TRAINING SESSION on using local native plants for revegetation.


"PHASE ONE - INTRODUCTION TO THE SUCCESSFUL USES of LOCAL NATIVE PLANTS for REVEGETATION by COUNTIES, LOCAL AGENCIES and NATIVE PLANT ENTHUSIASTS"

Workshops were conducted for several of the districts in Caltrans and the Delaware Dept. of Transportation in 2000, plus the Bureau of Land Management in 2001, to raise the understanding of roadside vegetation practices, specifically how to manage and utilize local native plants.

Once a public land management or highway management agency can obtain their own local native seeds, a major part of the workshop was to outline a process to successfully get those seed established.

Prior to each workshop, participants were asked to submit their top-10 list of questions they wanted answered about the use of native plants, and those questions were incorporated into the agenda if possible. You can read the compiled lists of participant's requested agenda items linked to each workshop, below.

The core of the classwork was to discuss 14 Exercises and answer the questions posed by the pictures in each Exercise. The pictures and questions from the workshop are shown below. Each participants received a certificate at the completion of the workshop.

A training session with Craig Dremann, research director and co-owner of The Reveg Edge, a private outside-training company, experienced with native plants since 1972, Box 609, Redwood City, CA 94064 (650) 325-7333

Copyright © 2000 by Craig C. Dremann, all rights reserved.



Grindelia............California poppy...Foothills needlegrass
Perennial Cal. natives that stay green all summer without irrigation, and don't require mowing.
Drawing from Abrams' Illustrated Flora of the Pacific States, Stanford Univ. Press. Color by Photoshop.

One day training session is brought to your location:

The workshop opens with a basic outline of how to get started with local native plants, and part of the afternoon session is out in the field. Workshop generally runs 9 AM to 4 PM, unless otherwise noted. The agenda covers what is listed below, and the final agenda will include items requested by the participants:

-- LOCAL NATIVE PLANTS have something useful for everyone:
-- WHAT ARE local native plants, colonizers, seed transfer zones and ecotypes?
-- EVALUATING different native species in the field for your various purposes.
-- LOCAL SEED sources: how to protect for the future and utilize them.
-- TEST PLOTS: their value in making every project a success in less than one year.
-- MIXES, hydroseeding, and other methods of installation and materials to utilize.

PARTICIPANTS please >>> complete the SURVEY <<<
as your survey results are used to form the final agenda for the workshop.
(All the participant agenda survey results can be found linked to the workshops listed below).

NEW>>>ALL PARTICIPANTS please check these web pages below
and prepare your answers to the following exercises for the class:
(click links to see each exercise individually and print off)

Exercise One:
Landscaping with one gallon container stock of native bunchgrass:
Failed, why?

 Exercise Two:
Direct sowing with natives: Immediate failure and success, why?

Exercise Three:
Direct sowing with natives: Long term failure or success can be
determined by checking the seed mix and examining these two pictures.

Exercise Four:
Maintenance practices today can cause long-term problems or protect natural resources for decades into the future. Why?

Exercise Five: The story of burns, what can they tell you?

Exercise Six:
Groundcovers in the past were maintained with herbicides, now what?

Exercise Seven:
The Hypothetical Case of the Out-of-Place Seed Mix: What doesn't belong here?

Exercise Eight:
Beauty examples of roadside native plants in and around Yosemite: What is similar?

Exercise Nine: What can a "common garden study" show about native plant genetics and ecotypes?

Exercise Ten: Existing weeds and their seed bank, if they are where you want to plant natives, what to do?

Exercise Eleven: Evaluation of a Planting: What is the BREAK EVEN RATIO between native plants and exotics?

Exercise Twelve: THE DEAD AND LIVING grasses found in June: how can information about them be used for your vegetation management plans?

Exercise Thirteen: The two percent solution, how is it important?

Exercise Fourteen: Landscape painting directly on the land.



>> see PICTURES and stories about native plants we saw in the field in So. Calif.

Links to related web pages:

--The 228 topics requested by Caltrans participants, for the workshops

--The use of natives for roadsides at http://www.ecoseeds.com/highways.html

Updated April 28, 2016. Back to Craig Dremann's main Contents page.