I’m experiencing a love-hate relationship with the rains as they continue, with so few dry days in between for the outdoor activities that are such a big part of my life. I’ve measured more than 30…
The Flickers have now left my oak woodlands and moved to higher elevations in the Coast Ranges; I’ll look forward to seeing them again when we’re camping in the forests this summer. Meanwhile, the Tree…
The Natural World has been my touchstone; a certain intimacy with the land and other creatures that always rings honest and true. When I think about why I like to garden it always comes back…
A number of animals store acorns for later consumption; notably the Acorn Woodpeckers with their ‘granary trees’. They place each acorn just so, packed tightly into a hole, and then tend to their store regularly,…
I was lucky enough to be outside at just the right time about a week ago when I noticed a lot of activity around a Toyon – the most spectacular Toyon I’ve ever seen, and…
At the end of the dry season my garden is just that; at a glance many of the native plants look dry and dead but once you look more closely, there’s always a bit of…
Some of my favorite annual wildflowers are the gilias, and the whole genus is pretty much deer-proof. I like globe gilia (Gilia capitata) with its round heads of small blue flowers; these grow wild on…
It’s a beautiful thing to watch the deer, a number of the does heavily pregnant, browsing at the meadow’s edge, and not at all disturbed by the rainfall. They’re eating the clovers and vetches in…
Now that fall is soon upon us, and hopefully the rainy season as well, the time is perfect to plant California natives. Many gardeners have issues and great frustration with the deer interfering with their…
A Paradise ruled by Queen Calafia Two major human caused environmental disasters drastically changed the natural world of a land that was long ago described as a mythical island; a terrestrial paradise ruled by a…
If you are working with old seed you can do a simple viability test before sowing. Use a damp paper towel, lay ten seeds onto one-half of the towel, fold the other half over, and keep moist.…
The days are still warm and we’re all hoping, once again, that this will be an El Niño year with ample rainfall and a good snow pack in the Sierras. The days are noticeably shorter,…
The flowers of a plant are designed for the purpose of making seeds. If a flower is pollinated, then fertilization can take place, and a seed develops in the ovary of the plant. This is…
Some seeds have built-in mechanisms that prevent germination until ideal conditions are met. Even when perfect conditions are met, some of the ‘seed bank’ of a species will not germinate. They will wait, often camouflaged…
The term Ecology is a relatively new field of study in the world of Biology; it was coined in 1866 by the German scientist, Ernst Haeckel (1834 – 1919). There are now two major subdivisions;…