1st Week I’m ready to move some plants around and plant more in a new area of the garden. It’s a sloping hill, about 30×30 on the south side of the house going down to one Sycamore tree planted about four years ago. You know how you think and think about a part of your…
When landscaping in a fire risk area, like the Central Sierra foothills of California, you normally have to keep a hundred foot fire safe barrier around your home. There is quite a bit of research done concerning plants that ignite slower and burn slower. First, protect your property by grooming the branches and brush 10 feet…
Their colors are so intense, majestic, it is a privilege to be out among the asters and goldenrods and drying weeds under a hard autumn sky. Robert Morgan 1970 In notes, after seeing the first blooms of some New England asters, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, in my garden 3 years ago, I say, simply, ” Get more asters!…
On these late October mornings when even a late riser gets up in the dark, make time to go outside and let the stars see you. We’re all part of the same wide universe here on earth. How can any challenges you may have stand up to that? If you are still a child, look…
Collecting milkweed pods I found these milkweed pods on a drive up to Bald Mountain in the Sierra Forest. I admired the neat way the seeds are ‘lined up’ and packed tightly in the pods, so when I threw them in a basket by the front door, I thought I’d come back later to sow…
Arrrgggghh! I did it to myself,…I planted Mexican Primrose in my front beds in my impatience for something to fill in while waiting for my evergreens and groundcovers to grow. Now, after four years, it has spread to the back garden and I have had it with the dried brown stems in the off season…
Each with their secret and each with their song Narcissus lifting their faces to me Paper-white petals so fragile so strong Only in darkness can one truly see Miracles dance in the moonlight tonight! Dull was the day but the midnight was bright! by Steven Curtis Lance I’m planting bulbs now, for bloom…
In art school, we had an assignment on ‘Design in Nature’, and that, I think, inspired my love of patterns found in plants and close-up photos of nature in general. I bought three macro filters…as macro lenses were too expensive for my Minolta SRT 101 single lens reflex camera I had saved for when I…
First storm of the Autumn season and what gardener alive doesn’t love that? Some people dance and sing in the rain, but we’re gardeners, so we go out to the garden!
Rainy, stormy night and day. Big change in the hot weather of the last two weeks. This Iris just rebloomed, one of my favorites brought from Fullerton.
Oh, red berries, redberries! Hollyleaf Redberry Rhamnus ilicifolia, a plant new to me! A new native plant right here on our place. Cool. Considered a slow growing understory shrub, a Redberry is related to a coffeeberry, usually 3-9 feet tall and it looks just like an oak.
These Favorites are ‘Gardening Links’ I use often, some are local and some are websites anyone can use to get more enJOYment from your garden. Two are wildflower ID sites. Fun!
“What is that wonderful smell”, guests exclaim! So spicy and fragrant, Common Madia, Madia elegans and Rosinweed, Calycadenia truncata are both referred to as tarweed in the Sierra Foothills.
The female praying mantis turns to the male and says, ” after sex but before I kill you, I’ll need help with some shelves….”
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What I’m really doing in the garden today? Coffee, then raking paths, clipping faded flowers. Deep watering the new-ish rock garden plants…always a risk to plant in the summer heat, but I hope for their survival!
Swallowtail on the buddleia this morning. Great, got a good focus, even though I was holding the camera way overhead.
Three pots of lilies, with faded blooms, given to me by a friend in May 2009, were planted on the back garden bank and then forgotten until early this summer when the stems popped up from among the yarrow.
