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Another huge flowerbed! Or why to rip out more of your lawn

Posted on July 6, 2020 by Steve

You may have seen our post from last year about our huge flowerbed across half of the front yard. This year, we decided to complete the landscape by mirroring that addition across the central walkway to the other side of the yard. As I sit here on July 5th, I can say it’s been a […]

In praise of human-powered lawn tools

Posted on August 6, 2019 by Steve

I have the good fortune of working at home most days, and it’s great. But one downside is that many of my neighbors are fairly well-off retirees who hire professional gardeners to care for their lawns, and the noise is distracting! Mowers, weedeaters, lawn edgers, and leaf blowers — they all seem to use gasoline-powered […]

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It’s peak lupine time down at the American River

It’s peak lupine time down at the American River! 😍 Such a nice springtime treat. What are your favorite wildflowers where you are?
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#wildflowers #nature #americanriver #sacramento #fairoaks #lupine #spring

Looking for a little garden help! This apricot tre

Looking for a little garden help! This apricot tree has thrived for the four years it’s been in my garden, but this year some of the branches aren’t leafing out much, and I’m worried that it might have a disease. This is a somewhat troublesome spot, because there’s a large storm drain pipe a little over a foot under the tree, but it’s done so well in past years that I figured the roots had spread wide enough and were getting an appropriate amount of water. Do you think this is a disease, or is it likely something about the drainage in this site? Do you have any experience with diseases in apricot trees?
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#gardenhelp #apricot #sacramentogardening #tree #fruitgarden #plantdisease

Blooming in our garden this week. 💚 How is spri

Blooming in our garden this week. 💚 How is spring coming along where you are? We’re about to hit a week of temps in the 70s, and that’s gonna feel great! If you have any questions about these flowers, ask away in the comments!
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#spring #flowers #norcal #sacramentogardening #flowergardening

Junebug loves to just hang out wherever we are in

Junebug loves to just hang out wherever we are in the garden. Today, she discovered the little catmint clump and was obsessed!!
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#cat #catmint #ourgarden #sacramentogardening

That smile I always get when she slow dances with

That smile I always get when she slow dances with me. 😍💗 Yesterday was Santia’s birthday, and here are a few cute shots from recent months, including this sweet dance at our friends Amanda and Josh’s wedding. Happy birthday, Sweetheart! Here’s to another great year of dancing, hiking, loving, and of course, gardening! 💚

Happening right now 💚💚🌈💚💚. And man,

Happening right now 💚💚🌈💚💚. And man, we’ve had a lot of rain lately!
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#rainbow #sacramentogardening #norcalgardening #norcalweather #weather #springiscoming

Poor bananas don’t look so good this time of yea

Poor bananas don’t look so good this time of year! ❤️‍🩹 When winter is over, I have to trim off all the brown leaves, and then new growth starts from the center of each stem. This year, a late fall flower stalk is still active, so I’m leaving it on, hoping it may produce viable fruit. Normally, after flowering, the stem is dying, and it gets cut to the ground. But because this one flowered so late before the leaves turned brown, I am hoping that maybe it just wants to continue to develop fruit before it dies later this year. What do you think? Will it work?
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#tropical #tropicalgarden #sacramentogardening #norcalgardening #bananas #tropicalfruit #mygarden #zone9 #zone9b #zone9gardening

If you ever buy a tiny eucalyptus plant at a flowe

If you ever buy a tiny eucalyptus plant at a flower nursery, and the tag says it will be a shrub about 3 to 6 feet tall, don’t believe them! 😂 We’ve had this alleged shrub that really wants to be a 50-foot tall tree in our front yard for a few years. It was time to take it out and stop fighting its size with repeated topping. So we cut the limbs off, hooked the car up and pulled it over to ensure we were getting the stump out as well. I ended up not being confident that the straps would hold the tension, so I replaced them with a climbing rope, which worked well. Now, we have a pistache tree that we will put there for a more moderate-sized addition to the front landscape. Oh, and because we have a kid getting married in September and Santia is doing a lot of floral arranging, we decided to hang a bunch of the branches in the garage to dry 💚
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#eucalyptus #landscaping #trees #treeremoval #notashrub #sacramentogardening

Every year, I start some African daisies (Dimorpho

Every year, I start some African daisies (Dimorphotheca sinuata) from seed in September, often around my mother’s birthday (Sep 1st), which is a special remembrance, since she gave me my introduction to gardening, and she passed away far too young. Anyway, I planted some in the veggie garden barrels, and they’re taking over for color and joy as the winter veggies wear out. Do you have any garden routines, rituals or remembrances that you love to do most years? Let’s hear about them in the comments 💚
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#norcal #zone9 #zone9b #garden #gardens #gardening #mygarden #californiagardening #sacramentogardening #flowers #flowergardening #annuals #organic #rememberingmom

