Mother’s Day is almost here and in our culture it’s a traditional day for planting out heat-loving summer fruit, vegetables and herbs – your tomatoes, peppers, and basil, for instance. Likewise your heat-loving summer annuals, including the non-hardy begonias, impatience,… Continue Reading
May is upon us and everything’s coming up Roses (and poppies and strawberries and peonies and clematis and alliums and more) – even with the windy weather of late we are on the brink of summer and all that it… Continue Reading
April in the garden is so electric with life, renewed growth and colorful bloom that for me it swings back and forth between intoxicating and over-stimulating – for my eyes, my ears, my head. Our cups – as they say… Continue Reading
Winter can mean rain or snow, wind or stillness, sun or darkness. But in the valley and foothill portions of our region – winter also means ferns. From the first late fall rains through to the heat of summer gardens… Continue Reading
With the onset of winter rains come the winter gifts of mushrooms. I have found them fascinating since first moving to Northern California and being amazed at the incredible quantity and diversity of these mysterious organisms. With a mushroom fairs… Continue Reading
Where is it? I’ve been looking for more than a month – given the diminishing hours of daylight, the cooling temperatures, the increasing humidity – it should be there! It was here last year at this same time, I reason.… Continue Reading
In the tumult that is day-to-day life and the endless to-do list from home and work, I consider my garden a refuge. It is the place to which I retreat to hear myself, to think more clearly, to smell the… Continue Reading
July arrives in the North State Garden with relative ease this year. We’ve had a bit of true heat, but not what it likely will be. I like the early-rising, late-setting sun and the arc of the summer days. Spring’s… Continue Reading
Looking back at the whirlwind of activity that is March/April and May in my annual gardening journal, it is always with some relief that I come to the relative peace of June in the North State Garden. Most plants are… Continue Reading
I recently had the good fun of accompanying a visiting native bee specialist to a few of our local gardens. He was looking for one or two area gardens to monitor over time for bee activity and behavior. All of… Continue Reading
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