Learning to See the Beauty of Nature in Our Gardens
I discovered that I miss lizards. The other day I was visiting the Top of Topanga Overlook, a park owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. This was my first step back in Topanga since I set out travelling the Central Coast of CA some 4 mos ago! I walked through the small native garden [...]
Yesterday I was enjoying the peace of my garden space, watching as hummingbirds fought over the feeder, buzzing past my ears, so loud and so quick. I got out my camera and took pictures of my hummingbird friends. They are the best part of my Topanga garden and have given me so many happy moments. [...]
One of the prominent players in the Southwest Native Garden is the Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia littoralis). One of many different kinds of cactus seen throughout the Chaparral, it is a valuable part of the wildlife garden, offering both food and refuge to wildlife. Bees enjoy the bright yellow cactus blossoms, as do hummingbirds. Birds [...]
After the rain, the world sparkles. Standing on my front steps, the springtime air is heavy with the fragrance of citrus blossoms. Anna’s Hummingbird looks down at me from the grapefruit tree. “Click click,” he says. He must have survived the unusually chilly nights using Torpor. My gravel driveway is scattered with sawdust and [...]
It was a cool, misty morning and I was up a bit earlier than usual taking my morning walk with my dog. A “click, click, whir” caught my attention from far up above. I knew it to be the sound of Anna’s Hummingbirds (Calypte anna). I looked for them and discovered they were dancing in [...]
The team at our sister blog, Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens, has been posting about Native Plant alternatives to commonly used plants. So far there has been: Plant This, Not That: California Natives Edition Plant This, Not That: New Jersey Natives Edition and most recently Plant This, Not That: Connecticut Natives Edition I thought I would take [...]
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I have a lot to be grateful for these days. I want to say thank you to Carole for inviting me to post now every other Thursday. I am very excited to post more often and mid-week. I thought I would do a series of posts about my most reliable natives that [...]
My dear wildlife gardening friends, Sometimes we have to make tough choices. A favorite woodpecker tree must come down because it is dangerously close to the house; native plants have to be edited because they are too happy in our gardens; or, our gardening budgets won’t stretch to include everything we want to accomplish! I’ve [...]
…or “What I did on my summer vacation.” Sometimes you have to leave your garden and venture out into the world to seek garden inspiration. Around the end of August, I traveled to Indianapolis, Indiana, (also Zone 5) for the Garden Writers Symposium, which included garden tours. As I began to review my photos, I [...]
Today’s post from my beautiful wildlife garden is more a pictorial taste treat rather than a descriptive meal. As we all know, it’s hummingbird migration season and the hummingbirds in my yard are on a mission to fuel up their bodies before the long flight. I’ve been blessed with a longer than normal summer season [...]
I’m so glad that I’m not a bird. Or anything else that must migrate every year. There are so many unknowns when migrating – what will the weather be like; where will I find food, water and shelter; will I run into problems along the way; how will I find my way there and back; [...]
News from Team Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
