The Drought-Defying California Garden
California is heading into its fifth year of drought. At the close of 2015, many climate experts were talking about a “Godzilla” El Niño warming…
Topics: Environment
Garden Allies: Galls
If I had not chosen to study flower-visiting insects in graduate school I almost certainly would have become a cecidologist, one who studies plant galls.…
Water for Wildlife
[sidebar]Visit Wild Toad Nursery for more information about designing water features for wildlife.[/sidebar] There is no more important time to install a water feature than during…
The Big Shift
This is the second installment in our four-part water-sensitive landscape design (WSLD) series. Over the past few decades, earth science knowledge has blossomed. There have…
Compost Tea Resource Guide
Compost tea is a powerful tool used in biological growing methods to establish and bolster strong populations of beneficial microbes in the soil and on…
The Summer-Dry Project
Our climate is changing. We may not like climate change but as gardeners, we are well suited to deal with it. By observing our gardens…
Garden Allies: Myriapods
In case you are a bit fuzzy on high school biology, the phylum Arthropoda (joint-footed) shares several notable features: exoskeletons of chitin, segmented bodies, and…
Tolerant Beauty
I met James and Mary Collard when I gave a talk on colorful water-wise landscapes at the San Diego Botanic Garden. The Collards lived in…
A Garden of Exceptional Palms
The Lakeside Palmetum is beginning to grow into prominence three decades after its founding on the shores of Lake Merritt. The Lakeside Palmetum’s botanical collection…