Author: aprilleeowens

Mountain Garland Clarkia  Photo Credit:  Nancy BauerSPRING!It’s the beginning of the wildflower season and there are so many Sonoma hotspots for wildflowers from now into June.  Wander your favorite trails along the Sonoma coastal bluffs, Anndadel, Sugarloaf, Sonoma Mountain, or

Variable Checkerspot pupa – photo credit: Nancy Bauer Hosting Butterflies When planting butterfly host plants, we often think of pipeline and monkeyflowers, but many local butterflies use trees and shrubs as caterpillar food plants. Of course, it would be much

     Tip Three:  Plant More Salvias    You will find sages in all of the gardens April and I have worked on together.  They are a backbone-of-the-garden kind of plant; we could even call them a keystone habitat plant. 

TIp Number One:  Nature’s Mulch   If you still have some weeding to do, November has been rainy, and the best time to pull weeds is after a rain. Throw them in the compost pile or on garden beds, or

Whatever could possibly be blooming in August, when the hills are dry and brown and the last of spring’s seeds are blowing in the wind. Our native wildflowers never disappoint, and one of these late bloomers is madia (Madia elegans),

Every so often I need to proclaim the beauty and benefits of having oaks on the land. California’s signature plant, they are majestic, long-lived, and hardy.  But most of all, oaks offer food and shelter to so many birds and

Grav Fair Plant List and Materials – The perfect combination for full sun/pt shade Shrubs: Manzanita – Arctostaphylos densiflora Toyon – Heteromeles arbutifolia Coffeeberry – Frangula californica (syn Rhamnus) Perennials: Foothill Penstemon – Penstemon heterophyllus Verbena – Verbena ‘De la

You may have heard of “right plant, right place” but have you heard of “right purpose”? Likely coined by Julie Weisenhorn et al. who developed a plant selection tool for the University of Minnesota Extension, this approach seeks to match

  It’s Prime Bird-Watching Season! Walking along Santa Rosa creek recently, during a break between atmospheric river events, I was delighted to see Common Mergansers—a male and two females— feeding in the fast-moving creek.  Been hearing the Great Horned Owls,

Sometimes we want to do something beneficial, like turning our backyard into a wildlife habitat, but it feels too big a task or we just don’t know where to start. The good news: you really don’t have to start over;