Does anyone have any idea what kind of insect makes this chrysalis? I found it growing on a dead branch of a Copper Canyon Daisy bush a couple of weeks ago. It's a little bigger than a quarter in size and kind of golden brown and scaly.

Anyone seen one of these before and know what kind of butterfly or moth might come out? I'm very curious.

Two weekends ago, I finally accepted defeat and admitted that the California Sycamore I hoped might stage a miraculous comeback was actually gone for good. Despite careful attention, the two year old tree seemed to be dead as a doornail.

My disappointment at this failure was soothed a little by the fact that we scored a new Sycamore for free at the annual Department of Sanitation Open House. Thanks Million Trees LA! (If you're wondering why we were attending an open house for the Department of Sanitation, I will remind you that I have a 3-year-old boy who loves garbage trucks.)

This time around, I am determined that the tree will survive. When we dug up the old one, I saw the roots had not spread very far. This is probably due to the terrible, hard, rocky soil in that part of the backyard. We dug a pretty big hole to plant the last Sycamore, but clearly it wasn't big enough.

This time around, we dug an extra extra large hole for the new tree and mixed some grow mulch into the soil. I also tried to build up a good berm on the downhill side to keep water from draining away before it can soak in. I also need to stake it a little straighter once I get my hands on some good, sturdy stakes.

Summer is not the greatest time to plant a new tree, but I couldn't pass up the free tree and I figure it usually doesn't get really blistering hot until August. I plan to water it deeply once a week-ish at first, and see how that goes. Fingers crossed that this one makes it.

I've been playing a little game with myself for the past several months. It's called "Dead or Dormant" and it centers around the California Sycamore tree we planted in November 2011. We got the tree, a native of this area, to replace a giant pine tree that was felled by bark beetles. Dakota, having grown up in the Midwest where they have seasons, wanted to get a tree that would drop its leaves in the winter. So, we decided on a Sycamore, with it's pretty white bark, big broad leaves and deciduous nature.

This is how that tree looked in November of 2011.

Here it is almost exactly a year ago, in March 2012.

And this is how it looks now.

Hmmmmm. Something seems... different, doesn't it? You're probably wondering why I don't have a wide shot of the tree for you. That's because it's hard to get the camera to focus on a leafless stick. At the moment, there is not a single leaf growing on the whole tree. I'm finding that fact very distressing.

But I have not lost hope. The bark is still pretty and white, and there are those little bud-like things coming off the "branches." I feel like those buds might make some leaves any day now. Right? Right? Someone with knowledge of Sycamore tree growth should comment and reassure me, if you can do so in good faith.

I will say that I have given this tree intermittent waterings--not too many but not too few--over the last year. The trees and shrubs all around it are quite happy and healthy, and I have not let too much dirt collect around the base of the Sycamore's trunk. It should be fine. But I am getting worried.

I guess all I can really do is wait and watch. Wait and worry.

Dead or dormant?

Deciduous trees are stressful.

The late spring rains have brought some nice blossoms to the garden this April. Including...

The Royal Penstemon I got this winter from the nursery at the Theodore Payne Foundation.
The blossoms on the Royal Penstemon are really lovely, and butterflies and other pollinators seem really into them. I saw a butterfly just hanging out inside one of the blooms the other day, drinking in the awesomeness. I guess that's the benefit of planting natives.

Also currently blooming are one small lupine and a few pink Cosmos from the wildflower seed mix my sister gave me for Christmas. More Cosmos, scattered throughout the backyard, are on the way.

Plus these, whose name I can't currently remember.

Speaking of my sister, she has an amazing wildflower display in front of her house in San Antonio. Mine is pretty pitiful in comparison, but I'm still happy to see some pretty spots of color around the backyard.

The front yard is really bushy and overgrown, but in bloom as well, which is great. I am planning to prune it back soon and recover the paths with some wood chips we got from friends a couple of weeks ago. There are bees everywhere, to the point where I'm concerned about my son accidentally grabbing one when he picks lavender blossoms. But still, it's nice to see so many happy bees.

