The Dry Garden: armed for conservation
If there’s one thing harder to get than a good garden hose, it’s a good nozzle to fit on it. Now that we’re in a drought, good nozzles we need. After testing 10, two leaked from the start and one exploded. The Dramm Revolver (above, in purple) performed best. Shopping for them offered an experience that felt more like going to a gun show than a garden center. For the full LA Times story, click on the image, which is by LA Times photographer Kirk McKoy.
July dry gardening events
WE CAN change the world … by treating it sensibly and artfully. What’s more, for Western gardeners, it’s fun. Click here for a full calendar of dry gardening events around Southern California. If you like the look of the Epilobium californica pictured below and blooming now in native gardens across the region with scarcely a drop of water, don’t miss Lili Singer’s “Look Ma, no lawn!” courses for the Theodore Payne Foundation.
Lili Singer of the Theodore Payne Foundation
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The Dry Garden: Watering native plants in summer, or not
WHILE most Southern Californian gardens require more water in summer, native gardens need less. In fact, they take so much less that if you haven’t watered a native plant to death, then you probably haven’t tried native gardening. It’s a rite of passage, closely followed by the second rite of withholding all summer water — and killing the plant that way.
This is not to suggest that native plants are hard to grow. They’re just easy to kill. The key to reaping their beauty and benefits without watering them to death is understanding summer dormancy.
For the rest of the story in this week’s Los Angeles Times column The Dry Garden, click here.…
The Dry Garden: Rethinking the parkway
THERE may be a drought and tough watering restrictions, but there has never been a better time to tackle the knottiest problem in Los Angeles landscaping: How to plant parkways? For the full column, go to the LA Times…
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden gone to the dogs?
MISSION STATEMENT: “The Santa Barbara Botanic Garden is an educational and scientific institution fostering stewardship of the natural world through inspired learning, rigorous scholarship, and premier displays. With an emphasis on plants native to California, the Garden advances the knowledge and understanding of plant life and provides a rewarding experience for visitors.”
And so, last April, the Garden Board of Trustees sacked its *Director of Nursery Operations and Horticultural Outreach but kept on a highly paid publicist. The upshot? Doggie Bagel Brunches.
*CORRECTION: An earlier take of this posting reported that the trustees sacked the Director of Horticulture. This is incorrect. The person sacked was formerly the Director of Horticulture but at the time of dismissal was Director of Nursery Operations and Horticultural Outreach. The text was amended accordingly.…
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