The Dry Garden: Matilija poppies
Two unrelated and equally magical things happen in Southern California in late May and early June. By night, courting mockingbirds sing all night. By day, the Matilija poppies begin their all-too-fleeting bloom. The shame is, while most everyone who sleeps becomes aware of the mockingbird’s song, not everyone with sight will encounter the Matilija, which is, without rival, the biggest, silliest, loveliest and most poignant of California wildflowers.
Click here to keep reading this week’s Dry Garden column in the Los Angeles Times.…
Sight and understanding
In November, 2009, with support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Los Angeles Audubon, the students, parents and staff at Leo Politi Elementary School planted a native garden at the Pico Union campus. Last week, botanical studies of the plants drawn and colored by the students went on display in the school auditorium. If they look traced, and I took them for that in an earlier edition of this post, they’re not (please see Margot Griswold’s correction below). Rather, while the display and attitude of the plants in the drawings look like they owe a debt to professional illustrations, the studies by the children were made as part of a class in which the students grew, dissected and studied the plants. Then their eyes were guided along the minute conformations of plants that most of us never see. They were being taught to observe the species, then key …
North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
Garden blogs
