Name This Weed and Win . . .

.... . . bragging rights. Extra points for telling us the scientific name. I think it’s some kind of geranium and it’s been sprouting up in the backyard for years every winter. If allowed to grow it puts off small, uninteresting flowers. I’m hoping it has rare pharmaceutical value. Then I could offer better prizes on Root Simple, like an all expenses paid trip to East Hollywood....

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Bees will love your Coyote Brush Hedge

...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 Theodore Payne Foundation.) What I didn’t realize until our recent g...

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Why Your Garden Should Be Dark at Night

...not in use. Reduce wattage–you don’t need as much as you think. Here’s another idea: garden with moonlight. Rather than light up your garden with artificial light, include plants with silvery-grey leaves or white flowers. Our white sage glows spectacularly during a full moon. I’m also happy we put in a climbing white rose over our entrance arbor. By embracing the darkness we can open our eyes to the stars above....

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Radical Apiculturalist Michael Thiele

...l the symbiotic and parasitic relationships bees have with microorganisms, flowers, honey, gravity–even wax moth larvae and mites. When we take a whole systems approach, Thiele suggests, we’re more likely to admit our ignorance and approach the hive with humility. Thiele’s description of the bien reminded me of Martin Buber’s I-Thou as opposed to I-It relationship, i.e. subject to subject rather than subject to object. In fact, several hundreds of...

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Easter Lessons

...I tried out onion skin (russet dye), red cabbage (bluish dye) and hibiscus flowers(purplish). All looked well. I went to bed imagining the rich, solid colors I’d find the next day, the arty pictures from the original post dancing in my head. This morning I pulled my eggs from the fridge, all excited, only to find something had gone wrong. The onion skin eggs looked all right at first, a nice rusty shade, but when I touched them the color came off,...

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