The last two posts – Garden Gloves, and Pruning Gooseberries – segue into today’s piece perfectly. Since we returned from the Pacific Northwest I have been cutting back the humongous sunflowers in the front yard. I don’t usually pull them out; rather, I cut the branches and smaller stems until there is only a main […]
how-to
Pruning Gooseberries
The following is a video of me pruning a fuchsia-flowering gooseberry (Ribes speciosum). I certainly hope it is helpful because it is definitely embarrassing! It is my hope that with time I will get better at this video thing, but for the time being, please bear with my amateur attempts. If you must laugh, please […]
Front yard vegetable garden
Our front yard makeover began on the night of November 30-December 1 of 2011. The avocado tree in the front yard was “deconstructed” by winds that roared through our area in the wee hours of the night (Cleaning up after the storm). Rather than giving up on this old avocado, we called in an arborist who removed broken limbs […]
Front yard makeover continued
It has been six weeks since the last post – shame on me! I really am trying to be better about this and do hope that I have not lost too many of you. After posting on October 18th I went into plant sale mode, preparing for the annual plant sale for the San Gabriel […]
Create your own garden paradise
Walking on a quiet street in a Los Angeles suburb, my eighty-year-old father and I approached a lovely adobe home. As we walked along, I noticed that he was slowly shaking his head as he simply stated, “It’s not for me.” I was showing him a garden in my neighborhood that I was especially fond […]
Make every drop count
The big news continues to be the ongoing drought in California, which is interesting since we rarely get any rain from April through November. Once we got half way through January we started feeling uncomfortable and things did not improve in February and March. The snow pack is at about 1% of average for this […]
What’s happening in Wild Suburbia
Today I started a new way to report on what’s going on in Wild Suburbia. Up until now there was merely a list of gardening tasks that I wrote up way back in 2009 when I was preparing for my son’s backyard wedding. I am planning (and hoping) to upload a handful of garden pictures to […]
Disappearing lawn
A month ago when we had just returned from India, I was sitting in my office looking out the window at the front lawn. The grass on the east side of the front yard is one of the few remaining patches of green. However, it is clear that that area is not getting enough water. […]
Pruning Young Sages
I was all set to write about stink bugs. We seem to have an overabundance of these non-native, nuisance pests. So I got online and found out that they are really bad back east. I saw an entertaining video on how to remove them from your house using a vacuum cleaner and the freezer. But […]
Water Basics
Families enjoy warm sunshine at a park in February. It’s all about water – living in Southern California, that is. The sun shines brightly almost every day of the year. Temperatures are, for the most part, moderate, and due to low humidity, even the hottest days are followed by delightfully cool nights. Weather – meaning […]