Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder

March 25, 2014

Bird feeder in the LA Natural History Museum garden. One of a series of posts inspired by our recent tour of the new gardens at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. The Nature Gardens at the NHM are not large by the usual standards of botanical gardens, and they are only about a year old, but they are already rich with bird and insect life. (A poorwill even visited, which apparently caused quite a bit of excitement in the birding community.) T...

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Savoring the Fruits of Your Labor Panel Discussion

Mr. Homegrown

March 17, 2014

Events

...ng and food preservation: Santa Monica Farmers Market 2014 QUARTERLY PANEL SERIES When: Thursday, May 01, 7:00 – 8:30 pm Free and open to the public Where: Santa Monica Public Library 601 Santa Monica Blvd. MLK Auditorium SAVORING THE FRUITS OF YOUR LABOR Gardening and preserving stories and strategies to improve your quality of life and your bottom line. Backyard gardening and food preservation are growing popular trends, but in the real world, w...

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Announcing Our New Solar Cooking Initiative

Mrs. Homegrown

March 31, 2016

Solar, Solar Oven Summer

8 Comments

...solar recipes, so that is where we will be starting out. I’m calling this series Solar Oven Summer, and no, I do not find the acronym S.O.S. pessimistic. And yes, it is summer here now, as far as I’m concerned. We’ll tag all these posts so you can find them all at once. In our next post we’ll take a close look at the Solavore Sport, and then we’ll begin learning how to use it, one recipe at a time. Are any of you solar chefs? Any advice? Horror s...

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

Mr. Homegrown

April 5, 2016

Garden Design, Gardening

7 Comments

...ive chaparral. Spacing can be tricky. You have to pay attention to nursery labels and not plant too far apart or too close together. Not that plants always perform predictably. You have to go back and edit: fill gaps in or take stuff out. The best gardens on the tour got the massing right like the Hessing/Bonfigli garden in Altadena shown in the photo above. Outdoor Rooms My favorite garden on the tour is the Loxton/Clark garden in Pasadena. It’s...

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Viewpoints in the Garden

Mr. Homegrown

March 13, 2014

Garden Design, Gardening

18 Comments

...need some more work. This area by the chicken coop could use some paving stones or a deck under the chairs and a better “hide the crap” fence to screen out the compost bins in the background. Overall the main design lesson is in the first photo in this series–the use of foliage or trellis work to not allow the whole space to be viewed at once. This makes a small space seem larger and lends a sense of mystery to what might be behind that avocado tr...

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