STAFF PICKS: Occasional favorites written by our very own Tree of Lifers.
“Buckwheat Meanderings” by Suzanne Tolksdorf, Tree of Life Nursery Contract Specialist.
Meander: Verb, (of a river or road) follow a winding course.: “a river that meandered gently through a meadow”. The trail leads to, well, we don’t exactly know….. that’s what makes it a fun trail. Let’s just meander now and then; we may stray off the trail, but that’s OK, we’ll find it again. We’ll get there, wherever that might be, soon enough.
Common Buckwheat. Eriogonum (Air-ee-ah-guh-num). We’ve all seen it, knowingly or not. Its that green bush when everything else looks to be in different degrees of dead! When I was wandering about eating my pb&j the other day, I was making mental note of all the plants that seemed to take the drought in stride, like it was just another year. Top of the list, Buckwheat.
I admittedly have a little soft spot for buckwheat, something about its steadfastness and its heroic stand against the dry hills of southern California makes me admire it, makes me want to whisper in everyones ear that they should plant a buckwheat in their yard! Not only is it a native and so to me has built in value beyond the horticultural sense but it truly holds its own when compared horticulturally to the Rhaphiolepis and Carissa that are rampantly planted in our lives. I started to incrementally get more motivated to educate the broader public about this fantastic plant, each buckwheat that I walked past on my abnormally hot January lunch break.
Then I landed in front of the Buckwheats in retail. Notice plural. Earlier, I really was only looking at E. fasciculatum. But standing there in retail, I realized that if I was going to try to be the champion of Buckwheat, I sort of had to know my E. cinereum from my E. giganteum from my E. latifolium (I felt I had a grasp on my crocatum and my parvifolium a bit more distinct in my brain for some reason).
I really wanted to have a firm grasp of natural history, horticultural use, general description for all of them… I thought a good place to start would be a sheet that had a quick easy comparison of pictures that were associated with height and water requirements. Then maybe I could delve a bit more into where from and the personalities of each! So on breaks I went out to the nursery grounds and started taking pictures of the different species…This is what I have so far:
I’m not the first TOLN staffer to become enamored with Buckwheats. Check out this Featured plant article from a few years ago: http://californianativeplants.com/index.php/plants/featured-plants/68-eriogonum.
In simply observing these plants as they perform year after year under the toughest conditions… we just can’t seem to say enough nice things about them.
Comments? Questions? Drop Suzie a line at Suzie@treeoflifenursery.com Mention your own experiences with buckwheats and stay tuned for the next STAFF PICK. Who knows, maybe Suzie will tell us about the many butterfly species and other pollinators attracted specifically to our native buckwheats. See you on the trail!