Back in October, we had to have another one of our big pine trees cut down. It was leaning down the hill in a pretty dangerous manner, and we decided we'd better remove it before it tumbled down the hill and caused a major traffic accident. (Thank goodness we did before that crazy windstorm at the end of November!) Here's the view before we took out the precariously leaning tree on the right.

And here's the view after. It's kind of nice to see more of the hillside across the way, but the yard feels pretty exposed now. We spend so much time back there, and I'd prefer a little more privacy--and shade.

To fill the hole, we decided to get a native California tree. This provided a perfect opportunity to visit the Theodore Payne Foundation. Do you know that I have never been there? I know, it's crazy. Theodore Payne is basically my dream nursery, and it's only 20 minutes or so away from my house. I have been meaning to visit for ages, but just never got around to it. So, I was pretty excited to go last month.

The nursery had a lot of great-looking native trees: oaks, pines, maples and sycamores. We went for a California Sycamore, because Dakota wanted a deciduous tree and we love the pretty white trunks and big, broad leaves. Our friends have a huge one in the back yard of their new house, and I am hopeful that this little guy will look that great someday.

While we were there, I couldn't resist purchasing a few native plants to plant in the backyard. I went for a variety of flowering bushes that are supposed to attract lots of butterflies and birds. I planted three along the side of the stairs. On the left side I put an Otay Mountain Lotus and a Red Fairy Duster.

And on the right, a Royal Penstemon. It likes well-drained, rocky soil and will produce showy purple flowers.

I planted this Rocky Point Pitcher Sage near the California Sycamore. It's supposed to produce large white flowers with a "lavender blush."

My hope is that the bushes and Sycamore will get established during the winter rainy season and really take off once Spring arrives. I can't wait to see all their flowers.

Back in April, Ilsa Setziol of Rambling LA had a really great series on the Los Angeles Times Home blog about nonnative invasive plants. If you're at all interested in gardening or the preservation of natural habitats, I encourage you to check it out. Ilsa runs down a list of the plants commonly found in garden centers that can do serious damage when they get out of the garden and into the wild.

One of the posts discusses fountain grasses, which have spread through Southern California open space and parkland and pushed out the native chaparral. I'm sad to admit that, after reading the article, I realized that I have some in my front yard. I planted two clumps of purple fountain grass several years ago. I think it's probably sterile, because I haven't noticed it spreading, but I am considering removing it after reading Ilsa's article.

I also realized that my front yard had been invaded by another variety of invasive grass: Mexican feathergrass. It showed up among my native plants last year, and grew into two or three smallish clumps. Informed by the invasive plant series, I removed the grass last month and threw it in the garbage, rather than the green bin, so hopefully it won't spread. Since then, I've noticed the feathergrass in other peoples' yards and in public landscaping. Hopefully those gardeners will hear about the danger of nonnative fountain grasses and take their invasive species out as well.

Last Christmas, I was up in the Russian River Valley in Northern California, and I noticed large clumps of pampas grass growing among the redwoods. It looked really weird on the otherwise woody hillsides, and I know this aggressively-spreading grass is a pretty serious problem up and down the California coast. It was kind of a bummer to see the obviously out-of-place pampas grass among the gorgeous redwoods. If we're lucky, the park service will beat it back before it chokes out the native vegetation.

Hopefully, the more people are aware of problems with invasive nonnatives, the more they will turn to the just-as-attractive native plants. The California Native Plant Society has a good list of nurseries here. Many of the plants in my front yard, including native grasses, are from Matilija Nursery in Moorpark.

This year, I was really happy to have some success with the wildflower seeds I planted in the winter months. (And by "planted" I mean scattered around the yard mixed with some organic fertilizer and a little compost.) I ordered most of them from my favorite place I've never been, the Theodore Payne Foundation. Not all the seeds I planted came up, but the ones that did were really pretty.

We were treated to a nice variety of blooms appearing at different times throughout the spring and summer. Here they are, roughly in order of bloom. First to bloom were the Baby Blue-Eyes and Tidy Tips, which I posted about back in March.

