After many years, lots of writing and rewriting, and tons of rejections, it is finally out! In August, Heyday Books released my book, Wild Suburbia – Learning to Garden with Native Plants. And now a new chapter begins – promotion. Not my favorite thing to do, although the first book talk and signing, held on […]
India
Nature Park looks great
PLEASE NOTE A DATE CORRECTION: NEXT CLEANUP WILL BE MONDAY, JUNE 17, 9 AM – 10:30 AM. We returned from our stay in India about two weeks ago. I finally got to the park on Wednesday. It is obvious that people were working hard over the last half year. The weeds aren’t too bad – only […]
Indian Institute of Science
Within the bustling city of Bangalore is the venerable Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Founded in 1909, the guest house we are staying in, Centenary Visitors House, was built and named for the institution’s one hundredth anniversary. IISc is a research and higher education facility located on nearly 400 acres donated by the Maharaja of Mysore in […]
Bringing homesick to a new level
After yesterday’s lengthy plant-centric post, it is nice to turn my attention to our temporary home here in Bangalore. We have been living in the Centenary Visitors House (guest house) of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) since March 30, with a return date of May 28. Homesick has new meaning to me! Bangalore – […]
Bear with me
Change is in the air! Although I am still in India, Wild Suburbia is not being ignored. The Weeding Wild Suburbia website is undergoing massive changes, and I must ask your forbearance as we work to get the links and content updated. It is coming. As a consequence of these changes some of the links […]
Tropical Almond
I am rushing to get this posted because we leave Mumbai early tomorrow morning for two months of travel. The itinerary is more complicated than you can imagine and I am not sure how much time or energy I will have for blogging. So for my last Bombay tree, a quick post about tropical almond, […]
Fish Poison Tree
India is a wild and dangerous place: Man-eating tigers and leopards (not to mention bears), pythons, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, insane traffic, canon ball trees, and now fish poison trees. Yesterday I narrowly averted getting killed by one of these canon balls (not really) only to learn that the cool looking fruit I found while jogging later […]
Trees at TIFR
The trees on the campus of the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR) are truly amazing. I have not done nearly enough looking and photographing so this will be my project for our remaining two days here. To start off, check out the flowers and fruits of this tree. It is called the canon ball tree (Couroupita […]
When and how much should I water?
When working at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden on the “Garden Hotline” one of the questions that I found most vexing was: How often and for how long should I water my native plant garden? The problem, you see, is that there are so many questions that need to be answered before a satisfactory reply can […]
Colaba Market
Happened upon this wonderful market in Colaba today. The produce looked amazing, though the surroundings were not up to American standards. I bought tiny bananas, oranges and a pomegranate. Have tasted the bananas which were delicious. Colaba Market Modern and less modern people shop and work here. A goat wanders around as women stock up […]