Solano

Your peripatetic blogger has been in the desert for the last month enjoying all the beauty that the desert provides. A favorite spot that keeps drawing us back is Joshua Tree National Park. The stark beauty and vastness of the over 800,000 acres casts a mystical spell.

Recently, a Los Angeles Times article suggested planting coast live oaks (Quercus agrifolia) as fire-resistant trees for landscaping after the Southern California wildfires.

Halfway around the world on the island of Okinawa, Japan, is the tropical version of Victoria, BC's glorious Butchart Gardens. It is called the Tropical Dream Center, a 6-hectare garden housing several greenhouses, countless exotic plants and fruit trees, and approximately 2,000 orchids.

Tis that time of year To look back and remember Projects done or not.

I recently discovered a plant buried underneath a shrub on my hillside. It survived these last three years in a small clay pot that was only half-filled with soil! The plant was not in very good shape, as you could well imagine.

I was cleaning the house recently and ran across a book on water. The title is Water in Plain Sight. I'm not sure how I acquired it maybe at the last Master Gardener Plant Exchange. But it came at a perfect time for me to read.

As winter begins, it provides an opportunity to assess what is working in the garden and what isn't, including whether and how plants should be pruned, moved, or removed. Now that many plants have lost their leaves or are dormant, it is easier to assess potential edits to the garden.

For years I thought this tree at our seasonal pond, was a Brazilian pepper (Schinus terebinthifolia). Finally, I decided to look more closely into its identity. A Brazilian pepper is, of course, one of the topmost invasive species, mostly where there is plenty of water, like Florida and Texas.

I have been on fire mitigation detail all summer long around my place. Those of you who know my place know that my house along with the 2 other houses on the property are surrounded by trees.

In June, 2024, I wrote a blog about a magnificent old Prickly Pear Opuntia basilaris cactus garden located in the Pea Adobe Regional Park, just west of Vacaville, CA https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=60014.