red bark are quite stunning. And, during its month-long flowering period in late winter, you will be entertained by pollinators and awoken by its honey scent.

Dusty Sweet

There is another shrub blossoming in the inland sandhills right now: wedge leaved ceanothus (Ceanothus cuneatus var. ramulosus). The round clusters of flowers are lavender colored, pale blue, or, rarely, white. Some say the scent is very sweet, some say very dusty, and I say dusty-sweet. Here again is a pollinator feast. As you get towards the edge of the sandy geology (kick the ground if you must), you will find other species of ceanothus, also at the beginning of their blooming period. The widespread blue blossom will soon have the biggest, bright bluest show and the warty leaved ceanothus will present dark sapphire blue clusters with purple bract highlights that are jewels along the edges of the inland sandhill chaparral.

Leaping Lupines

In the deeper sandy spots between the patches of big woody shrubs, there’s another inland sandhill shrub in bloom: silver bush lupine. The silver on these leaves is even more silvery than the silver leaved manzanita. Silvery leaves reflect the hot sun that this chaparral must endure in the dry summer months. This bush lupine’s leaves are so silvery the green is hidden, though it must be there somewhere in order for the plant to photosynthesize. Lavender spikes of pea-shaped flowers poke up from the short mounding bushes. In the Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve, past fires have created open space and big patches of this species, another favorite flower of bumble bees. There, the silver bush lupine are so numerous that you can get a rare sense of their massed color and architecture- stunningly beautiful and in full bloom very soon! 

Visiting the Sandhills

Picture the flowering shrubs: tall silver, red barked manzanitas festooned with clusters of white flowers….pale blue flowered ceanothus shrubs…patches of silver lupines with lavender flower spikes. Think how much better it would be to see this in person! There are only a few places that the public is allowed into this sensitive habitat. You can visit areas of inland sandhills at Quail Hollow County Park, at Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park from a trail head off Graham Hill Road, or at the Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve on Martin Road. 

Sandhills Conservation

Even though the inland sandhills have long been recognized for their global conservation significance, many areas have been lost to development and are still being lost due to poor decision making. By member support, through funding raised by donations and plant sales, and through the thousands of hours of generous volunteer time, the California Native Plant Society has been largely responsible for the conservation of the inland sandhills. There is much work remaining to protect what is left. Areas that have been set aside such as the Land Trust’s Randy Morgan Preserve desperately need stewardship. Invasive plants including jubata (pampass) grass, French broom, and acacia are ongoing threats. Visitor use impacts are another big issue, especially because the soil is so easily eroded along trails. Ad hoc and unauthorized/unplanned trails through this habitat erode, vector weeds, and are a means for feral cats and other predators to impact endangered animals that inhabit the chaparral. 

Improper Management

Although you can visit the Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve, realize that your visit has not been properly planned by the landowner, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). According to policy, the CDFW must seek approval of a management plan for this area before opening trails for public use. As State-owned lands of the highest conservation priority, Ecological Reserves must be managed primarily for conservation purposes. Only natural resource interpretation, not recreational trails, would be permitted under the policies as written, and those must be planned correctly to avoid sensitive areas. Unfortunately, none of this has occurred and an old ad hoc trail system is being unofficially sanctioned which, most recently, is planned to serve as through-access to recreational trails on the adjoining Land Trust property….in the also-extremely-sensitive steep slopes of salmon-bearing Laguna Creek, upstream of the City’s drinking water intake. It seems that the CNPS and other environmental groups have not had enough help to oppose such ill-conceived ideas. If you have the means, volunteer for, or give to, environmental groups so that they might better protect our County’s precious resources for future generations. We are increasingly in danger of loving our natural areas to death and in dire need of leadership to better plan for long-term conservation in the face of increasing pressure from well-organized and extremely well-funded outdoor recreational groups. I understand that State Parks is also folding to such pressure, recently opening up bicycle use to the fragile sandhills trails at Henry Cowell, the last remaining habitat for the endangered Santa Cruz kangaroo rat.

Sandhills chaparral is beautiful and fragile. All our region’s experts agree that Santa Cruz County’s Inland Sandhills are the highest priority for biological conservation. If you are at all inclined to better understand our region’s biological diversity, you should get to know this habitat. Now is a good time.