Note: This article was first published in July 2011. Since that time our summers seem to have gotten hotter, with some record-breaking highs. I am writing another article on summer […]
parkway
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 […]
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 […]
Life stages of a native plant garden
Gardens, like people, have life stages. In the beginning, they grow vigorously, even rampantly. Maybe the first year or two seems a bit slow for a new native plant garden. […]
Dividing Deergrass
The nature park anniversary celebration is over. Yay! The plant sale is over. Yay! And the weather is perfect for gardening, cool and overcast. YAY! As I walk around the […]
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 […]
Updates
Quick note to let you know that I continue to update lists and events. Orchid Black, Native Sanctuary, suggested a few excellent additions to the list of native plants that […]
Summer Color (that’s not brown)
There has been a very interesting discussion, Native Plant Stars of the Summer Doldrums, on the California Native Plants google group. As people were sending messages about what is blooming in their […]
A garden retrospective
We have lived here for fourteen years and the garden has taught me much. I am glad that I started slowly. Many of the original plants are gone. Some did […]
Summer hydration
At the risk of sounding like a complete geek – oh, I forgot, I am a complete geek – I want to talk about summer hydration. In some of my […]