Next came the Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla), which grew quickly produced tall stalks covered in blooms. Some were white and some were a nice shade of bright purple.



These Salvia columbariae, also from Theodore Payne, grew here and there in the backyard. They were hard to spot, but really cool once I found them. Tiny complex blue flowers bloom off their spiny-looking heads.



The sunrise cosmos (Cosmos sulphureus) are from seeds I planted last year. They're annuals and self-seeding, so maybe I'll get lucky and they'll spread further across the backyard.



The lacy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia) also have fluffy, spiky heads covered with small purple flowers.



The elegant clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata) came up here and there in the backyard, mixed in with the weeds. There's also a thick patch of them in the small bed on the side of our house, which is a little shadier and has better soil. I really love their bright, complicated blooms. They must have some specialized pollination purpose, although I haven't noticed any particular bees or other pollinators hovering around.



There are still a few stragglers growing that haven't bloomed. We'll see what happens to them now that the weather is getting hot and dry. And, of course, some of my seeds didn't come up at all. I can't seem to grow lupines, which is frustrating since I hail from the Bluebonnet state. At least the hillside below me is covered in lupines every spring. I just hope it's never developed.

It's amazing how a scrubby vacant lot can transform into a thing of beauty thanks to the random scattering of seeds and some good winter rains. The hillside below our house has exploded with blue lupines in the last couple of weeks. As I drive by this lot full of wildflowers every morning, I'm reminded of how great Springtime can be in Los Angeles.

I also really hope the developer who bought these lots a couple of years ago never manages to get the money and permits to build his planned six identical stucco boxes of hideousness on the hillside. If the current recession has had one upside, it's been to stop guys like that from ruining views like this.

I'm so glad I planted my wildflower seeds early this year so they could take full advantage of the big rains we had in January and February. Thanks to those winter storms, I now have several patches of well-established California native wildflowers growing in both the front and back yards. Some have even started to bloom.

So far, the early bloomers include this Baby Blue-Eyes (Nemophila maculata), which is happily flowering in several spots in the front yard.



And this lovely yellow flower, a Tidy Tips (Layia platyglossa), has just started to bloom as well.



A few other varieties appear to be on the verge of flowering, although I'm not sure which ones. I got so many different seeds from the Theodore Payne Foundation, and my planting method involved mixing them all together and then scattering them on any available bare ground. Wildflowers are much easier to identify once they've bloomed.

I've also been enjoying the big patch of lupines--or Blue Bonnets as we called them in Texas--that's growing on the grassy slope below our house. I'm not sure how the seed originally got there, but every Spring there seem to be more plants with their beautiful blue flowers covering the hillside. Every time I drive by, it makes me happy to see them growing there, especially since I have a hard time growing lupines in my own yard.

Luckily, I've got lots of other wildflower blossoms to look forward to over the next couple of months. The good rains this year have made sure of that.

It drizzled a little yesterday, and that moisture, combined with a good couple of days of rain earlier this month, has really helped with my plan to cover the yard in wildflowers this Spring. I've tried planting wildflowers in the past, but I didn't get the seeds scattered early enough and they failed to grow. This year, I was determined to get the seeds spread during LA's (very brief) rainy season, so they'd actually have a chance to germinate in favorable growing conditions. So far, it seems to be working.



The little green plants poking up through the leaves in the photo above are California native wildflowers, although I can't tell you exactly which varieties. I purchased a whole bunch of seeds from the Theodore Payne Foundation website a couple of months ago. After browsing through their giant catalog of seeds--both annual and perennial--and using Google image search to figure out what the flowers would look like, I ended up ordering 14 different types. I know, I went kind of overboard. I tend to do that with seed catalogs. Luckily, seeds are fairly inexpensive.

A few packets of Theodore Payne wildflower seeds went into my seed bombs, and the rest were scattered all over the front and back yards. The front yard wildflowers probably have a better shot, since they don't have to contend with curious chickens and their scratching claws. But, I think I spread my backyard planting locations around enough that I should get a pretty bunch of blooms all over both yards this Spring. I hope so, anyway.

