The world is a wholly different place. Shopping is out, no restaurants or coffee shops. Friends are approached cautiously, always kept at a distance. During walks through the neighborhood, fellow walkers are eyed with suspicion. Though the world is quieter, the chatter in my mind has not subsided. The background color is muddy, the sound
Nothing in Mind
How to create your own superbloom
Learn to grow your own wildflower superbloom
Theodore Payne Virtual Garden Tour
Virtual Native Plant Garden Tour, Garden 28, South Pasadena. Tour this South Pasadena native plant garden: front yard wildflowers, backyard flannel bush, flagstone paths, sustainable gardening practices.
Keep It Messy for Nature
Native plants are only one element of a good native garden. Banish all leafblowers and machinary to make your garden hospitable to birds and other critters.
Lawn out. Wildflowers in.
When you peel off a layer of turf grass, the soil beneath is often compacted, depleted of nutrients and life, and polluted with salts and other chemicals. These chemicals may have accumulated from ongoing applications of fertilizers and pesticides. Or possibly, poor irrigation practices – short, frequent watering periods – that leave behind salts found
3 Garden Pests – Thrips, Scales, Ants
Learn to keep your native plants healthy without resorting to toxic chemicals. Control garden pests, ants, thrips and scales.
Elderberry Season
To Eat or Not to Eat Before eating the blue elderberries that are ripening up right now, I decided to check to make sure they are safe. An online perusal left me a little confused and unsure. There was only one report from the CDC of poisoning from elderberry juice. It happened here in California
Joshua Tree National Park
Last week I went to Yucca Valley to visit my daughter who lives and makes pottery there. Check out her website, zzieeceramics, and Etsy site to see or purchase her pieces. On June 8th and 9th she will be selling her work at the West Coast Craft Fair, so unless you can visit her in
What’s Blooming?
The South Pasadena – Arroyo Seco Woodland & Wildlife Park (a mouthful for the South Pas Nature Park) is still ablaze with colorful blooms. Here’s a list of what is flowering right now. Did I miss anything? (Picture gallery follows) Blooming Now Black Sage (Salvia mellifera) Bladderpod (Peritoma arborea) Blue Elderberry (Sambucus nigra ssp. caerulea)
Anza Borrego Wildflowers
It is February 27th and I am having the hardest time pulling myself away from Michael Cohen’s testimony to Congress. But this is not a political blog – oh no! And so with all of the willpower that I can muster, I opened my Lightroom file to last week’s wildflower trip to Anza Borrego. Here