Forget the Hearts and Chocolates; February is for Pruning!

The winter holidays might steal the spotlight as the season for sparkling wine, but we firmly believe that summer is where it’s at. (That said, there’s no wrong time of year to open a bottle of bubbly, if you ask us!) When the temperatures rise and we’re spending more time than usual in the sun (slathered in SPF, of course), we don’t crave a heavy IPA, potent bourbon-based cocktail, or powerful red wine. Instead, we find ourselves gravitating toward lower-ABV, ultra-refreshing (and hydrating!) spritzes. 

Biological controls work best when it is warm and activity is highest. The more pests the more there is for the control to eat and treat.

It’s a glorious July Saturday. The sun is showering this corner of the world with warmth and optimism. The earth’s bounty and human toil, and some craic, surrounds us, and you can hear the stream nearby and the birds in the trees. There is abundance and productivity and nature and community and generosity.

The Russia-Ukraine grain deal that has been critical to keeping global food prices stable and preventing famine is currently in tatters. On July 17, 2023, Russia said it was pulling out of the year-old deal, which allowed shipments of grains and other foodstuffs to travel past the Russian naval blockade in the Black Sea. And to make matters worse, over the next two days Russia bombed the Ukrainian grain port of Odesa, destroying over 60,000 tons of grain.

The weather events and weather patterns of recent years, like the “1000 year storm” in 2015 associated with Hurricane Joaquin, have left residents grappling with water management in their yards. On top of hurricanes, we also have dubbed the term “rain bombs,” storms that drop multiple inches of rain per hour, leaving yards and communities flooded and a mess to clean up. With some adjustments, we can help to manage this water better and create a functioning, aesthetically pleasing landscape.

Want to know how to get two distinct flavors from one plant? Well, the plant known as Coriandrum sativum can provide just that. C. sativum is commonly cultivated as a low growing, vegetative herb known as cilantro that adds a savory flavor to many foods and dishes. However, not everyone knows that the seed produced by C. sativum is commonly referred to as coriander. Coriander is used whole or often ground as a spice to provide delectable flavor to many traditional and newer fusion-type meals. The herb and the spice come from the same plant, just different parts. For this reason, C. sativum is referred to with two different common names.

I’ve made it clear in this blog that Winter is my least favorite season. Therefore, I always seek winter-blooming flowers to raise my spirits. However, before the yellow-flowered daffodils bloom to give me hope that Spring is coming, I rely on the soft-textured drooping gold threadlike leaves of golden threadleaf sawara cypress (Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Filifera Aurea’).

The English-born Capon, a doctor of botany from the University of Chicago who went on to be a professor at California State University, Los Angeles for 30 years, has since retired, leaving time for the revamping of “Botany for Gardeners,” the bestselling title for its publisher, Timber Press, in the U.S. and England.Not only did Capon write it; he illustrated it, too, and even took the plant photographs that further bring the text to life. Capon is also a lifelong gardener, though images of his own place never appear in the pages.“Botany for Gardeners” was born as a textbook out of lecture notes for a botany class Capon taught for many years to non-science students, so it’s thorough—but not the kind of dense, full-fledged botany text that will scare you away.In fact (even 20 years later), it just keeps drawing me back in, especially for tidbits like these. Did you know:That litmus, the dye used to indicate acidity and alkalinity, is

I have grown a lot of viburnums over the years, and have pruned them at various times of year for one reason or another. Usually viburnums need relatively little pruning, assuming you planted the right cultivar in the right-sized space (for example, not ‘Mariesii’ among the doublefiles, shown, but ‘Watanabei’ if you only had a smallish area). Even the lightest form of pruning, the removal of spent flowers called deadheading, isn’t needed with most viburnums, since what you want is fruit after the flowers (unlike all that deadheading with lilacs, for instance, to prevent messiness).POOR PLANNING TO BLAMEMost of the pruning I’ve had to do on viburnums was because I didn’t leave enough room for the plant to reach its eventual size, and poor planning (meaning my impatience to have a filled-in garden) caught up with me in time. I have cut several viburnums to the ground or the

Since the book “Planting in a Post-Wild World” came out in 2015, co-authored by Claudia West with Thomas Rainer, I’ve been gradually studying their ideas and starting to have some light bulbs go off, on how to be inspired to put plants together in the ways that nature does, in layered communities.Claudia joined me on the July 17, 2017 edition of my public-radio show and podcast to about some of the practical, tactical aspects of plant community-inspired designs that we can app

Now before you go thinking dirty thoughts about my wood frog friends up in the top photo, who by the way quack like ducks to my ear, know this:They are simply engaged in amplexus (doesn’t that sound tame and scientific?), in which the male (in this species the smaller frog) clasps the larger female around the back. This goes on for some time, and they don’t seem to be one bit shy. The embrace began right out at poolside, where 15 other frogs were sunning themselves, including the few in the background of the photo below. Eventually the

AS ANDRE SO CORRECTLY AND MODESTLY pointed out to me, nobody draws birds with the precision he does. Watch out, David Sibley, our dear Andre Jordan is nipping (chirping?) at your heels.