The wildflowers will bring in native bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators, which will help my fruit trees and garden plants. And, of course, they'll provide a fun Springtime burst of color. Once they've finished blooming, most of the wildflowers should reseed themselves, so I wont have to go on another seed spree next Fall.

If you're interested, it's not too late for you to plant your own wildflowers. The real rain should hit Southern California in January and February, so if you scatter some seeds soon, they will still get a good start. If you don't want to order online, most garden stores sell California Poppy and lupine seeds, both of which are natives that grow well in Los Angeles.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I finally got around to a project I've wanted to try for years: making seed bombs. I think I first heard about seed bombs in reference to the Guerrilla Gardening movement. The basic idea behind a seed bomb is that it allows you to easily spread native seeds--usually wildflowers--into places where you wouldn't normally have access, like vacant lots or the land beside highway offramps.

I walk or drive past countless vacant lots, empty hillsides and partially-completed construction projects (ugh) every day, and ever since I heard about seed bombs I've been itching to decorate these areas with a splash of Spring color. This year, I finally remembered to make them at the right time (late Fall) so that I can throw them throughout Southern California's all-too-brief rainy season.

The first step was to get the supplies together. The seed bomb recipe calls for compost, dry red clay powder and seeds. The compost was easy, but the clay was harder to track down. After calling around a bit, I found that the only place to get it locally seems to be Echo Ceramics in West Los Angeles. I was loathe to drive all the way over there, but, happily, Dakota had a job in that part of town so was able to drop by and pick up some clay powder for me.



Since I wanted to make sure I was spreading native California wildflowers, I purchased my seeds from the Theodore Payne Foundation. You can visit their facility in Sun Valley or just order online. For this project, I ordered some of their wildflower mixes. If you don't want to go to Theodore Payne, you could also go to the garden center and buy some California Poppy and lupine seeds, which both tend to be pretty ubiquitous.



Now, here's where I went a little off the standard instructions. Many recipes I found online recommended a ratio of 5-3-1 or 5-5-1 of clay-compost-seed. But then, I found a couple of posts on a website called Broken City Lab where they tested various seed bomb mixes to see which bombs had the most successful germination rate. They found that less clay was better (although they weren't using red clay), and recommend the following recipe: 1 part seeds, 1 part clay, 1 part coffee grounds, 8 parts soil and 1 part water.

After this research, I decided to go light on the clay at first and see how well the mixture bound together. I also added some granulated organic fertilizer to give the seeds a little boost. Here's my mixing bowl with the compost, red clay and canola meal fertilizer.



I slowly added water until I got a thick, sticky mixture. By the way, I recommend wearing gloves when you do this. It's messy work.



Once I got the clay, compost and seed mixture to a good consistency, I started rolling it into balls. I made mine about the size of a golf ball, for easy throwing. Each wet seed bomb was placed on an old nursery tray. I think I got about 40 seed bombs out of my first batch.



Then, the tray of wet seed bombs went into the basement (a cool, dry place) to dry for three days.

Here are the completed seed bombs.



They seem to have dried nicely and stayed together well, with no major cracks. So, I think I using less clay worked out. I didn't measure precisely, but I'd say it was about a 3 to 1 ratio of compost to clay.

Now comes the fun part: throwing the seed bombs. It's actually raining today, so maybe I'll chuck some on my way to and from work. Then, I'll have to keep tabs on those spots this Spring, to find out if I managed to grow some pretty native flowers in some otherwise boring vacant lots.

Last night, while digging through old photos, I found some great "before" shots of our front yard. Dakota and I xeriscaped the front yard in January 2004, removing the grass and putting in native plants from Matilija Nursery in Moorpark.

We started by digging up the pitiful grass lawn and pulling out all the grass clumps and runners we could. I remember the ground was exceptionally hard, and removing grass roots was extremely tedious. If I did this now, I would use the sheet mulching method.



After we removed the grass and loosened the hard-packed soil as much as possible, we put in our native plants. Some of them thrived, but others, sadly, didn't make it and were replaced by new drought-tolerant shrubs. The little plant on the far right with the yellow flowers is now a giant, bushy copper canyon daisy that nicely frames one side of the front steps. (You can see it on the far left side of the "after" shot below.)



