The Wonder of Worms

...out 1/4 inch (1/2 cm) of castings on the surface of the soil of your house plants and container plants. Add them to your seed starting mix. (If you keep a worm bin, you’ll know how readily seeds sprout in castings!) Top dress established plants, be they vegetables, flowers or established perennials Mix them with bagged nursery soil to get your potted plants and raised beds off to a good start Apply a thin layer of castings to the top of your garde...

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How to Deal with Extremely Root Bound Plants

...shots. How to Save Root Bound Plants First off, I’ve found that root bound plants are often dehydrated plants, because the pots are mostly full of roots, making the soil hard and water repellent. If this is so, it helps to give the plants a good soaking before you un-pot them by placing them in a bucket of water for a few minutes. Method A) Mildly root bound plants can be helped along by gently massaging the root ball with your hands just before p...

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Our new front yard, part 2: theory

...wild” looking. We don’t like too many shrubs. We don’t like over-exuberant plants–plants tall enough to loom over us. We don’t like plants which block our views. In one of his books (and unfortunately I don’t remember which one) the great plant designer Piet Oudolf talked about how he quite likes to use big looming plants for the air of mystery and drama they can add to a garden, but admits that most clients feel threatened by them, and recommends...

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Top Six California Native Plant Performers

...lant them and don’t put them too close together. While we’re talking about native plants, our friend David Newsom has launched an important new initiative called the Wild Yards Project to encourage people to “restore native plant and animal habitat, one yard at a time, using native plants and trees wherever you live.” Note that this project is for people all over the US, not just in California. We’re going to have him on the podcast to discuss the...

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Front Yard Update: Welcome to Crazy Town

...and as I said, they’re feeding lots of creatures. These sunflowers are not native sunflowers. The native sunflower is shorter and better behaved. I might try to swap those out for these guys next year, though these guys may be hard to dissuade. Some of the wildflowers earlier this spring: The pink are clarkia, the white is yarrow, the orange are Nasturtium (not wildflowers), the purple are Phacelia tanacetifolia. Other wildflowers I threw down a g...

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