The 2015 Herb Walks season begins!
Yesterday’s Herb Walk was not the very first of the 2015 season. That distinction goes to the Chumash Plant Walk 2 weeks ago for the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy’s Wild About Ojai program on the Ventura River Preserve. The San Antonio Creek Herb Walk in Goleta yesterday was the first on my own Herb Walks calendar for this year.
An enthusiastic group of 11 joined me and Rondia for a 3.5 hour walk under comfortably cloudy skies. In that time span, we identified a staggering 29 native and 14 non-native plants and talked about almost every one. Wow! That might be a record for me. I don’t usually plan to introduce that much material but this group was so observant and so inquisitive that it just turned out that way. Among the flowering stars of the show were Black Sage, Hummingbird Sage, Miner’s Lettuce, California Figwort, and Greenbark Ceanothus.
Rondia shot a few photos and I’m hoping the participants will send some more.
