Yerba Mansa (Anemopsis californica)

[grrlscout]

Hi all!

I cruised by a neighborhood plant sale over the weekend, and this lil guy caught my eye.



So I picked it up, thinking it might make a nice addition to the SW natives / heirlooms bed in my garden.

I read up on it, and its roots have lots of traditional medicinal uses, mostly relating to treating forms of inflammation. You can read up on the details here:
http://medplant.nmsu.edu/yerba.html

Unfortunately, I also read that it likes wet, marshy areas. So it would not do well in the bed I planned on planting it in.

On the other hand, if it can tolerate chlorine, it might suit the area where the pool water backwash drains. I was looking for something to slow the erosion there anyway.

[jake abraham]

very cool plant

[Sparky93]

Keep us posted if it survives the pool water.

[grrlscout]

Will do. It went in the ground yesterday, and this morning it looked pretty perky.

I'm no chemist, but if I read correctly, chlorine is just a type of salt (sodium chloride). Coastal plants are often recommended for planting around pools, because they can tolerate salt.

Yerba Mansa likes the salty, alkaline soil that is native to the desert. So I think I may be in luck.

Added bonus, there is algae in that backwashed water -- the main reason we backwash is to clean the algae out of the filter. I'm thinking there are some good micronutrients in there, similar to what the plant would feed on in a seasonal desert marsh.

As it is, the oleanders are irrigated by that water, and they are 20' tall!

[crashdive123]

If you've got algae in the backwashed water I would think that your chlorine levels are not very high.

[grrlscout]

When it gets hot, the chlorine evaporates pretty quickly. It's tough (and expensive) to keep up on it in the dead of Summer. We recently hired a new pool guy. So hopefully it will be less of a battle this year.

I'd love to covert the filter to salt, or even better, convert the whole thing to a natural pool that uses pond plants and rocks to keep the water clear and clean. But that's a whole 'nother thread, and but a dream.

[crashdive123]

THAT would be an awesome pool.

[gryffynklm]

good plant choice.