Search Results for: label/least favorite plant/2011/04/making-it/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

1171 results

The Manzanita Miracle, or, why you should love native plants if you live in a dry climate

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Gardening, Native Plants
6 Comments
...place up even in the heart of a drought. All we have to do is treat these plants right. Native plants have a reputation for being tricky, and it’s true, in that they don’t act like typical imported landscape plants–the lawns and the boxwood hedges. They don’t need even a fraction of the water as exotics do, so they are almost always overwatered, and die as a result. I think it is hard for us to even imagine that plants can be so profoundly unthir...

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Book Review: The Urban Bestiary

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Animals, Reviews
8 Comments
...estiary is an exploration of the intimate intersection of humans and other urban animals, such as coyotes and raccoons and opossums and squirrels. In The Urban Bestiary, Haupt introduces us to our close neighbors, the animals which share our land, and sometimes even our homes. She gives us a naturalist’s overview of their behaviors, physiology and life cycles, interspersed with personal anecdotes and interviews with wildlife experts. The resulting...

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Failed Experiment: Bermuda Buttercup or Sour Grass (Oxalis pes-caprae) as Dye

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Domesticus, Herbs, Mistakes
26 Comments
...are supposed to use equal measurements of each (e.g. 6 oz of t-shirt/6 oz. plants). The second step is to steep the plants in water. This is where I made my first half-assed mistake. I threw the plants into the pot whole, instead of chopping them up, as I was supposed to. Then, I covered the greens with water. The instructions didn’t give exact water quantities to match the fabric weight–it only said “cover”–which seems a bit problematic. “Cover w...

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Native Plant Workshop

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Events, Native Plants
3 Comments
...birds, butterflies and hummingbirds. With only 4% of our wild lands left, urban and suburban native plant gardens will be the “make or break” difference to the support and preservation of bio-diversity. Lisa will show and tell you about several varieties of native plants as well as provide samples for sale. Immediately after the lecture in the garden we will be conducting a tour of the house to show and tell you about green products and renovatio...

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