Tag: plant profiles

Light reflected by elegant brodiaea

June’s Blue Haze, Brodiaea This is a picture story of Elegant or Harvest Brodiaea in the Sierra foothill garden.  This is its native area, just south of Yosemite National Park. This and Pretty Face are the two main wild flowers existing here on the land we settled ion near the Sierra National Forest. Until starting this…

California Fuchsia, easy to grow, complicated in name

Growing California Fuchsia is like hanging out a neon sign to a certain pollinator, namely hummingbirds! It also fills a need many native plant gardeners have of maintaining a colorful garden all year and Zauschneria fits that description. The red, red-orange, pink, or white blossoms — sized just for a hummingbird’s beak — open in…

Wildflower seedlings sown January 1st

Planting wildflower ‘muffins’

A wildflower experiment In my garden, I sowed a native California wildflower meadow. It was a very fun project and I learned a lot.  Now, in another area of my garden I call “The Natural Meadow” I continue more experiments!  See what I did! First of all, my objective here was to add very few…

Spring’s Ephemerals in the Sierra foothills

 My idea of gardening is to discover something wild in my wood and weed around it with the utmost care until it has a chance to grow and spread. – Margaret Bourke-White Covered with the greenest and freshest grass, the open woodland is where the earliest wildflowers of Spring spread their wealth of ephemeral loveliness.…

Blue Flax, Linum lewisii

Native plants from Lewis and Clark, found in the Sierra Foothills

Lewis & Clark discoveries we can plant… In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson requested $2500 from Congress to send Meriwether Lewis and William Clark off on the Corps of Discovery expedition.  See how their discoveries influenced the garden world of today in our foothills! Lasting from 1804 to 1806, this was the first exploration of the new…

Firewise Landscaping in the Sierra Foothills

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…