American Chopper trades Weekend Gardening?
Paul Teutul’s new house in the woods needs a killer natural garden! But the truth is gear heads who design bikes don’t translate to designing gardens well. My friend Chuck brought up the idea the...
View ArticleMoorten Botanical Garden Junky
This morning I was at Clark’s garden at six thirty to work amidst the monumental cactus and succulents. It’s his family’s garden started in the 1930s by his parents, pioneers of early Palm Springs....
View ArticleDot’s Concern About Wildfire
Last night the low desert was flooded with humidity and great thunderclouds formed to match those created by the high desert fires still chugging on with no end in sight. The monsoon moisture is coming...
View ArticlePlant Talk and Heat Waves
Scorched, singed and wilted. Did your beautiful summer garden get slammed by the heat wave? Let’s face it, cold hardy plants just don’t do 105 degrees in New York and they’re going to let you know...
View ArticleHumboldt’s Lilies In A Field of Wildfire
Another tale of native plants and wildfire. A most remarkable event occurred one spring following a massive damaging wildfire in the High Sierras. The disaster area that was nothing but blackened...
View ArticleDot and van Gough and Meteor Showers of Fall
Dot has been watching the meteor showers every night and recalled her favorite words on the relationship of spirit to art by Vincent van Gough. She thinks he may have seen meteors and the night sky...
View ArticleDesert Garden Sculptures are Outsider Art
My mother would take one look at this stuff and snort, “Weird!” And maybe that’s why I dig it so much. The truth is, those weird creative souls who make these things for the world to enjoy are the...
View ArticleHelping Grandmother Make a Gardening Journal
In response to my Yardsmart column suggesting readers start their garden journal on the new year came this wonderful email from Sheila: “My extraordinary gardener mother is 92, and our green-thumb...
View ArticleLessons of Native Plants Is Observing Habitat
At 2000 feet on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains many plant communities merge to create one of the most diverse ecosystems in the state. If you study this region year in and year out in...
View ArticleProtect Praying Mantis Egg Cases In Spring Gardens
Praying mantis are the gardener’s best friend. They feed on the pest insects that damage our plants in the summer. In early spring the egg cases laid the year before are vulnerable to our winter’s...
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