Planting in a Post-Wild World

...er, the ground cover layer, and the filler layer. Plants stacked on top of plants. Plants intertwining. Plants giving way to other plants as the seasons progress. Another pic from the book showing the system of vertical layering in the design process. They give concrete examples for how this would work in three different types of archetypal plant communities: open grassland or meadow, woodlands/shrublands, and open forest. These three community ty...

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Win Two Tickets to the 15th Annual Theodore Payne Native Plant Garden Tour

...ns (including our neighbor Lora’s house!). If you’re thinking of including native plants in your garden or pondering a garden re-design, the Theodore Payne Garden Tour is a great way to get ideas. To enter our contest leave a comment on this post naming your favorite native plant. Please make sure to enter your email in the comment form (your email will not be published nor used for anything else other than contacting you to send the tickets). We’...

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What does the loving landscape look like?

...eat name?) is another fantastic resource. For instance, they have lists of plants which support native bees, divided by region–not just for the U.S., but for points all over the world. We’ll come back to them, later, too. For now, this is all just grist for the mill. The thing about the loving landscape is that it does not appear overnight. It takes some contemplation. The lifeless landscape takes no more than ten minutes of thought and a quick ja...

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

...he Miller/Coon garden in Atwater: Edibles/Medicinals Just because you have native plants does not meant that you can’t also have vegetables and fruit trees. In fact, edibles benefit from the insect habitat provided by native plants. Over the years we’ve increased our natives and decreased our vegetables. I think we might be getting more veggies now from a smaller space. We also need to remember that many native plants are edible and medicinal such...

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Gardening Mistakes: Six Ways We’ve Killed Plants

...e enough compost. 4. Bad nursery stock. I’ve bought my share of root bound plants and plants that came with diseases. The worst example I’ve seen is a nursery selling grape vines that all had incurable Pierce’s disease. That’s a guaranteed failure. Thankfully we’ve found a few good sources when we need seedlings: Annie’s Annuals and Perennials and Theodore Payne. 5. The great mystery of watering. I’m still working on this one. I discovered last ye...

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