The Dry Garden: I should

 

In a crowded world, original observations are few. One of mine is that beets taste good with everything — provided that you like beets. Another is that the good people of Los Angeles might be struck dumb if denied the phrase “you should,” with a close second being, “you shouldn’t.” … Instead of recommending that you do as I do this week, it seemed marginally less bossy simply to impart a few of the things that I am currently telling myself to do. Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden in the Los Angeles Times.

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The Dry Garden: Mar Vista is groovy, too

The Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase turns 3 on April 30. More than 80 homes will be open to the public. Twenty garden designers will be on hand to discuss landscapes that save water and power. Thirteen homes will have their solar power installers there to explain the ins and outs of leasing or buying panels. It’s a safe bet that there will be some young capitalists seizing on the influx of an estimated 2,000 people to sell lemonade. Also expect a few glad-handers, because this project of the Mar Vista Community Council is a honey pot for politicians. It’s genuine community action and it’s insanely popular. Click here to keep reading The Dry Garden column on a miracle of community organizing in Los Angeles.…

The Dry Garden: Not cool

The most common mistake bruited about Los Angeles is that it’s in a desert. It’s not. It’s in one of five of the world’s Mediterranean climate zones, which means that it has a largely temperate but dry climate with winter rain and rainless summers. That said, last Monday, we got a taste of what really living in a desert is like. Santa Ana winds out of the high desert of the Great Basin drove temperatures to 113F in downtown Los Angeles. If your garden wasn’t stressed, you probably don’t have one. Click here for this week’s Dry Garden column in the LA Times on how to irrigate in Southern California during the October-December Santa Ana season.…

The Dry Garden: Orb weavers

In the oldie but greatie department, The Dry Garden this week reprises a 2005 foray by two leading entomologists through the haunts of the most common garden and  household spiders of Southern California. For those who didn’t get snared the first time, and who, like me, love spiders, click here. Or to find Dry Garden events for September, click here. Or for information about the Spider Pavilion at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which opens September 26, click here.…

The Dry Garden: Vertical waste

Detail of a "Woolly Pocket" (actually recycled plastic) at the SmogShoppe vertical garden in Culver City in summer of 2010. Normally drought tolerant succulents require routine irrigation in a mouldering setting. Photo: Emily Green

They say you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but I’ve never wanted to catch flies. Moreover, as borrowed phrases go, I far prefer, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, sit by me.” And so, I issued an invitation: If you are skeptical about the vogue for vertical gardens, sit by me.

A few smart people from the worlds of gardening and landscape architecture took the chair. Here’s what they had to say.

Click here to keep reading this week’s ‘Dry Garden’ in the Los Angeles  Times.

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