Last night, down at the river. Wild (or feral?) al

Last night, down at the river. Wild (or feral?) almond trees are hitting peak bloom now. Always a welcome sign we’re on spring’s doorstep. And… yeah, I couldn’t resist parking the car by it! 😆💚

15th Valentine with the Love of My Life! Santia an

15th Valentine with the Love of My Life! Santia and I went to Monterey this week for some committee meetings I’m on with the realtors association, and today we went down the 17-Mile Drive. Such a beautiful place! And such a beautiful partner! 😍💜

I needed a creative, crafty Saturday, so I made th

I needed a creative, crafty Saturday, so I made this out of leftover cedar fence boards. I’m hoping to entice the titmice, wrens, or sparrows to use it this spring. Had some leftover little walnut diamonds and zhuzhed it up a bit, too!😁💚
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#birdhouse #mygarden

The wind on Sunday took down a lot of trees across

The wind on Sunday took down a lot of trees across Sacramento County. It also somehow broke a main power pole in our neighborhood! They say we’ll get power restored tomorrow morning. One remarkable thing is how extremely boring the long winter evenings are without light!

Carrots are a nice winter veggie in our zone 9 cli

Carrots are a nice winter veggie in our zone 9 climate. I’ve only tried a couple times, but they’ve come out pretty stunted before. Trying them in loose soil in a raised bed has turned out a little better this time – can’t say they’re huge, but these are supposed to be small carrots anyway 😊💚
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#veg #veggies #veggiegarden #wintergarden #californiagardening #sacramentogardening #carrots

California buckeye waking up for spring down at th

California buckeye waking up for spring down at the river. At least that’s what my phone tells me this tree is, and it seems right, with chestnut-like fruit in the fall. It’s one of the first to leaf out in spring and first to lose leaves in the fall. It was a gorgeous morning for a walk, and we’re likely to hit 70 F in the next couple days. Bring on the NorCal spring! 😎💚🌿
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#spring #naturewalk #buckeye #norcal #trees #americanriver

There’s plenty of advice out there to not prune

There’s plenty of advice out there to not prune these Euryops daisy shrubs very hard, and to just give them a light shearing once a year. But at least with this variety, I found plenty of buds down low on the woody parts, and I decided to go for a hard renewal pruning. I just wanted to show that this kind of pruning is possible with them, and I’ll follow up later to show you how they grow back.
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#euryops #daisy #shrub #pruning #gardening #flowergardening #sacramentogardening #fairoaks

I learned a couple lessons from planting peas this

I learned a couple lessons from planting peas this year: first, if you have some old seeds, give them a try before you toss them. These snow pea seeds were 10 years old! I was sure they wouldn’t be very viable, so I just stuffed a bunch of them in each planting hole, hoping that some of them would sprout. And maybe it was only 30% that sprouted but I still got some decent plants out of it. So go ahead and use old seeds but sow them heavily to account for failure. Second, some of the new seeds that were labeled as sugar snaps really turned out to be more snow peas. This past year has been a funny year for seed mistakes, with the whole peppergate fiasco (mislabeled jalapeños, anyone?), and apparently the packet of sugar snap seeds I bought also included quite a few errors!
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#sacramentogardening #californiagardening #norcalgardening #winterveggies #peas #organicgardening #homesteading

This little guy crashed into my backyard office wi

This little guy crashed into my backyard office window. I had to hunt for him in some thick groundcover and then gently held him in my hands for a bit. Set him on this grapevine when he seemed able to stand, and then he hung out for 10 minutes before flying off. Glad he survived! I wish I could’ve gotten a good photo of his brilliant red face when the feathers shone in the sun, but I didn’t want to disturb him while he was healing.
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#hummingbird #birdrescue

I had a nice chance to get out for a hike at sunse

I had a nice chance to get out for a hike at sunset by the river a few days ago. Usually, I walk in the mornings, so everything was different this time. The long shadows are entertaining, and the sound of my feet crunching on the gravel is some unintentional ASMR ☺️. Sometimes, while I’m out walking, I spend a lot of time in my head, thinking about work that I need to get back to, what we’re going to do this weekend, or even reflecting on the past. But lately, I’ve been quietly saying to myself “I am here now.“ It’s been a sweet experience, because it’s helping me to stop and notice beautiful little things all around me while I’m out in this gorgeous place. This was prompted by something my nephew posted about how Ram Dass’s book ”Be Here Now” had such an impact on him. I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my list now. 💚
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#walkingmeditation #beherenow #nature #walking #americanriver

Sometimes called flowering maple because of the sh

Sometimes called flowering maple because of the shape of their leaves, these abutilon are such a sweet element in our garden. I had never grown them before this garden, and I’m impressed! One of them is close to our very large maple, and it is doing well competing against those thirsty roots. The other one is in a sunnier location further away from a big tree, and it’s growing a little bigger. They do seem pretty adaptable to part shade or full sun. 😍💚
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#abutilon #floweringshrubs #mygarden #sacramentogardening #californiagardening #norcalgarden

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