Native Plant Workshop

...tive plants the whole garden has to be natives. In fact, it’s great to mix natives with non-native plants. The natives bring in beneficial wildlife, are hardy and are efficient in terms of water use. Flexibility is key here–go ahead and mix natives with vegetables, fruit trees and other climate-appropriate plantings. 2. Natives aren’t edible. Many natives yield edible and medicinal crops. In North America the best way to delve into this topic is t...

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Our new front yard, part 3: design

...ight work out well, but you also have to be careful and make sure that non-native blends well visually with the natives. For instance, here in Southern California our native greens are not a very rich green, they tend toward silver. If I bring in plant from somewhere else, and it is a rich green, it might really stick out. And of course, it’s easier to put together a functioning plant community with native plants because you know, theoretically, t...

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Top Six California Native Plant Performers

...w 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 project in depth, but before we do that I’d like all of you to join the Wild Yards Facebook and Instagram. David would especially like people...

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The Manzanita Miracle, or, why you should love native plants if you live in a dry climate

...in the heart of a drought. All we have to do is treat these plants right. Native plants have a reputation for being tricky, and it’s true, in that they don’t act like typical imported landscape plants–the lawns and the boxwood hedges. They don’t need even a fraction of the water as exotics do, so they are almost always overwatered, and die as a result. I think it is hard for us to even imagine that plants can be so profoundly unthirsty, because w...

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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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