Clik here to view.
Mystery Seedlings Quiz!
Oh the rain is marvelous! And it brings on the growing season in California with a bang! Look - already some chaparral current is budding out! In our county, Santa Cruz - I simply refuse to believe in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Entrance garden bed planting - Coyote mint, Lupines, Bladderpod, and Paintbrush
Today I planted the entrance garden bed. I also planted the old wheelbarrow. Photo from early evening.It's been a while since I complained about the entrance garden. That's partly because it's starting...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Other Approach to Seedlings
I've been rather quiet on the blog because Mr. Mouse and I lived abroad for 6 months, and then came home to a garden that didn't really invite lots of blog posts. The drought has been bad, and even a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Inspired by "A Buzz in the Meadow" by Dave Goulson
My "meadow" of weedy Mediterranean annual grassesDave Goulson is a professor of biology at the University of Southampton in the U.K. He has a special interest in bees and a desire to do long-term...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Using Defensible Space Zones as Planting Guidelines
Wonderful coyote bush blossoming in my garden, December 2015Recently my son-in-law dug out the roots of the huge coyote bush that volunteered to grow in my garden, 20 feet from my office window....
View ArticleClik here to view.
You Had Me at Diplacus
Monkey flower - Formerly Mimulus, now DiplacusEver since I started this blog, I've done my level best to use the botanical names for the California native plants that I write about. Sure, it's painful...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eating Green
One of my New Year's resolutions has been to get better at eating my veggies. While I'm a vegetarian (mostly, just like any mouse) and I certainly nibble on a lot of fruit, I'd found that I just wasn't...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A winter visit to Santa Barbara Botanic Garden
Mr. Wood Rat and I took a mid-week jaunt down to Santa Barbara in late January. The highlight for me, of course, was a visit to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. There's something interesting in this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Staying Currant
We always know that winter is over for good when the currants start blooming. And this year, after some fairly decent rain in January, they're really putting on a show. Above, pink-flowering currant...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating a California Native Garden at Jikoji Zen Center
He may not like me to put the focus on him, but this post is really all about Gerow Reece, the chap on the right in the photo below.Shoho Michael Newhall left, Gerow Reece, right. Zen practitioner,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Monarchs and milkweed and "doing no harm."
Male monarch overwintering at Lighthouse Field, Santa CruzI took a walk recently at Lighthouse Field in Santa Cruz to see the beginning of a restoration plot beside a Monarch Butterfly roosting spot,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
First Flush of Spring
Baby blue eyes on a windy dayIn a strange reversal of our usual roles, Ms. Country Mouse has been waxing philosophically about the trials and joys of gardening with CA natives, while I will proceed to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Small San Francisco Flower and Garden Show with one very interesting native...
As readers of this blog may know, Town Mouse and I make an annual trip to the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, to volunteer in the California Native Plant Society booth for a few hours, and then...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best Garden Tour Ever!
With the weather forecast decidedly mixed, Mr. Mouse and I looked forward to this year's garden tour with some trepidation. Yes, we had both spent a goodly amount of time in the garden - pulling weeds,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Design and Maintenance of Native Plant Gardens - 1: Jim Martin, Garden Designer
A landscape in Capitola, coastal Central California, by Plant Landscape Design. For a partial plant list, scroll to end of this post. Photo: Matt Ross.I recently wrote an article for the Santa Cruz...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A visit to the Town Mouse garden, and a younger one
It was my pleasure to visit Town Mouse last weekend and see her garden in its post-garden-tour splendor, and then go on to visit her friend Lisa, whose garden we had visited a year or so ago when it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Second Flush of Spring
Clarkia in AprilThe rain this winter - just average, but coming at the rain time - has done the garden good. And the annuals, looking promising in March, are now starting to deliver. Elegant clarkia,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Growing Castilleja affinis, paintbrush, from seed -- part II
I wrote last November about my experiment to grow paintbrush - Castilleja affinis ssp. affinis - the species of paintbrush that grows wild close to where I live - about 3/4 mile from my house.So I got...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tassajara 2016 - A Banner Year for Wildflowers
White ceanothus on top of the ridgeThis May, I had the good fortune to attend the Wildflowers and Birds of Tassajara workshop - one of the longest running workshop at Tassajara Hot Springs monastery. I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Planting Local Sedges, Rushes, Iris
I'm excited to be trying out a new thing in the garden - mass plantings of sedges, Iris fernaldii, and rushes. None of these plants is attractive to deer!Some sedges and other things established last...
View Article