Category: Articles

Japanese Maples in Your Garden Every fall I am once again surprised, sometimes shocked, at the color and magnificence of Japanese maples across the urban landscape, as their leaves turn scarlet, crimson or bronze in preparation for winter. Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum – momiji in Japanese) is a deciduous tree, to 20 feet high, native…

A Bumper Tomato Harvest in Inverness This Year Gini Havel Bright red, firm succulent tomatoes are piling up in bowls all over my kitchen counter, and in my garden the vines are overloaded.  I can’t pick them fast enough.  Early Girl did not fruit early, but she certainly outdid her performance from last year.  Simply…

Bouquet Care: Helping Cut Flowers Last Norma Ashby Flowers are magical. They can change a day, express a feeling, or make you feel successful. They bring a quality to our lives that can spread from day to day. Once you’ve picked through the garden, selected and brought your flowers home, or received them for any occasion,…

California Hazelnut If you have a shade garden, as I do, the California hazelnut (Corylus cornuta var. Californica) is a natural resident. It is widespread in woodland, particularly in moist or shaded canyons.  It can be found along trails in Tomales Bay State Park and in the National Seashore.  If you hike this time of…

Dry Weather Friends As the busy gardening season arrives, many gardeners look for fresh new ideas as well as new plants to refresh and update the garden. Now is the wise gardener’s chance to heed last winter’s drought warnings and replace thirstier plantings with xeric (low water) or drought tolerant species. Many handsome shrubs and…

Extending Summer Color into Fall About the time those of us who live on the coast are emerging from our morning-evening fog cycle and finally getting some reliably warm weather, our summer-blooming flowers are beginning to look tired.  Now that we can actually enjoy more time in our gardens and even some dinners outside, it…

Fabulous Ferns When we planted our cool, shady garden 9 years ago, I added some ferns without knowing much about them except that they liked cool and shady. They are so little trouble I almost forget about them. Ferns add a delicate, feathery green that contrasts and blends well with our other shade-loving plants. Then,…

Flowering Trees This has been a splendid year for Milk Maids, those gently nodding, dainty white flowering annuals that spring up in late winter along the sides of roads and trails, signaling the end of winter. Soon we will be walking about our gardens, neighborhoods and woods, marveling at other small, spring-flowering plants, for example,…

Fragrance in My Garden As you enter my front gate in the spring you will pick up the delicious lemony aroma of Magnolia stellata, the star magnolia, with its whimsical floppy white flowers.   Just inside the courtyard there is a Rhododendron occidentale, the Western azalea, my favorite native shrub, which has a profusion of white…

Meyer Lemons in West Marin An attractive, evergreen shrub or tree with delicious, fragrant fruit, Meyer lemon thrives in the warm corners of most gardens, even on the Inverness Ridge. Our garden is on the north/east slope of the Inverness Ridge, a cool, shady site perfect for growing ferns and maple trees. Our only “hot…