Tending Your Garden
Topics
annual eventBees and Other PollinatorsBirdsButterfliesChildren activitiesClassescoyote mintdeer resistant plantseco friendly garden tourEventfoxfoxesFruits and Berriesgarden restorationgarden tourGardening with WildlifeGrowing Plants from SeedHabitat GardeningHardy california nativesHarmony with NatureHome Landscapingindian valley novatoMonarchs and Milkweednative gardensNative Plant Communitiesnative plantsPlant Nurseryplant salepollinatorsPropagating Plantspropgationseaside daisySeed CollectingSummer CampsunflowersTending Your GardenUseful Nonnative PlantsWater conservationWatershed Approach to LandscapingWildflowerswildlife
Plant of the Month July 2025: Coyote Mint
By Charlotte Torgovitsky. This beautiful little California native “sub-shrub” is a wonderful pollinator plant that comes into its full glory early in summer. A member of the mint family, Coyote Mint (Monardella villosa) supports local ecosystems: its profuse lilac...
Managing Compostables for a Healthier Ecosystem
From November through February my chipper pile grows steadily bigger. I begin cutting back perennial plants and shrubs as the fall blooming cycle ends; long, fairly straight stems go to the chipper pile, more twisted branches go to various brush piles along a low...
Useful Nonnative Weeds
I’d bet that we’re all pretty happy that the rainy season is over and cherishing the beautiful sunny days. With a good layer of mulch to help retain moisture in the soil, plus the warm days, plants are now putting on growth that can almost be measured day by day! Over...
Fall is for Planting AND Propagating
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 green within the brown. Plants are dormant, but definitely not dead; seeds are abundant, as are all the...
Natives for a Meadow Garden
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 Mt. Burdell. I haven’t seen bird’s-eye gilia (Gilia tricolor) in...
Creating a Meadow Garden
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, and the evenings are much cooler. The shorter day length is a cue to many native...