Did you have to read William Butler Yeats when you were in school? I can’t recall too many things I had to read in school and can still remember, but this poem continues to be one of my favorites: Photo:…

My gardening friend John Whittlesey, of Canyon Creek Nursery outside of Oroville, is working on a landscape design job in the Stonyford area. He wrote to me in mid-February describing his experience of driving…

“I like to think they are shy,” David Walther, co-owner with his wife Cathy, of Spring Fever Nursery in Yankee Hill tells me, speaking of his beloved hellebores. “Many varieties of hellebores have flowers that face downward because as winter…

It’s mid-February, and even in the colder sections of the North State the time is now for planning and even planting your spring and summer vegetable seeds and starts – inside and out. On Feb. 15, I hosted a special…

Spring is around the corner!

To help you get ready, on Monday, Feb. 15, from 8 - 9 p.m., I will host a special edition of Northstate Public Radio’s I-5 LIVE! specifically to discuss and answer questions about your spring vegetable/edible…

Wow – How about that rain and snow? And more is on the way. Which is wonderful for our plants, soils and watersheds, but when it comes in long stretches of gray days, it can play havoc with my mood…

How’s the pruning going for you?

I’ve just finished pruning my ‘Pink Lady’ apple and ‘Santa Rosa’ plum trees. I am still working on the roses and grapes, but the fruit trees are done. It went pretty well this year –…

The (blessed) rains (and snows) have come again to the North State and my garden rain gauge has measured 4.2 inches of rain this month. My rain barrels are full to overflowing, and this harvest gives me a small but…

Camellias - also known as the Queen of Winter Flowers because almost all varieties of the genus bloom from late fall through late spring - are for many gardeners synonymous with history, beauty and refinement. These flowering evergreen shrubs or…

Vertical gardening is any gardening that goes up and makes use of vertical space rather than using just the flat surface of the landscape. Vines growing up a nearby tree or ferns growing out of a rocky embankment are natural…

Marilynn Jennings is a woman on a journey - a journey with a mission to bring a public labyrinth to the North State. The Chico Community Labyrinth Project (CCLP) is a local initiative to build a permanent, centrally-located labyrinth at…

Look up the word “succulent” in the dictionary and as an adjective you will find something like: juicy, thick and fleshy; from the Latin succus, meaning “juice.” The designation “succulent” describes any plant that “stores water against times of drought…

As a person who visits gardens large and small, fabulous and fantastic as part of what I do, I find it really easy - frustratingly easy - to fall into a trap of garden envy and discontent. Maybe my garden…

Fall is the time to plant trees in the North State and a special edition of In a North State Garden aired this past Thursday, October 22nd, specifically discussing choosing, planting, and caring for trees in your North State garden. Two…

Northstate Public Radio - KFPR 88.9 FM Redding, CA and KCHO 91.7 FM Chico, CA is in the midst of their Fall 2009 Membership Drive and the theme of the drive is: Branching Out! During the drive, regular programming is replaced…

Water. One of the basic elements without which we cannot survive. Pretty much the same is true for our gardens. While the general perception is that we as residents of the North State have plenty of water – good, clean…

Late summer in the garden is lovely. It’s cool (er), it’s gentle, it’s more measured and yet every bit as colorful, every bit as rewarding as the garden in summer or spring. The evocative slanting light and knowledge that winter…