What happens if you don’t trim lavender? You all may know I like garden experiments. For the last two years I’ve been experimenting with my Spanish lavender field and NOT trimming the blooms off. This is the field a week ago that I’ve not trimmed OR watered and as I went up to inspect, I…
Drought tolerant and colorful plants for any garden… Sometimes you find an ideal list of plants suitable for your area to save and keep. This time one of my customers at the nursery happened to bring in an especially nice one. We were able to impress each other,..they were because most of the plants they…
Spicy mints? “Much Virtue in Herbs, little in Men.” – Benjamin Franklin The rich, spiciness of these plants makes them useful in cooking, and nearly half the spices in your kitchen come from this one family, including basil, rosemary, lavender, marjoram, germander, thyme, savory, plus culinary sage and of course mint, peppermint, and spearmint. It’s…
The back slope, then and now In a series of Then and Now photos, it’s satisfying to look back nostalgically to see how far we have come. Bought in 2000, and in a completely natural area, we’ve tried to preserve the beauty of our 7 acres near the Sierra foothills of California, as we make…
First Views is a meme that Town Mouse started to show seasonal view of larger areas of your garden, rather than more focused photos of certain plants. She has a Mr Linky widget on her page so others can enjoy this idea, and add links to their blogs. Please visit her page to see her…
Caring for native trees in the garden …and a list of what to plant When faced with a new, mountain or rural garden, you need to make peace with your oaks and pines. These beautiful trees can be unkempt, stickery and surrounded by brush and poison oak at the start. I wondered what could be…
When you go out to the garden, with no objective in mind, it’s surprising how much you can accomplish. Equipped with gloves and clippers in my back pocket, I water and putter with no thoughts in my mind. Sometimes, just start to clip and water and sometimes you take on huge jobs never planned on.
The objective is to plant shrubs and trees as foundations for the beds. Here are the first plants put in.
Last year we had built a retaining wall and I couldn’t resist planting a few things like rosemary and lavender. We had no hose or water supply, so everything would get hand watered on our monthly(hopefully) visits to the property.
