Valley Carpenter Bee (female) (Xylocopa varipuncta) A female Valley Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) feeds on Mexican sage in my garden a few days ago. I was out working to clear up a mass of grass and weeds caused by the rainy year we have had when I spotted her nearly in my face. I took […]

Container Garden Update 45: Planting Mums and Gazania In this episode: October 2, 2018 Just a quick video to show you I am still getting into the garden on occasion. Work has kept me at the computer far more than outdoors of late, but with today’s rain forecast I thought it best to get these […]

Archive.org has a host of old gardening books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. I happened across a few in my Pinterest feed and gone completely down the rabbit hole in this treasure trove of information. Sure some ideas might be out of date, but you […]

Part of a series of garden minutes from A Gardener’s Notebook The 100 degree temps these last few days has turned the bird batch into a bee waterer. I have never seen these many bees here all at the same time. I love that these bees were so docile I could site right among them […]

Part of a series of garden minutes from A Gardener’s Notebook   Learn more about hibiscus with these books †† * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library See […]

Part of a series from A Gardener’s Notebook From leftover pumpkin to new pumpkin plants. One more getting something from nothing in the garden. Music: Carefree by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License   Learn more about pumpkins and squash with these books †† * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports […]

Part of a series of garden minutes from A Gardener’s Notebook Bees cover our neighbor’s aeonium flowers this morning and for the last several days Music: Finding the Balance by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License   Learn more about bees with these books ††† * A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly […]

Installing Wine Bottle Edging Timelapse from A Gardener’s Notebook [Video] (1:38) Saturday gave some time to finally install a circle of wine bottle edging to a bed we have been meaning to clean up for a long time. This is the third bed we have edged in this fashion. Music: “Crystal Bungalow” by Kevin MacLeod […]

Part of a series of garden minutes from A Gardener’s Notebook Our recent rain (although we have had no more so far this year) kicked off the bubs in the garden. I noticed these first daffodils of 2018 daffodils just yesterday. Music: Clean Soul by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com) under Creative Commons License   Learn more […]

Part of a series of garden minutes from A Gardener’s Notebook After a long absence, the scrub jays have returned to the garden. Now I need to get more peanuts for the feeder. They love them so much and are so entertaining to watch as they choose just the right one to take off and […]