EcoGardenista

In the winter of 2024, we  embarked on our latest native plant project: creating "Birdland" in the backyard.  No, not the jazz club but perhaps something just as musical as one!   Our dream is to plant every kind of native California fruit, nut, berry and seed we can possibly fit into our small suburban backyard, which backs onto a seasonal creek. Adult birds thrive on these plants. Even more importantly, the native plants feed insects, including caterpillars, that feed baby birds, and many other species besides. Living in California, one of the most biodiverse places on earth, there are so many native plants to choose from (over 8,000). In order to grow the plants that feed our local ecosystems, we entered our zip code in Calscape.org and 580 plant options popped up.  We took a look at the plant options, and the various areas in our garden and made a plan for each.   The first area next to the garage had a lot of ivy, so we tackled it by chopping th...

The California "Moonglow" poppies have ceded the stage and the California Fuchsias are having their moment. Known also as Epilobium canum, these have the common name of 'fuchsia' as the flower form is reminiscent of the imported plant by that name.   These plants are powerhouses in the garden, blooming from late July into October, and feeding White Lined Sphinx moth caterpillars (in my sister-in-law's garden) and a variety of bees. I had originally planted just one of these plants to try it out, and as soon as it bloomed, a hummingbird appeared. After drinking from its meager 12 blossoms, the hummingbird zoomed over to me, hovered in front of my face as if to say "plant more!"  I wound up adding 5 more and am so glad that I did. The hummingbirds visit this frequently and it is a favorite with the bees. Even late in the day the blossoms seem to glow and draw a lot of comments from neighbors and other passer-by. A troop of Girl Scouts toured the garden one...

  Back in February I scattered some California native Moonglow Poppy seeds along the front border. I hoped they'd bloom in time for the April 2 Growing Natives Garden Tour, but with the colder weather, they didn't actually bloom until early May. But oh what a beautiful show - well worth the wait!   The poppies lit up the border, and provided visual interest running parallel to the Catalina Perfume (Ribes viburnifolium) that is still maturing.  Their luminescence really lit up this area that is dappled shade all morning and full sun all afternoon and evening.  As I looked closely at the poppies, I noticed tiny bees that I hadn't seen in the garden before.  I believe they are Arizona Small Carpenter Bees, but I'm waiting for confirmation from iNaturalist.org. But the important thing is that, with each new element I add to the garden, a new species emerges and seems to desperately need these precious native plant resources.  It feels wonderful to see the ...

The land we live on is a small patch of coastal scrub in San Carlos, California. When we moved here in 2007, it looked like a picture from a magazine, with Japanese maples, Chilean jasmine, French (via China) roses, all kept in a tidy corral by an English Box hedge (from southern Europe).  But the garden was just that, a picture. A "still life." The plants were picture perfect, tidy and pruned. They would have fed the ecosystems in their native countries, but here, far from the insects they co-evolved with, they were simply pretty objects for us to look at.  Our gardener came and meticulously clipped the plants, mowed the lawn and aerated it. He clipped seed heads from our Mexican sage and kept things looking, well, picture perfect.   Before: Our garden as a "still life" picture, with imported  plants,  providing no food for local ecosystems. But as it turns out, this picture has a very steep price.  My husband and I were so busy working that it did no...

In January of 2021, we removed our lawn and started planting drought tolerant California native plants. These native plants co-evolved with other native species over thousands of years. In the process, they became the only source of food for the caterpillars that feed baby birds, and serve as the foundation for the bulk of our local ecosystem. We were inspired by Doug Tallamy's lecture, "Nature's Best Hope" (also a NY Times bestselling book) You can read more about this in my welcome post, and watch his video here:  https://bit.ly/Tallamy-CAPlants   Fast forward to today, with unexpected rains that provided a reminder that the fall native California planting season is just around the corner. This inspired me to do a bit of weeding in between the showers and start to imagine the next steps for each garden area.  Since we started over a year and a half ago, the  front yard has been transformed from lackluster lawn to four garden 'rooms':  1) The Courtyard Garden...

A recent trip to Sydney and the nearby Blue Mountains region with the family provided the opportunity to explore the ways that Australians are promoting habitat gardening and biodiversity in this region.   We stayed at a lovely AirBnb in Leura, NSW, in the Blue Mountains. Most of this area is a  massive wildlife reserve and is rich with biodiversity. The variety of birdsong, especially in the mornings, was amazing. Here are a few of the ones that we captured on camera, though we could hear hundreds more. They are the most active before dawn and at dusk, so images were hard to capture. If you go, I highly recommend staying in a place that has an adjoining wild space so you can fully experience the wildlife here. Grandson, Charlie, took a picture of this red and green King Parrot in the back yard: I jumped up in the middle of a conversation in the living room so I could capture this image of the Eastern Spinebill in a (non-native) flowering quince. This bird returned to th...