Front Yard Update: Welcome to Crazy Town

May 20, 2016

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Gardening

...ches of depth for amendments, or I can dig up that terrace, pulling up the plants in the process, and hope they don’t mind being transplanted. Or I could leave it be, do small interventions like teas and hope the plants make it. Plans These days I’m pretty much battening down the hatches for the long dry summer. Erik and I have installed a “smart” irrigation system to make watering easier (we’ll blog about that after testing it). I’m going to do a...

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Bidens rebuttal

Mrs. Homegrown

November 8, 2016

Gardening, Least Favorite Plant

5 Comments

...identify it as Bidens biternata. Finally, as our commenters noted, it is a medicinal plant (And, as another reader pointed out, Bidens aurea makes a natural red/pink/orange dye). I can’t comment much on it’s medicinal value, because I haven’t done much reading about it yet, but what very little I’ve read already has me wanting to tincture some of it for its antibacterial properties. Unfortunately we’ve just pulled all of it from our yard and sent...

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How to Garden With California Natives: Lessons from the 2016 Theodore Payne Garden Tour

Mr. Homegrown

April 5, 2016

Garden Design, Gardening

7 Comments

...eggies now from a smaller space. We also need to remember that many native plants are edible and medicinal such as these strawberries from the LaPlant/D’Auria garden in Sierra Madre: And the white sage in the background of this garden behind the datura (careful with that stuff!): While we’re talking about white sage, the same weekend we attended a lecture by Nicholas Hummingbird who runs the fantastic new Hahamongna Nursery. Hummingbird, who is Na...

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De-Cluttering the Garden

Mr. Homegrown

February 12, 2015

Domesticus, Gardening, Tidying up

8 Comments

...rd has accumulated a few items that need to go. Replacing under-performing plants. Particularly in small spaces like ours there is no room for plants that are sickly or just don’t look attractive. Ditto for fruit trees that have never produced. I’m with Piet Ouldolf on this: if possible, plants in our tended spaces need to look good year round (even when dormant) and they need to provide wildlife habitat. Rethinking the garden. Even the best garde...

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Our new front yard, part 4: a digression on the new paradigm

Mrs. Homegrown

November 19, 2015

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening, Miscellaneous

5 Comments

...ginal idea of the kinship of all things is that we should be humble before plants. As Fukuoko-san said, we know nothing. Starting from a place of humility, I’m trying to find a new path. I’m trying to develop a new relationship with plants, and as a result, a new approach to landscaping. This is the path of the post-wild. New paths often run rough. Meanwhile, the lawn n’ shrub is a path worn into smoothness. In fact, it is a rut. So yes, learning...

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