In all, I think the original planting took two days of very hard work. This was followed by extensive grass removal for the next two years or so. I know, that sounds annoying, doesn't it? It kind of was. BUT, now the yard requires barely any maintenance. I just water it once every two weeks or so in the dry season and prune back some of the bushier plants when they grow too far into walkways.

Five years later, the front yard looks like this.



I'm pretty happy with our results. Xeriscaping can be hard work. But, spread over a number of years, caring for a garden of native plants is way less time-consuming than a grass lawn.

More on our drought-tolerant front yard here and here.

I was excited to hear on the radio the other day that, in addition to its strict new lawn sprinkler regulations, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power just unveiled a lawn-removal rebate program.

The official title is the Residential Drought Resistant Landscape Incentive Program, and the goal is to encourage Los Angeles residents to remove their lawns in favor of drought-tolerant landscaping, water-permeable hardscaping or mulch. They'll give you a dollar for every square foot of lawn you remove and replace, which is pretty great considering you'll already be saving a bunch on your water bill just by eliminating all that expensive grass-watering.

I really appreciate the fact that the LADWP isn't just penalizing water wasting like leaky sprinklers and driveway washing, but is also incentivizing water conservation when it comes to yards. Xeriscaping is already pretty popular in my neighborhood, but hopefully now that you get a little cash back for doing it, even more people will rip out their grass and put in California natives. The bees will be so happy!

It's too late for me to cash in on the rebate, but if you're thinking about taking out your lawn and want to know more about the LADWP program (which requires pre-approval), go here.

And here are my posts about my xeriscaped front yard:
Water Wise
In Bloom

UPDATE: I've noticed quite a few people coming here using search terms like "LA DWP lawn removal," so I wanted to link to a resource that I think would be really helpful for people who want to get rid of their grass lawns. The Garden Punks blog has a couple of great, step-by-step posts about sheet mulching, and their most recent one is really informative (and well-illustrated). If I'd known about it at the time, I would have definitely used their technique when removing my lawn. So, if you're planning to take out some grass and cash in on the DWP rebate, I recommend you check it out.

I love growing new plants from cuttings. It appeals to my twin desires to save money and beautify my environment with lots and lots of plants. I have a couple of Copper Canyon Daisy bushes growing along our back fence that started out as cuttings. After a couple of years, they're as big and bushy as the original plant they came from.

Recently, I started a few new cuttings, including some Copper Canyon Daisies, White Sage and a variety of succulent whose name I don't know. I just take some clippings from a plant, place each one in an empty jelly or olive jar full of water and sit them in a sunny windowsill. Easy-peasy. A couple of them rooted up quite quickly, so I planted them in pots this morning.



The White Sage takes a bit longer to grow roots. I've only successfully grown one of those. I think the woodier the stem, the more difficult it is to grow the plant from a cutting. For a gardening geek like me, it's kind of fun to experiment and see what plants I can manage to coax a root from. I'll let you know how it goes with the rest of my current cuttings.

Not to encourage any questionable activity, but growing from cuttings can also be a good way to get a new plant from one you like in your neighbor's yard. You just break off a small stem from a big, healthy bush while you're, say, walking by with your dog. Pop it in your jar of water, and pretty soon you've got a tiny version of their lovely plant--for free!

Recently, I got a little pamphlet in the mail along with my bill from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. It asks, "How Water Wise Are You?" There's little chart that allows you to compare your water use to the median water consumption of DWP customers.

I was happy to get this chart, because I've been wondering how well we've been conserving water, especially since our recently-planted fruit trees require more deep and frequent watering than most of our other landscaping. When I looked at the chart, I was delighted.

For a lot that's less than 7,499 square feet, the median winter water use, measured in HCF (hundred cubic feet), for a 2-month period is 24. Our water use for the last two months was 6 HCF. That's a quarter of the typical amount. My first reaction was, "Yippie!" My second reaction was, "Dang, how do people using the median amount afford their water bills?" I love it when caring about the environment translates into saving money. So often, it's the other way (i.e. buying organic or fair trade).

