The Dry Garden: Season’s gleanings

Posted on | December 10, 2010 | No Comments

We can’t all be Virginia Paca, the gardener profiled on this blog in October who grows food and donates it to food banks. But this winter those of us with orange trees laden with fruit might take a page from the book of that Pasadenan. What more fitting holiday activity could there be than to glean our home orchards and donate fresh fruit to local pantries?

As winter closes in, that fruit very well may be oranges. It is pure serendipity that an activity that feeds people is also good for the orange trees.

Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times.

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From the department of life

Posted on | December 9, 2010 | No Comments

Phytoplankton bloom around the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. Source: NASA's Earth Observatory. Click on the image to keep reading from the space agency about how the region's massive phytoplankton blooms sustain valuable fish.

Category: Pacific Ocean
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The week that was, 11/28-12/4/2010

Posted on | December 5, 2010 | No Comments

The marshes of Plum Island Estuary are among those predicted by scientists to submerge during the next century under conservative projections of sea-level rise. Location: Rowley, Massachusetts. Photo: Matthew Kirwan / US Geological Survey

Coastal wetlands provide critical services such as absorbing energy from coastal storms, preserving shorelines, protecting human populations and infrastructure, supporting commercial seafood harvests, absorbing pollutants and serving as critical habitat for migratory bird populations. — Many coastal wetlands likely to disappear this century, US Geological Survey press release about Limits on the adaptability of coastal marshes to rising sea level, a newly published report on climate change modeling in Geophysical Research Letters, December 1, 2010
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Click here to keep reading The week that was
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The Dry Garden: Lawn killer’s tip sheet

Posted on | December 3, 2010 | No Comments

Photo credit: Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Most of us know that the environmental toll of ornamental lawn in Southern California makes cigarettes look politically correct. Still, removing a long-tended home lawn takes a meeting of conviction and know-how. The steely inspiration will have to be yours. This column is intended only as a lawn killer’s tip sheet.

Click here to keep reading about graminicide in the Los Angeles Times.

Category: The Dry Garden
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December fully loaded

Posted on | December 1, 2010 | No Comments

Wreath-making at Tree of Life Nursery

December’s short days have a short calendar for dry garden events in Southern California, but the selection is as twinkling as anything the solstice season can offer. Editor’s picks include classes by Barbara Eisenstein, Carol Bornstein and Lili Singer at the Theodore Payne Foundation along with James Kenney at the California Native Plant Society. Enjoy!

Category: events
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