Reader Favorite California Native: Ceanothus

...er than yearly pruning, you can retire to the nearest bar and rest on your gardening laurels. But getting it established can be tricky. The most common mistake is over-watering during the summer months and planting in overly fertile soil. We didn’t over-water, so how we manged to kill three of them is a Root Simple gardening mystery. That said, many of our neighbors have had no problems with Ceanothus. If you have a well drained sunny spot, it’s a...

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136 Garden Fundamentals with Robert Pavlis

On this 136th episode of the Root Simple podcast we talk to author and gardening expert Robert Pavlis about how to improve your soil, how to start seedlings in the winter, how to take care of houseplants and much more. Robert Pavlis lives on 6 acres of land that he has developed into a large private garden he calls Aspen Grove Gardens that contains around 3,000 perennials, grasses, shrubs and trees in southern Ontario, Canada. He is a Master Gard...

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Polyculture

...s. It is written for people who live places with cold winters (as are most gardening books, alas). So Angelinos wanting to follow his plan can start this earlier, perhaps in March. The SurviveLA polyculture that will be described after was started in October. Polyculture from Gaia’s Garden, attributed to Ianto Evan: After the last frost cover your garden bed evenly with a light broadcasting of the following seeds. Don’t mix them before broadcastin...

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104 Erin Schanen the Impatient Gardener

...we discuss some of Erin’s recent blog posts and other subjects including: Gardening mistakes. Dealing with creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides) and other weeds. Remodeling a cottage. Erin’s day job as editor of Sailing Magazine. You can hear more about Erin’s sailing adventures on Garden Fork Radio episode 421. How to plant a tree. Killing plants. Winter and gardening with climate change. The folly of taking shortcuts with your soil. The...

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Plant Vegetables!

...n one of my worst blog posts, “Homesteading Heresy: On Giving Up Vegetable Gardening,” in which I announced that I was no longer planting vegetables. While we have plenty of avocados and eggs it would be nice to have some greens other than volunteer nasturtium and nettles. I had two seasons of failed vegetable gardening but that should have prompted a redoubled effort rather than the defeatism that I offered. I’ve taken the step of deleting that p...

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