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Cedar Breaks: What's in a Name?

2022-09-01T09:30:00+00:00

Cedar Breaks National Monument - located just south of Parowan in Iron County - is a natural amphitheater that stretches across 3 miles and has a depth of over 2,000 feet. The rock formations found here are similar to those in Bryce Canyon National Park but are more eroded. The meadowed rim of the amphitheater blooms each spring with Colorado columbine, scarlet paintbrush, orange sneezeweed, prairie smoke, yellow evening primrose, plantainleaf buttercup, and two species of penstemon among many other wildflowers. Visitors will frequently spot mule deer and porcupines, but will even more frequently see marmots, golden-mantled ground squirrels, pocket gophers, violet-green swallows, and ravens. The monument is home to several tree species, like bristlecone pine, subalpine firs, aspen, and limber pine among others, but one tree species is unexpectedly absent – cedars.

Originally called un-cap-i-un-ump or “circle of painted cliffs” by the native Paiutes, the monument lies within the traditional homeland of the Southern Paiutes, an area that spans across southern Utah, Nevada, and northern Arizona. Within the monument itself, archeologists have documented sites of ancestral natives dating back more than 10,000 years. It wasn’t until 1919, when the first automobile reached Cedar Breaks, that settlers of European heritage found substantial interest in the area. Shortly after the first machine-made venture into the area, a road was constructed that connected Cedar Breaks to the east side of Zion National Park, making it more accessible and therefore more popular. In the 1930s, visitation increased dramatically after advertisements were made showcasing the soon-to-be national monument – one of which read, “…countless grotesque and magnificent geological forms, caused by water erosion, anointed with all colors of the spectrum…”

Then, on August 22, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt officialized the area’s status as a US National Monument, christened with its longstanding misnomer, Cedar Breaks National Monument. While the monument certainly is a break, the word early pioneers used to describe what we now refer to as badlands, there were no cedars in Utah until they were introduced by new settlers. What the early pioneers mistook for cedars were actually Utah junipers, or juniperus osteosperma, of the cypress family. Utah junipers are found throughout most of Utah and are very drought, cold, and heat resistant. They’re hardy and they can tolerate a variety of soil conditions, even doing well in dry, rocky locations. They can be recognized by their small scale-shaped leaves and their gray bark. Although the Utah juniper does well in most growing conditions throughout the state, they haven’t become very popular for home landscaping. However, their hardiness makes them the perfect candidate for xeriscaping and water-wise gardening on properties with plenty of sun.

While its name might technically be a bit dishonest, don’t let that deter you from visiting Cedar Breaks National Monument. In the summer heat, its high elevation and its trees (although not cedar) provide a cool getaway. Besides, as Shakespeare put it, “what’s in a name?”

To learn more about trees in Utah, click here.

Close-up of a Utah juniper's branches

Forget the Grass, Trees Need Your Help

2022-08-02T09:15:00+00:00

A perfectly green lawn, a long-time indicator of a functioning household and a long-time indicator of wasted resources. The Western fascination with grass lawns goes way back, originating in the gardens of the 18th century English and French upper-class. Drawing inspiration from launds – grassy clearings among trees - in the surrounding European forests, the wealthy sought to recreate the experience in their expansive gardens, leading to what we now recognize as lawns. Lawns eventually made their way to the Americas in the 19th century through our own historical elites – like Thomas Jefferson, an avid horticulturalist. Although home gardens in the US remained dedicated to consumable vegetation for several decades, by the mid-19th century, focus shifted to the ornamental. After the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, where the USDA presented a how-to exhibit on growing your own grass lawn, interest steadily grew throughout the next 100 years. After several innovations made in lawncare in the early 1900s, grass lawns became a standard in the booming American suburbs. Now, another 100 years later, lawns are still as commonplace as ever, but do we have the means to keep this tradition alive?

In short, yes, we do. Despite the megadrought and surging heatwaves, our lawns can survive, because they’re well-propagated for hardship. Of all the plants in our garden, grass is sure to be the one that needs the least amount of water to survive. Although it might brown, it’s still alive and the green will return next year. This browning is part of grass’s seasonal cycle. Like other perennials, grass enters a period of dormancy once it undergoes the stresses of their disfavored seasons. This stage in its annual cycle can be delayed with extensive watering, but our limited resources would be best spent on plants in the garden that need it more.

Trees need our help most. Arguably the most valuable plants in our gardens because of the benefits they provide for our homes and communities, trees should be our top watering priority. While grasses only need half an inch (~1 quart) of water every 2-4 weeks to survive the season, trees require 5-50 gallons of water a week (or more, if the tree is especially large). As sturdy as they appear to be, trees are far more delicate than grass and they need our help to survive the ongoing megadrought, which is predicted to end in 2030 at the earliest. Paired with the fact that extended drought events are expected to become more severe and more common, our focus-shift away from grass and towards trees will likely and necessarily be permanent.

Salt Lake City’s canopy has been steadily receding since the early 2000s, largely due to trees being neglected within recurring periods of drought. Without adequate water, trees either die off or they become too brittle to withstand high winds and dense snow fall, leading to broken branches or treefall. In addition to causing damage to anything beneath them when this happens, we lose the irreplaceable benefits old-growth trees provide. Benefits like cleaner air and shade – things we’ll be immeasurably thankful for in the harsh Summers ahead, things grass can’t provide. Grass doesn’t do much for us and it doesn’t need our help, so let’s concentrate on the plants that do, trees.

Historic Trees: The Rare Northern Utah Hybrid Oak

2022-09-08T10:00:00+00:00

In 1954, Rudy Drobnick, a graduate student studying under the famous Utah botanist, Dr. Walter Cottam, was hiking on the west side of the Oquirrh Mountains when he noticed the grove of oaks he was passing through had distinct features, different from others in the area and any he had seen before. Moving forward in his studies with the possibility that he had found a new oak in mind, he shifted the focus of his thesis to this potentially groundbreaking discovery. Through his field research, Drobnick discovered a few additional isolated groups of this distinct oak, including one on the University of Utah grounds nearby what would later become Cottam’s Oak Grove, where Dr. Walter Cottam stationed a tree nursery where he recreated the conditions that would reproduce and confirm Drobnick’s discovery of rare, hybridized oaks.

These hybrids are a product of a historic natural process that took place 5,000 to 7,000 years ago – a time when Utah and the Great Basin region was wetter and hotter. During this time, the habitat zones of the northern quercus gambelii (Gambel or scrub oak) and southern quercus turbinella (sonoran scrub oak or canyon live oak) briefly overlapped. The two species met in the brief intersection of their habitable zones and hybridized, creating the unique gambelii x turbinella hybrid. Cottam recreated this process by pollinating q. gambelli starts with the pollen from q. turbinella on a site similar to locations where the hybrid is found in the wild. This grove of human-produced hybrids is now known as the Cottam Oak Grove and is located in what is now Red Butte Garden & Arboretum. Through this experiment, Cottam was able to effectively prove that hybridization between the two species is possible when conditions are right, confirming their suspected history. This discovery drew biologists from all over the world – they had to see the hybrid oaks.

Now, the hybrid oaks in the wild stand as “living fossils,” providing us with evidence of Utah’s climate past and Cottam’s Oak Grove stands as a relic of Utah’s contributions to the world of science and our community’s ardent engagement with the natural world around us.