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Last week, I visited Eaton Canyon and observed the blackened manzanita and other chaparral.

The understory of the ponderosa and sugar pine forest was speckled with manzanita, oak trees and dogwoods with yellow leaves, marking the start of fall.

Acres of terraced growing areas and multiple greenhouses produced many native plants grown from seed collected around the park such as sumacs, ceanothus, yellow-blooming flannel bush, manzanitas, barberries, monkeyflowers, Catalina cherry, toyon and coffeeberry.

“The garden goes dormant in the summer but doesn’t die. Drought-tolerant plants are survivors. The sugar bush, toyon, manzanita, coffee berry, ceanothus and hummingbird sage hold their vivid green color year-round,” he said.

Ceanothus blooms also don’t last much longer than a day once they’re cut, and manzanitas, large shrubs with reddish limbs and dainty bell-shaped flowers, “are just too precious” to potentially damage by cutting, she said.