Green—in Beverly Hills?
My grandmother’s adage “Use it up, wear it out, make it do” might not seem like a mantra that most of Beverly Hills would adopt. But award the c…
Topics: Perspectives
Garden Allies: Braconid Wasps
Several wasp families include species that attack aphids. The small, non-stinging wasps in the family Braconidae include aphid parasitoids, as well as…
It’s My Garden, and I’ll Try If I Want To!
We are all beginners, because our curiosity pushes us from one stage of gardening into new and unfamiliar territory, and, suddenly, we start learning …
A Recipe for Seeing
A garden is a setting for what can be an intensely personal aesthetic and even spiritual experience; in fact, this is the intended result of a well-de…
Houses of Los Angeles
The purpose of Sam Watters’s monumental tome was to document the grand estates built in the Los Angeles area between 1885 and 1935. In the…
The Arboretum Library
With the rapid expansion of the internet, are botanic garden libraries still active and relevant? Indeed they are! Here is just one of them, serving t…
Rootball Treatment for Optimal Tree Growth
The biggest problem in selecting quality trees is the character of the root balls; girdling roots threaten the ability of the trees to properly establ…
Garden Allies: Amphibians
Frogs, toads, and salamanders are not the first creatures that might come to mind when thinking about garden allies, but they do eat heaps of insects …
Gardens Tell the Other Story of Alcatraz
For more than a century, gardens were an important part of everyday life on Alcatraz. Planted by successive waves of island inhabitants, from soldiers…