Grasses are supposed to be wind pollinated, so bees should ignore them, right. Actually, no. Our local honeybees have discovered that deer grass produces lots of usable pollen. They come in numbers to gather pollen, storing on their back legs as bright yellow balls. Another funny thing is that deer grass is native, but honeybeesContinue reading “Deer Grass: a pollen source for honeybees!”
Author Archives: mike
Grow your own sculpture!
Learning to sculpt beautiful things from base materials is hard. It takes a long time to learn, you play with sharp tools and can easily hurt yourself. Or worse, you might create something really boring and be stuck with it basically forever (you would never throw out your first sculpture, would you?) Agave salmiana TheseContinue reading “Grow your own sculpture!”
Early Rain
Well, it’s early for Sacramento. Probably not so much for elsewhere in the country. What’s even more unusual is that the rain actually wet things, soaked them even. It ran off the roof, chased the cat indoors. Summer rains here normally drip a few drops and move on. Just enough rain to put spots onContinue reading “Early Rain”
Plant Truth. Find it at the University of California.
How do you know those marvelous promises about a plant are true? That slick-talking bloke had you barking up the wrong tree in the past, so where is the truth? At UC Davis, in the plant testing field! They test selected plants, using high, medium and low water use. The truth is out there, inContinue reading “Plant Truth. Find it at the University of California.”
A modern landscape for a modern house
The house had been remodeled into something wonderful, but the exterior spaces needed some love. They’ll be getting it soon. The main themes are swimming, vegetables and living spaces for people, and habitat for hummingbirds and butterflies for nature. The problems are leaking pipes from an irrigation station and possibly from the water supply toContinue reading “A modern landscape for a modern house”
Possibilities in the Vosges, France
The home gets a bit better every year, as old fixtures give way to modern comforts, like hot water. Outside, the mill pond glistens, the choking vegetation removed, the mill races restored, even though there’s no mill. But… maybe it could be even better… This concept blocks access to the pond from the street, orContinue reading “Possibilities in the Vosges, France”
Annette goes digital
Today, Annette grabbed her iPad and jumped into a design, taking notes, sketching and finally creating a schematic site plan. Mike shot measurements with a laser rangefinder, created a base plan and beamed it to Annette, who then went a bit wild. You might call it a gyre, a circling over of what she learnedContinue reading “Annette goes digital”
Smooth WordPress sailing again!
All is well, after some stormy passages where it looked like this blog was heading for Davey Jones’ locker! This started with a simple message about old, slow PHP. Then I noticed I could use SSL and get rid of the scary browser messages about being a potential threat to humanity. Too bad clicking thatContinue reading “Smooth WordPress sailing again!”
Plans out!
We just completed plans for two projects: one urban front yard upgrade, the other a large estate. Both were fun to work on, and we’re waiting for them to be built and watch their owners enjoy them Suburban landscape A new pool, spa, sunken patio and lots of entertainment space for outdoor living at itsContinue reading “Plans out!”
Watercolors…
We had plans to deliver, so they went first. But in the name of mixing subjects, I’m posting the watercolors first. It breaks up the constant flow of landscape drawings with Something Different. Besides, techniques used in watercolors transfer very well into techniques for rendering landscape illustrations The paintings were done on cold press watercolorContinue reading “Watercolors…”