Book Review: Sustainable Food Gardens, Myths & Solutions
Baseball is simple, right? You throw the ball, you bat the ball, you catch the ball. Gardening is like that, right? You dig up the…
Seasons: Winter
Book Review: A Good Drink
In Pursuit of Sustainable Spirits If you’ve ever wondered what the climate crisis might mean for the future of alcohol, author Shanna Farrell will…
Book Review: Swamplands
Tundra Beavers, Quaking Bogs, and the Improbable World of Peat There is a gobsmacking fact early on in the new book Swamplands: Tundra Beavers,…
Book Review: The Jungle Garden
As designers, my husband and I found The Jungle Garden to not only be a useful manual, but also an engaging story which walks you…
Turf Transformation into Beautiful, Sustainable, and Resilient Landscapes
#LifeNotLawn Climate chaos, continuing drought, extreme temperatures, declining populations of songbirds and insects— are calling for homes and yards that are heat tolerant, water thrifty,…
Growing Aloes in the Sacramento Valley
Like all great plants, aloes don’t need much and give a lot. They look beautiful year round, especially solitary plants with perfectly symmetrical rosettes, and…
Sustainable Defensible Space
The 2020 California wildfire season has caused historic losses of life, property, and wildlands. Southern California, one of the most fire-prone environments in the world, has…
California Native Ferns
Ferns are among Earth’s oldest plants, tracing back before the time of the dinosaurs (300 million years ago). They appear in fossil records well before…
The Native Plant Garden in Winter
The floor of the Sacramento Valley is mostly flat agricultural land veined with a network of creeks, sloughs, levees, and dams, all constructed to collect…