Generosity of Nature

/
Generosity of Nature

Every year I bring the inspiration from my annual trip the Eastern Sierra back to my own gardens, and try to create on a small scale a reminder of this generosity and strictness. To create a natural feeling in the garden, it’s important to resist the temptation to plant one specimen of each of your favorite plants. Instead, repeat the most successful and best suited plants. This way you can create the same feeling of ordered wildness we loved in the mountains.

Read More

Newborn Spring Meadow at GFE

/
Newborn Spring Meadow at GFE

Last fall during the Get Up! program, one of the class projects was the removal of our small turf lawn. Although only 9 feet by 12 feet, our lawn demonstration has become obsolete in the 21st century. Even a small turf lawn requires more water than we want to commit. After some experimentation, we decided on a water-wise meadow as a replacement for the lawn area.

Read More

Helichrysum Eradication

/
Helichrysum Eradication

Snuggled into the border of the Garden for the Environment, by the corner of 7th and Lawton, a glowing mound of lemon-yellow, wooly foliage covered the ground for many years. The bad news is that licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare) has been listed officially as an invasive exotic, and no matter how useful it may be in the garden, it is no longer an appropriate plant for environmentally savvy gardeners to grow.

Read More

Fog City Gardener

/
Fog City Gardener

The mixed weather of June is over, and July and August in San Francisco are the months of fog, fog, and more fog. For gardeners, this means that just as gardens are really kicking into high gear in other parts of the country, and producing a year’s worth of warm season crops like corn, tomatoes, and melons, along with giant dahlias and roses, many San Francisco gardens have a letdown.

Read More

Spring Blooming Bulbs for Bay Area Climate Zones

/
Spring Blooming Bulbs for Bay Area Climate Zones

It’s too much to expect us to give up our tulips and crocuses “cold turkey.” Yet, this annual planting spree followed by throwing out the bulbs can’t last in a world were sustainability is the new byword. That’s why we need a substitute: beautiful, graceful spring flowering bulbs which are suited to our climate so that they can naturalize, returning year after year.

Read More

What's in a Name?

/
What's in a Name?

The names of plants are important. So you want a sage in your garden. Do you want one that is eight feet tall and drought tolerant with bright red winter flowers? Or do you want a plant that stays four inches tall, likes shade and moist soil, rewarding you with blue summer flowers? Or do you mean the culinary herb that is used in Tuscan bean soup, Salvia officinalis?

Read More

California Natives Show Off Their Winter Colors

/
California Natives Show Off Their Winter Colors

Many people, when they think about native plants, conjure up a vision of rangy, sparse, weedy looking shrubs. And sadly, many native plants have been set out around town in well-meant projects and then neglected, giving native gardening a bad name. But native plants, when well-cared for, can produce as many graceful, magical effects as plants from anywhere else on the planet.

Read More

Blessing of Rain

/
Blessing of Rain

December brought the blessing of rain, and a few cold nights; just enough to let the plants know that it is wintertime. In our microclimate, the year is like the proverbial snake eating its tail. Fall’s colorful leaves still persist as the first spring blossoms make a tentative trial. In just a few short weeks, we’ll see our first plum blossoms, and then the year will unfurl again, as it has so many times before.

Read More

Gardens with Good Bones

/
Gardens with Good Bones

There can be a special beauty in the winter garden. Cleared of last year’s growth, well-pruned, mulched and weeded, the garden in winter can still surprise and delight the eye. When a garden looks wonderful in midwinter, gardeners everywhere nod and say “that garden has good bones.”

Read More

Choosing Plants for the Border

/
Choosing Plants for the Border

For gardeners, this is a time for action. The ideal planting time for trees, shrubs, and perennials is now, with 5-7 cool, rainy months ahead. Plants set out as the rainy season begins can establish deep root systems before the stress of the first hot dry days, usually in May.

Read More