Primary Colors: Three for the Hummingbirds
One of the many benefits of gardening with California’s native plants is the pleasure derived from observing birds, lizards, butterflies, and other …
Plants: Flowering plants, vines, and bulbs
Schima
Schima is an attractive genus of evergreen trees from subtropical and warm-temperate regions of Asia. A member of the tea family (Theaceae), schima is…
Tender But Tough: The Old Tea Roses
In the 1930s and early 1940s, whenever Francis and Marjorie Lester left their nursery, which they had moved from Monterey to Watsonville in 1937, they…
Daisy Mah and the WPA Garden
Pull into the parking lot across from the Sacramento Zoo, and you’ll likely see young parents pushing strollers or leading noisy toddlers to nearby …
Las Palmas de La Loma
From outside the gate, one gets the immediate sense that this is not a typical Los Altos Hills garden. Enclosed by stucco walls and fences festooned w…
Planting Pride in Communities with America in Bloom
In towns across the country each summer, communities prepare for a visit by judges from the America in Bloom (AIB) Competition. This is a friendly com…
Growing Hardy Orchids in the Pacific Northwest
Growing hardy orchids is not for gardeners unwilling to take absurd and sometimes costly risks. In fact, one must steel oneself for either quick or li…
Great Plant Picks 2005: Rhododendrons
In horticultural circles today, form and texture are much ballyhooed in landscape design; yet, flower color will always have a powerful allure—much …
Great Plant Picks: A Special Something for Every Garden
Spring blossoms, funky ferns, charming groundcovers, fancy foliage, delicious fragrance, knock-your-socks-off color—the 2005 Great Plant Picks have …