Piet Oudolf’s Enhanced Nature

...the overall design. The fruit in the fruitcake are what he calls “primary” plants, “high-impact plants chosen for strong color or structure.” Like the fruit in the fruitcake primary plants repeat in clumps throughout the overall design. He suggests a 70% matrix plant to 30% primary plant ratio. Lastly, Oudolf introduces “scatter” plants, sometimes by literally scattering seeds that will pop up seasonally and introduce spontaneity and wildness. Oud...

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The tale of the worm bin celery

...hope. Celery doesn’t like our climate much, and I consider it one of those plants which is easier to buy than to grow. To my surprise, the plant did quite well, though it did have a feral quality to it, despite its mild domestic origins. It didn’t grow fat, moist stalks which can be used to scoop up peanut butter. It grew stringy, dark green stalks which tasted powerfully of celery. It made excellent stock, and chopped into fine pieces, it was goo...

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How to Plant a Fruit Tree

...ube.com/watch?v=Tttq3M739YA It’s bare root fruit tree planting season here in California and this video, from the Dave Wilson Nursery, shows you how to plant your trees once they arrive in the mail. One quibble–it’s been proven to be not a good idea to amend soil when you’re planting a tree. Other than that, this is how we’ve planted our trees and they’ve all grown well. And I wish that I had done the radical pruning you see at the end of the vide...

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Our new front yard, part 4: a digression on the new paradigm

...against the soil, against the drought, against the nursery which sold the plant, against the plant itself. In all cases, though, I’m considering the plant as an isolated individual, and I’m evaluating its success or failure in myopic terms. Now, I’m not a botanist or any other kind of “ist” and I sometimes I suspect all I know about plants would fit in a thimble. Yet I don’t think that the point of viewing the yard as a system means that I have t...

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Weekend Tweets: Strawberry Season, Air Plant Therapy and Trees Eating Things

...Qd0vZk8zk — Root Simple (@rootsimple) May 6, 2016 How to Revive a Sick Air Plant via @Garden_Therapy https://t.co/7aQVr93hl8 pic.twitter.com/E5KQLjMyW0 — Fairy Tale Gardens (@JennasFairyTale) May 4, 2016 Trees “eating” things https://t.co/gjgBwqMo54 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) May 4, 2016 Another beautiful post from our friend Shannon Hayes: Darned Life https://t.co/bTGQ69im0S via @SapBushShannon — Root Simple (@rootsimple) May 3, 2016 Spectacular...

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