Here is a developing list of the existing native plant life here existing before we came to our home on Malum Ridge next to the Sierra National Forest near Oakhurst-Yosemite, CA.
One of the best ways to appreciate the park is to watch this Yosemite Nature Notes series. It’s produced by Steven M. Bumgardner, who has lived and worked in Sequoia and Yosemite Park for 20 years.
CA Native Seedlings Existing and introduced California native and non native seedling photos
After establishing our home on Malum Ridge, looking out onto Peckinpah Mountain, I heard from neighbors about the logging history in our town of North Fork, CA. I became curious about the Peckinpah name and being a bit of a history buff, I decided to dig a bit further. This is what I found. Peckinpah Mountain rises 6000…
This is National Wildlife Week and for that, I have chosen some favorite California native plants to show, as well as show one of the areas of my garden, with a mixture of CA natives and Mediterranean plants, that is starting to show some progress. The setting The land here is sloped generally 15 degrees and the…
What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ~Charles Dudley Warner
Since our backs don’t have hinges, we need to take a few precautions, before getting into the strenuous jobs in the garden. Whether it’s simply wearing gloves and protective eyewear or strengthening and stretching muscles, a few tips will hopefully help you protect yourself from garden gremlins.
Keeping fit and warming up
Yoga is a great way of exercising and strengthening your muscles and preventing injury when gardening. “Just a few simple poses, says Carolyn Masuda, a yoga teacher in Fullerton, CA, “will tone the legs, stomach, back, the whole body.”
She stoops to conquer
Cheryl, of Oakhurst is sadder but wiser, after a month-long bout with back strain and is determined not to let it happen again. She believes it was from digging, a common cause of injury in the garden, and now calls her new rose area the ‘Garden of Pain’!
She now stoops using her legs instead of her back when digging and also makes a conscious effect to dig with her right foot instead of the left, she says, which helps her back. To lift rocks, like many of us do here in the foothills, she uses a dolly, and then rolls it to where she needs the rocks to go.
*See this entertaining, and informative video, courtesy of The Horse Tail Trails Team, for ways to dig without hurting your back!…
I Meant To Do My Work Today I meant to do my work today, But a brown bird sang in the apple tree, And a butterfly flittered across the field, And all the leaves were calling me. *And the Buttercups nodded their smiling heads, Greeting the bees who came to call, And I asked the…
Becoming stewards of our forest For some of us, here in the California foothills, especially those who live near the national forest, nature provides the perfect landscaping. Using the existing trees and native plants can help your garden design blend smoothly into the surrounding landscape. Caring for a large forest property has its challenges and rewards.…
A common word in gardening this decade is ‘sustainable’; sustainable gardening is using the principles of ecological wisdom. When planting and puttering in my garden, which is two acres planted with CA natives, Mediterranean plants close to the house and natural groomed forest beyond, I think of this. How do I also create a long…
As some of you know, I live very near Yosemite National Park, a place where my family has vacationed since I was a small child. My parents traveled here in 1950 and fell in love, as a young married couple, with the incredible granite walled canyon and the Merced River running thrugh it all. We camped,…
Maggie says, "Let's go."
Today, Maggie and I walked all the way to the bottom of the property, where it’s fairly wild.…
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.…
Here are some of the favorite posts of the last few months. It’s interesting to see what people like and what their search terms are.
Native plants of Lewis and Clark found in the Sierra Foothills 350
Using broken pots in garden 162
Sierra Nevada Webcams 154…
Come into the snowy garden
Everything in life is speaking, in spite of its apparent silence.
~Hazrat Inayat Khan
Come in,...sit down, I want my garden to see you.
Icy bird bath, no bathers today.
There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.
~Linda Hogan
Project: Weeding the Meadow After rains and four weeks of sunny weather, a check on the progress of weeds and seedlings in the meadow showed lots of green, and yesterday it took a lot less time to weed than I thought, about an hour and a half. This is a 30×30 foot area, 900 sq…
What I am really doing in the garden
Daffodils, only thing left in beds formerly full of Mexican primrose
Sunny January weather is lasting into February, and although chilly, by mid morning, it’s possible to putter in the garden with the sun to warm me. After a few weeks gone, a walk around the garden reveals welcome progress, and that there is a lot of work to be done. My heart lifts as I see daffodils showing their grey green shoots from under the winter leaves.…
Sunday- Rarangi Beach Monday-Blenheim Wineries and Gardens Tuesday-Totaranui and Abel Tasman Nat’l Park Wednesday-Birds of Abel Tasman Thursday- Nelson, New Zealand Friday- Picton and the Marlborough Sounds Saturday-Native Plants of New Zealand The wild and wonderful plants of New Zealand So many plants, exotic and commonplace, native to NZ and native to California! First of…
