Our yard is alive with wildlife this spring, so thought I would post some photos of the critters and a few native plants they're especially attracted to. The insects attract a host of larger insects and in the chain of life, they in turn attract a rich bird and lizard population that feeds on them …
Sustainable landscaping: Some tips…
Wondering how you can do your landscaping and yard work in a more gentle-on-the-earth and sustainable way? Janet Hartin, horticulture advisor and author with the U of California, has given over 1000 talks on sustainable landscape topics, and our local horticulture group was one of them last …
Native Bees and Other Wildlife Find Our Home
What a joy this spring to walk around our yard here in Southern California - a former lawn now full of native and other wildlife-attracting plants. The native bees have arrived in higher numbers, challenging the busy honeybees on our blooming ceanothus and lavender. Our resident Anna's hummingbird …
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Our Vital Pollinators: Birds, Bats, Bees and Butterflies
Pollinators - birds, bats, bees and butterflies - are critical. They pollinate over 200,000 of the world’s flowering plants, including 80% of our food plants. The genetic material they transfer allows seeds to form, which continue the species. Kurt Leushner, a popular professor at the …
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Seek Local Native Plants for Cold (and Hot) Tolerance
"One of the advantages of growing local native plants is that the plants from your immediate vicinity are well adapted to our climate's yearly fluctuations and can take those rare days with winter low temperatures and high temperatures in the sumners" - Bart O'Brien, RSABG Here in California …
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Favorite Natives: Hardy, Dramatic Manzanitas
Manzanitas (arctostaphylos) are one of my favorite native plants. Their reddish bark offers a striking contrast to their green leaves, which look healthy even when temps start soaring. Very drought tolerant, they grow well in the West as long as you don't overwater them or fertilize them. The four …
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