Search Results for: label/native%20plants

154 results

White Sage and Bees and our other sage friends

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Gardening, Herbal Medicine, Herbs, Native Plants
25 Comments
...It has dark green leaves, which is less common than greyish foliage in the native sages. It brings reliable dark green foliage into the garden, and the foliage is powerfully fragrant. If you want to mellow out or soothe sore muscles, you could try throwing a a branch of this in the bath. Our other native sage, Cleveland sage, Salvia clevelandi, lives a harsh existence out in the front of our house, occupying a formerly barren strip of sun baked cl...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

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Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening, Permaculture, Soil
11 Comments
...ong them from other plants. I leave those, too. If I pull weeds around the natives, I leave those in place. As a result, my natives are lightly mulched, and seem happy enough about it. Mulching your lawn: Mulching is one of the best ways to kill your lawn. Instead of going through all the trouble of tilling or solarizing, just lay down a layer of cardboard and a super thick layer of mulch and wait. If you’re interested in doing this, check out thi...

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The Wonder of Worms

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Back to the Garden, Gardening, Vermiculture
5 Comments
...at is. This got me wondering if there are other places where worms are not native, and where we should be careful. Clearly they are not native to desert regions, but I doubt they could survive outside of the artificial environment of the worm bin. But perhaps I speak to soon. Southern California, with its long annual dry cycle, also seemed to me to be a place where the earthworm could not be native, but in fact it turns out we have worms, lots of...

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Bees will love your Coyote Brush Hedge

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Bees, Garden Design, Urban Farming
1 Comment
...al bloom, is an unassuming Western native plant with a secret super-power: native and non-native pollinators love, love, love! its tiny little flowers. If you want to lavish affection and care on the pollinators in your garden, plant one of these babies, if you can. It really is one of the best plants for the purpose. (For more info on coyote brush, here’s a nice post at the Curbstone Valley Farm blog with lots of pictures. And here’s its page at...

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