I revisited the site today to see if either of the two surviving Scrub Lupine seedlings were still alive.
They were not.
It has been a relatively dry summer and fall, but these are scrub plants that are adapted to arid conditions. so I doubt weather had anything to do with it.
All of the other plants here are thriving.
Habitat quality is not the whole story, either.
Although some parts of the original planting areas and a later planting area are badly overgrown, there is still adequate open habitat with minimal leaf litter at the sites where this year's seedlings emerged. There seems to be fewer and fewer seedlings emerging each year.
This was an experiment and sometimes experiments do not produce the desired results.
One thing I was wondering about is whether putting fire in the never-burned section where lupines emerged from an old seed bank might produce some results.
I'll leave that to people who are more qualified than I am to evaluate the situation All I can do is monitor and report the results.
