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. [...]
A funny thing happened yesterday when I went to hang up my laundry. I opened the lid of the washing machine, started pulling out clothes & laying them over my arm. I turned to walk to the clothesline and saw something out of the corner of my eye. Down in the washer on my clothes [...]
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 [...]
Lizard looks up at me from his perch underneath the Buckwheat. He is waiting for a tasty insect to come along. He is curious about this lady with her camera poking into the Buckwheat. The lizards have been very bold this year. Instead of running from me like usual, they are staying and regarding me, [...]
It is a foggy morning in Topanga Canyon. Squirrel chomps away on a walnut from his tree branch, while up above a Red-Tailed Hawk glides by screaming, screaming .. He’s been doing this for days now. “What is he saying?” asks Squirrel. “Wish I knew,” I reply. My first thought was: maybe Hawk is thirsty. [...]
“In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy.” –John C. Sawhill (1936-2000), president, The Nature Conservancy, 1990-2000 I walk to where the old wooden bridge used to be. I stop to watch the creek. It is barely moving. This being June, [...]
“When it comes to supplying food for other animals, no group of insects surpasses the moths and butterflies….. If we were forced to care for only one group of insects in our restored suburban landscape, we would do well to choose Lepidoptera” Doug Tallamy It’s June in Southern California, and Monkeyflowers cover the hillsides, [...]
May is underway, the month that is the bridge between Spring & Summer. In the Santa Monica Mountains, it is a month of vibrant color. The hillsides are bejeweled in blooms of yellow, orange, pink, white, purple & blue. Flowers are strewn from here to there, seemingly at random, as if at the whim [...]
I had just refilled the humingbird feeder and was sitting down on my garden bench for a visit with my friends, the Anna’s Hummingbirds, when the outdoor washing machine finished. I got up and went to the clothesline to remove the already dry laundry before hanging the wet things. What a wonderful breeze today, I [...]
Trails. They take us on a journey from here to there, from beginning to end, from past to future.. Trails are the way we are able to observe wildlands. Whether they are trails made by rangers through Parklands or National Forest, they weave through the countryside inviting us to come along. Trails are not static, [...]
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