Soon I hope to register our garden with the National Wildlife Federation. It's easy and with the small $15 application fee, I'll get a little sign I can put out in our yard to show passersby in our neighborhood that they can create a colorful, waterwise yard that attracts a multitude of birds, bees, and butterflies.
Visit the National Wildlife Federation's website to get more ideas about how you can get started. Even if you don't have all the 'ingredients' in your yard to satisfy the Federation's rules for registering, you can get ideas about how to bring more native life into your garden.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Spring Blooms in Our Garden
If you've followed me on Twitter, you know that sometimes the garden surrounding our house is foremost on our minds. At the beginning of spring, weeds were a major stumbling block after the winter rains. We discovered that when weeds had taken over the paths surrounding our planters, we could wipe them out without using poisonous weedkillers. Instead we used a square-nosed shovel and scraped them off. After about two weeks of work, we had almost weed-free paths. 
Now we've got a bunny in our yard that feeds almost exclusively on weeds in the DG (decomposed granite) and on any grass that takes hold in our planters. I never thought we could have a symbiotic relationship with rabbits.
These are photos of our front yard in full bloom. When Mickey works out front, he gets many compliments on how well it's doing.
Last weekend, we had a woman ask us who did and does our yard. Well, the landscapers that are no longer in business did the hardscape and planted some of our plants, but after about eight months of unreliable maintenance on our yard, we keep it up on our own. So far, so good.
Almost all the plants are on a drip system. In addition, most of the plants are drought-tolerant, such as Salvia, Ceanothus, and Kangaroo Paw. We've got an assortment of lavendar plants, dwarf bottlebrush, daisies, heavenly bamboo, and in the back, some camellias and azaleas.
Shortly, I hope to register our garden with the National Wildlife Federation. I'll write about how to do that in the future.
Now we've got a bunny in our yard that feeds almost exclusively on weeds in the DG (decomposed granite) and on any grass that takes hold in our planters. I never thought we could have a symbiotic relationship with rabbits.
These are photos of our front yard in full bloom. When Mickey works out front, he gets many compliments on how well it's doing. Last weekend, we had a woman ask us who did and does our yard. Well, the landscapers that are no longer in business did the hardscape and planted some of our plants, but after about eight months of unreliable maintenance on our yard, we keep it up on our own. So far, so good.
Almost all the plants are on a drip system. In addition, most of the plants are drought-tolerant, such as Salvia, Ceanothus, and Kangaroo Paw. We've got an assortment of lavendar plants, dwarf bottlebrush, daisies, heavenly bamboo, and in the back, some camellias and azaleas.
Shortly, I hope to register our garden with the National Wildlife Federation. I'll write about how to do that in the future.
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