The groundhog is a long way from here. He also probably would have preferred to rest comfortably in his hole, rather than being rudely dragged out by some human in a ridiculous costume. Still, humans decided that we’ll have an early spring, the groundhog’s true prediction unknown because he never voluntarily came out. If heContinue reading “The groundhog was wrong”
Category Archives: Plants
Adjusting a design
Plans are not always accurate. And even when they’re spot on, that doesn’t mean that the hardscape will go in per the plans. The result: planting areas may have more space, or less in this case. Doing an as-built survey is a major undertaking when everything has shifted. The solution? Vignettes. Vignettes are quick looksContinue reading “Adjusting a design”
Red Yucca (Hesperaloe) from seed
The new fancy varieties may not set seed, but if you have the normal, tall apricot-pink type you should start seeing nice black seeds sitting inside recently split brown seed pods. Good news: they’re easy to start. Bad news: they take forever to flower. Growing the seeds Place the seeds in a pot, lightly coverContinue reading “Red Yucca (Hesperaloe) from seed”
Deer Grass: a pollen source for honeybees!
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!”
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!”
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.”
Fragrant snakes!
Sansevieria Trifasciata has lots of names. Snake plant is probably the most neutral. For the others, pick a scary nemesis: mother in law, devil, djinn, make it possessive and add “tongue”. There’s bow string hemp, too. And St. George’s sword. Then there are all the variations in color and form, each with its own name…Continue reading “Fragrant snakes!”
Amaryllis belladonna, our best bulb?
Some information on Amaryllis belladonna lilies
Plume- not so -tastic
This new pink muhly grass, Muhlenbergia capillaris ‘Plumetastic’ was supposed to be quite showy, with fantastic billowing pink clouds of flowers in autumn. That’s what it shows in the photos, anyway. This would be the photos the nurseries use to promote the things, not my photos. Obviously, there’s quite a discrepancy with the foliage descriptionContinue reading “Plume- not so -tastic”
A garden refresh near Lake Tahoe
Here are the steps needed if you want to undertake a garden refresh but need to complete it quickly. Briefly, there are three initial steps: gather data, create a planting plan, pick up and install the plants. This is provided that the preliminaries are in place: a working irrigation system (or person) that will provideContinue reading “A garden refresh near Lake Tahoe”