Yup. On Monday, I was in the back yard doing some pruning, when I heard an angry crow. Looking up to the power in the next door neighbors’ yard, I noticed a huge hawk trying to enjoy its lunch in peace with a crow incessantly harassing it. In addition to bugs, chickens, and plants, I am also a nerd about birds. I ran inside and grabbed my old camera. When I uploaded the photo on the computer to see it…
I know, I know, I shouldn’t be thinking about buying and adding more bare root fruit trees, since my yard is already crammed full, but it is hard to not collect one of everything, and even more so, after K shared some of her Spice Zee nectaplums last summer. Back in early July, K generously gave me a half-dozen Spice Zee fruits, even though she didn’t have much of a crop yet since the tree is only 3 years old….
Okay, maybe not tons, but at least 50 or 60 lbs. of Kiwis, is my best guess at this point. Although in past years, I have grumbled and griped a lot about the lack of pollination on my Kiwi vines, this year we have a bumper crop, and now that we have had a few cold snaps, it is time to begin harvesting. If I had to guess, I would say there are at least 500 kiwis on the female…
With the house being closed up so much in the winter months, it can smell stale or sometimes even worse, like our big dog has been in the house all day. However, I refuse to use chemical aerosol air fresheners. I know too many people that are sensitive to fragrance chemicals, and it may aggravate asthma or migraines. Twenty years ago, my husband showed me a really easy way to freshen the indoor air in the winter and fall. The…
The past couple of years I have been received lots of questions via email regarding how to prune Bababerry plants, a variety of everbearing raspberry that grows well in Southern California and other low chill – warm climates. Managing Baba raspberries is much the same as any other everbearing or fall bearing raspberry variety. Most folks are able to pick fruit the first year they buy and plant an everbearing raspberry, including Baba. That is not the case on summer bearing…
Happy New Year! Living in Southern California, we hardly get a break in the growing season, and Mid Winter often brings out some of first of the cool season blooms to my garden. One of my brand new, planted in September, reblooming irises sent up a spike just before Christmas and bloomed today. I was so tickled and surprised to have it bloom already that I had to share my delight. Irises are some of my favorite perennials. This red spotted…
Stapelia gigantea is a bizarre garden surprise every fall. The succulent plant has balloon shaped flower buds that grow and spill all over the porch every year just as October begins. Once the flowers begin to slowly unfurl, hairs appear on the star shaped flower’s petals. The flowers are the size of plate, about 10 inches across and actually pretty cool looking. Right now the first ones are just beginning to open. So what makes Stapelia gigantea so wicked? Its common…
* Iris Virus = A burning desire to learn everything there is about growing and caring for iris plants. A person with an iris virus reads tons of iris publications and surfs all of the known iris society web sites. The person with the virus may have just started growing irises, be an avid collector, or be an established grower/ hybridizer of irises. For me, it all started back in 1995, when a next door neighbor gave me two rhizomes…
Yes, you read that right: October is the start of the gardening season for those of us gardeners that happen to live in Southern California’s year round growing climate. For me personally, October is probably my busiest month for working in the garden. The scorching heat of summer and lack of rainfall make August and September the end of our local gardening season, with very few garden chores, other than things like dividing bearded irises. But by September, the last…
I had already planted the backyard gardens before we got our first dog back in 2000. Shortly after getting her, she began to drive me nuts with her incessant digging, trampling of tender plants, laying on others, and eating whatever she could reach off the tomatoes, berry bushes, and fruit trees. We loved that big sweet black Labrador, so of course she wasn’t going anywhere, but I also wanted my garden to thrive. I was at my wits end. Something…