“Once neighbors and passersby see the changes happening as you begin the process of removing your default front lawn and replacing it with something more lively and interesting,” notes landscape designer Bernadette Balics of Davis, “curiosity gets the best of them, and they ask questions. I really like the social aspect of this gardening interaction, and my clients do too. If you plant something edible, the interest level really peaks. So consider replacing your lawn with some strawberries or artichokes, and meet the neighbors.” Photo: Bernadette’s gardens are frequently marked by creative pairings of common and less-common herbaceous perennials. Here a vibrant yellow yarrow and a radiant pink buckwheat (Eriogonum grande rubescens) balance opposite corners of a rich planting around a drip-fed cut-stone birdbath. In this composition, strongly textural foliage and the focal-point of the birdbath create interest year-round - for people and for visiting birds and pollinators.
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For almost all of her almost eight decades, Jeanne Zimmerman has been gardening and for a good part of that time she has been growing - and loving - the elegance and hard-to-beat beauty of clematis flowers and vines. “The radiant colors, the long bloom time and the ease of growing them - here and in Minnesota where I learned to garden - make them the perfect garden plant,” Jeanne says warmly. “Besides, they so nicely cover any ugly fence.” From a farming family, and a long-standing member of the Chico Horticultural Society, Jeannie is a natural gardener and naturally generous in sharing her experience and knowledge. “I am no expert,” she is quick to say, while other experienced gardeners and plants people smilingly dismiss this modesty: She is an expert with her clematis, they nod. Photo: Clematis ‘Dr. Ruppel.’ (more…)

“If you are going to love carrots, your best bet is to try them fresh from the farm - and Matthew Martin’s carrots are some of the sweetest carrots you are ever going to taste!” Gina Sims exclaims. Matthew Martin is the President/Owner and Head Farmer of Pyramid Farms in Chico. He is also the Farmer of the Month in April 2011 for 35,000 kindergarten through 12th grade public school students throughout the North State. (more…)

Renowned American wildflower and native plant advocate Lady Bird Johnson, founder of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in central Texas, once wrote: “Wherever I go in America, I like it when the land speaks its own language in its own regional accent.” But of course in order to hear this language, we need to slow down, stop talking ourselves……and listen. As with any language, if we take just a little time to learn more about it - the language sounds so much more clear and mellifluous to the ear. Photo: Vernal Pool in flower, photo courtesy of Joe Silveiras, all rights reserved 2011. (more…)

“Other holidays repose on the past. 
Arbor Day proposes the future.”
- J. Sterling Morton - Founder of Arbor Day in 1872.

“Can I run out to the trees?” my 9-year old asks me on a regular if not daily basis. I almost always say yes. By “trees” my child is talking about a row of adolescent sycamores planted in a graceful curve as your enter our neighborhood. With their milky white and grey mottled bark and their thick outward reaching lowest branches, these trees are perfect for climbing, for sitting in and contemplating life, for sitting under and daydreaming, for building forts and whole imaginary worlds around. My child has one tree which she refers respectfully and protectively to as “my tree.” (more…)

There’s a lot to love about the garden in winter. But I do miss some things from the summer garden. For instance, I miss my bats. Of course, they are not technically “my” bats, but rather a small colony that roost in the eaves of my family’s home each summer. (more…)

Every year my hellebores lift their buds and open in the midst of January and February; the multitude of blooms continue to lift my spirits on through April. With their show just in its early stages, I thought I would re-run this piece with David Walther, of Spring Fever Nursery in Yankee Hill, from 2010 on his growing of these lovely plants. Spring Fever will be hosting an open garden the first weekend in April of 2011. If you can get there, you will not be disappointed!

“I like to think they are shy,” David Walther, co-owner with his wife Cathy, of Spring Fever Nursery in Yankee Hill tells me, speaking of his beloved hellebores. “Many varieties of hellebores have flowers that face downward because as winter bloomers they are trying to protect their pollen from wind and rain and snow until pollination takes place. But the difference between the back of a hellebore’s so-called bloom, and its wide - often surprisingly beautiful - face can be a night and day difference.” Photo: A bowl of floating hellebore blooms plucked from the array at Spring Fever Nursery - included are Helleborus orientalis, Helleborus niger and many Hellborus x hyrbidus in single, semi-double and fully double forms. (more…)

Winter is upon us judging by the mood of the sky, the date on the calendar and the look of the landscape. While many garden tasks slow down for these winter months, others pick up, including the hard job of removing invasive broom plants from our natural areas. BEEP - the Broom Education and Eradication Program based out of Forest Ranch had their first meeting of the season in early December, and so it seemed timely to re-run this article on their work.

Weeds are part (have always been part) of gardening – part of life for that matter. But some weeds are bigger than others – and some are far more pernicious than others. For us in California, and the entire Pacific Northwest, all varieties of broom fit the pernicious category and on several counts: broom are terrible fire hazards in all stages of their life due to their high levels of volatile oils; they are very successful at spreading and choke out native plants in the areas they infest; all portions of the plant are toxic and as a result they offer no food or shelter of any kind to native wildlife. That’s at least three strikes. (more…)

I first met and wrote about David Grau in the spring of 2009, at the end of his first winter of the Chico Organic Gardening Class Series, organized by David and held at the Chico Grange. Now headed into the third winter of this class series, David Grau and fellow gardening and sustainability enthusiast/advocate Adrian Johnson have formed a the Chico Organic Gardening Society and are also producing the new monthly e-publication Valley Oak Magazine, the mission of which is to gather and share information and resources pertaining to sustainability in the inland California valley bioregion. The magazine is named after the Valley Oak tree which is a unifying and constant feature of California’s inland valleys. (more…)

With the rain and snow having returned to our region for their turn in the cycle of our seasons, I thought I would re-run this interview with Phyllis Clark-Kirkman of Gringo Dave’s in Redding on rainwater harvesting and storm water management, from December of 2009.

On December 13th of 2010, from 8 - 9pm I will be hosting a special one-hour call-in I 5-LIVE! on Northstate Public Radio (91.7 KCHO in Chico, 88.9 KFPR in Redding) discussing creative and effective designs for using/re-using and managing water (a lot of it, or not enough of it) in the garden through rainwater harvesting and storage, rain gardens and greywater systems. My guests will include Bernadette Balics of Ecological Landscape Design out of Davis, and Jim Collins, Garden Manager of the Community Teaching Garden on the campus of Shasta College in Redding. Send questions or thoughts in advance to me by email: jennifer@jewellgarden.com, or call in during the program: 1-800-234-5246. (more…)