Dakota and I discussed why we manage to be so far under the median for water use, when, honestly, I don't feel like we work that hard at saving water. Obviously, part of it is that there are only two of us. But I don't think that can account for all of our water saving. Here are some factors I think help quite a lot:

1) Front-loading washer
Two summers ago, we got a new front-loading washer. It uses less water (and power) than a top loading washer, and less soap. I love it.

2) Low-flow shower head
When I moved into my house, I almost immediately installed a low-flow shower head. It's such an easy way to save water, especially when you're a big fan of hot showers. Gone are the days when a low-flow shower head meant an annoyingly low-pressure bathing experience. These days, water-saving shower heads make your pressure better, not worse. At least, that's what happened at my house. Almost six years later, our Earth Massage Showerhead is still going strong. It makes a big difference for us because Dakota usually takes two showers a day: one to wake up and one to clean off the sawdust after work. Both are vital to his happiness.

3) Toilet policy
In addition to having a low-flow toilet, like most houses in Los Angeles, we tend to not flush after every trip to the bathroom. No need to get into details, but I believe many hippies have signs in their bathroom beginning with the phrase, "If it's yellow, leave it mellow..." We don't have that sign, but we agree with the principle. Treehugger calls it the "Selective Flush." Some people are kind of grossed out by this idea, but it's how I grew up, so it seems completely natural to me.

4) Lawnless living
The single biggest water savings for us, I'm guessing, comes from our lack of a grass lawn. When I moved into the house back in 2003, there was a small lawn in the front, but Dakota and I took it out pretty quickly. In its place, we planted a mixture of California native plants, other low-water-use bushes and cacti. Now that the plants are established, they need very little water to flourish. I honestly can't remember the last time I watered the front yard. It's definitely been at least three months. We have a similar landscaping plan in the back, although obviously the vegetable garden and fruit trees do require watering several times a week. Still, I think our lawnless lot is what keeps our water bill so low.

I love our California native plants, too. Here are a few that have thrived over the years, despite intense dry heat and bad soil.

White sage. Has a very sage-y smell. The leaves are a really pretty pale green.


California fuschia. This one spreads sideways and has bright red flowers, which attract butterflies and hummingbirds.


Needle's buckwheat. This produces little white puffy flowers and grows like crazy. I'm constantly cutting it back. We have two varieties of buckwheat in the yard, the other is Red buckwheat.


I can't remember the name of this one. It blooms yellow, daisy-like flowers and the leaves have a wonderful, herbal smell. It also grows nicely from cuttings. I have two more bushes in the backyard from cuttings from this plant.

Basically, we make almost no sacrifices in order to keep our water use low. We still take showers when we want and have a clothes washer and a dishwasher. I certainly put some back-breaking labor into getting the front yard plants established, but now that they're in, they require almost nothing from me. It's nice to know saving water can be fairly easy. Pretty soon, it'll likely be a requirement for living in Southern California. Maybe once the city is done giving out CFLs they'll move on to low-flow shower heads and cacti.

In the last few weeks, everything in our yard has burst into bloom. It's been really nice to watch all our plants flower, especially since they are mostly low-water-use perennials.

In the back yard, we have flowers all over the place.

Daisies





Lavender



Various blooming bushes





Even the trees are blooming



The front yard is looking pretty great, too. The plants have really matured and grown bushy in the past year. It looks nothing like the boring, ugly grass yard it was when I moved in. I feel pretty proud of all the work Dakota and I have put in to make it nice. And I think our neighbors appreciate the effort, too. They often comment on our healthy plants. Plus, I haven't had to water it in months. I love native plants.



I am still working on the plot on the left side of the house, and much of the backyard still needs work, but this years bounty of flowers gives me some encouragement. I can't imagine how gorgeous Spring will be in another couple of years, once I've landscaped some more, added more veggie plots and used my super-fertile chicken compost to improve the terrible soil. I can't wait.