Three California Natives that Double as Culinary Herbs

...efully chosen Mediterranean plants. No more petunias, leaf blowers or fake lawns either. Imagine if all our residential, government and commercial spaces had climate appropriate landscaping? Native insects, birds and other critters would explode in population. It would be a paradise. It would also be a huge culinary resource. Grow these plants in your garden and you can dodge the controversies of foraging in the wild. Towards that end, I thought I...

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Saturday Tweets: Marie Kondo, Vanilla Hummus and Composting People

...XE via @Core77 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 13, 2019 The case against lawns https://t.co/t3ewxROgZl via @Curbed — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 13, 2019 Jews and Muslims, it is time we put our disagreements aside. This evil is too great, too evil. We must stand together against this, and see that in our demand for non-weird hummus, we can see each other’s shared heritage. Cousins, we need each other now more than ever. https://t.co/izVXdLl8...

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California’s Drought and What To Do About It

...net Arakis in Frank Herbert’s novel Dune. Not only will we be watering our lawns less, we’ll be drinking our own urine. Knife fights with a bikini clad Sting will break out and we’ll be trading our bikes for rides on the over-sized worms emerging from our compost bins. But I digress. Let’s cover what we’re doing at the Root Simple compound. We’ve expanded our drought tolerant plantings over the past few years. These plants use less water and encou...

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In Praise of the Hedgerow

...if whole cities could function as hedgerows? What if we took out all those lawns and planted native and/or flowering climate-appropriate plants instead? In a somewhat rambling lecture I just gave to a group of Master Gardeners, I sang the praises of that UC study and also linked it to another nice resource, the UC Davis Arboretum Allstar list of plants that look good, provide habitat and don’t need a lot of maintenance. Combine these two resources...

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Saturday Tweets: Dubious Tips, Growing Furniture and So Much More

.../t.co/6z1QVzSuQz — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 16, 2015 The Roomba for Lawns Is Really Pissing Off Astronomers http://t.co/3rqtzMThqe via @WIRED — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 16, 2015 Make your own compost Sensor http://t.co/OT6G3XpWSB — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 16, 2015 Don’t make bicyclists more visible. Make drivers stop hitting them. http://t.co/etbZAaifpP — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 15, 2015 Mexican farmers are trucking p...

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