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.…
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…
Jan 1, 2011 This afternoon when it warmed up to a brisk 40F degrees, I tapped little soil ice cubes out of a planting tray, getting ready for my first attempt at wintersowing. I have a lot of seeds saved, and after counting how many grape boxes I had, selected a number of varieties to…
Is there a gardener who doesn’t know about wintersowing? Well, now the first day of the year is a great time to start! Here is the general idea of how and why, and then tomorrow, I’ll tell about how I did with my first try. You can start seeds in January, using recyclable table grape or salad…
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…
Last update for Fall 2010 …next Winter! Before the latest rainstorms, new photos were taken of progress on my little seedlings in an area chosen for a meadow. Here, was a field of weedy filaree, awful weeds with seeds that form curlicues that screw themselves into our Corgi, Maggie’s fur in the spring and summer.…
How to plant a meadow in California foothills I do dream of that! In late summer, my new project was to find California native seeds in a large enough quantity at an affordable price, get rid of the weeds and get my meadow. A couple posts back are photos and a description of the beginnings.…
Discovering new natives I have always loved the names of plants. I don’t know why, but I must know what a plant name is and then look up all the information I can find on it. This property of ours, in the Central California foothills has given me lots of plants to identify and apparently, after ten years here there…
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…
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.
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Notes on Western Wildflower Mix from Wildseed Farms, planted in North Fork, CA (near Yosemite) Zone 7, 3000 ft.
I sent for these seeds from Wildseed Farms. in Texas. Here is what I planted in order, from most to least, how many bloomed and how long they stayed in the garden.
The objective is to plant shrubs and trees as foundations for the beds. Here are the first plants put in.
We have lived here for 8 months and five of those in the new house. As far as the garden goes, the first big priority was to dispose of the huge piles of construction debris…our responsibility according to our contract with Western Homes.
May 23-28, 2002 Memorial Day! Madeline had her prom (Derek’s senior prom) so we went up alone. Jolie was working at Claimjumper so she stayed home. It was to be a laying out weekend, 4 days of riding for Larry, so no big projects. Just relaxing for me. Friday, Larry and Russ went out riding,…
