Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens, by Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook, UC Press, 2007, 352 pages, $27.50 www.ucpress.edu The decades-long drought is definitely over. Though we still have to cope with the past … Read more
The Landscaping Ideas of Jays: A Natural History of the Backyard Restoration Garden, by Judith Larner Lowry, UC Press, 2007, 292 pages, $24.95 www.ucpress.edu Most people don’t think of restoration gardening as an option for city dwellers. The plants that … Read more
Ask anyone who gardens with California natives to name a good, comprehensive book on that subject and you’ll always get the same answer: Marjorie Schmidt’s Growing California Native Plants. In fact, this has been the one and only broad, … Read more
Think of the western scrub jay: screeching, assertive, a bully and glutton at backyard bird feeders. But also, as Judith Larner Lowry has noticed in her West Marin yard, caching acorns, bay nuts, and other seeds, many more than the birds could ever hope to recover. Given that these seeds can’t move uphill on their own, we owe our oak-studded hillsides in part to the forethought, and forgetfulness, of this very familiar bird. Lowry’s advice? Sit back and let a few of our local jays’ missed meals take root.
The newly fledged Forrest Deaner Native Plant Garden in the Benicia State Recreation Area has the distinction of being the second public garden in the Bay Area to focus exclusively on California native plants (the first is the Regional Parks … Read more
It’s no longer a secret to readers of this magazine that native plant gardens can look as beautiful as those stocked with showy exotics, while at the same time providing habitat for native insects and birds and conserving water and … Read more
The Regional Parks Botanic Garden, in Tilden Regional Park, is a 10-acre landscape of plants native to California. The garden includes ten sections corresponding to ten geographic regions of the state, all woven into a beautiful naturalistic landscape of trees, … Read more
Suggestions for how gardeners can help prevent the spread of the pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death.
Native Treasures: Gardening with the Plants of California, by M. Nevin Smith, UC Press, 2006, 288 pages, $24.95 www.ucpress.edu It’s almost an embarrassment of riches for native plant enthusiasts: two comprehensive new books on gardening with California natives published in … Read more
”Karl Linn spent his lifetime bringing people together in community, in an urban setting, in nature,” says Carole Bennett-Simmons, project coordinator for the Peralta Community Gardens, one of five Berkeley projects built by the prominent landscape architect, social justice activist, … Read more
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
