LA’s Parkway Garden Dilemma: Not Fixed Yet

...way regulations. Throw out your plant lists. There are a lot of species of plants on the planet! Why can I plant Achillea millefolium but not Danthonia californica? Avoiding plant lists also goes for using the word “edible.” Most “weeds” are edible. Marijuana is edible (but would probably not last long in the parkway!). A lot of plants are “edible” but not necessarily something you’d want to eat. If a neighbor complains about my set of parkway pla...

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Plant Thievery

...tus to keep people from stealing the nectaplums higher up the front slope. Clearly I need to either let go of it all and accept the free exchange of the universe thing or plant a giant man-eating Venus fly trap to protect the barrel cactus. Have you experienced plant thievery? Comments!...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

...up softer trimmings to about 6″ (15 cm) and leave them at the base of the plant. The plant will appreciate it. You can leave woody branches here and there, too, to support beetles and other bugs. (I make little piles of fallen wood, hoping to host lizards, but resign myself to the fact I’m more likely hosting mice. Well, it gives the neighbor’s cat something to do!) If you have a lawn, save all your clippings. They make great mulch (and compost)....

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Go Plant a Million Trees

...small-scale arboreal efforts that we began over ten years ago. This month we had a abundant crop of Mission figs, avocados, olives and pomegranates. And that pathetic vegetable garden I blogged about? My heretical thinking is to give up annual vegetables entirely and use the space to plant two small citrus trees. If I want vegetables I’ll put in artichokes which grow well here and return every year without any effort. We’ll outsource the misery of...

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Yucca!

...cca family, which even includes the Joshua Tree. Also, don’t confuse yucca plants with agave plants, as the juice of the of the agave leaf is a skin irritant. Agaves tend to have broader leaves in contrast to the spiky leaves of the yucca. Blue agave, incidentally, is the source of tequila. As Nyerges’ points out in his excellent article about yuccas and agaves, “A Piece of Fiber Could Save Your Life“, the flower stalk of the yucca can be eaten an...

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