Highwood Drive, Year Four
A young native garden was left largely to do its own thing during the fourth year, October 2024-2025, living on Baltimore’s Highwood Drive. Sorting through snapped images for this year’s photo essay served as a reminder of how much time since January 20th has been redirected into political activism. So pardon the weeds.
Here July coneflowers and spirea are in flower while the rounded aster and spiring Muhly grass will come into their own in late summer, early fall.
Click here to be taken to a photo essay capturing the Before-After continuum from lawn to water-harvesting native garden.
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Because, gazing
This series charts the conversion of a sloping 12-feet-wide by 36-feet-long long concrete yard to a garden.Weed cloth always fails
One of the few things that weed cloth is good for is growing weeds. Fugitive dust settling in the gravel or wood mulch topping soon creates a potting mix perfect for rye grass, burclover or whatever seeds might blow in.Avoiding pollution, drought’s evil twin
Drought has rewritten accepted orthodoxy about yard care. Among the things to do: water less often, more deeply. Rake. Compost. Squarely on the list of things not to do: fertilize, apply pesticides or use leaf blowers. Advice from a veteran garden writer about dry season good practice.Third year in the garden
Successes, failure, a few good sources and seemingly endless engineering challenges in building an Altadena orchard that harvests local rainwater. keep looking »North American Native Plant Societies
After the lawn
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