Tag: gardening
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Touch grass
Here are some of the types of grass (family Poaceae) I’m trying to grow around our yard. Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis) is my current favorite — I just like the way it looks: I’ve had pretty good luck growing it from seed. I’ve contributed a few plants grown from seed to the local school. It…
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Starting the new year with a little gardening
There was a break in the rain on New Year’s Day so I headed over to the school. I carried a couple plants with me that had been growing in pots on our patio for a while: California Aster (Symphyotrichum chilense), cultivated from overflow from our yard, and goldenrod (probably Solidago velutina ssp. californica), salvaged…
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Covington Sensory Garden Natives Blooming November 1, 2025
The Covington Elementary sensory garden features a lot of native plants. Here are the ones I noticed blooming Saturday while we were working on some upkeep. Common Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) Many of the plants in the main yarrow patch in the garden aren’t just done blooming; their tops are brown and crispy. This one in…
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Failed replication and a germination mystery
In “The Nature of Oaks”, Doug Tallamy suggests an experiment: To be fair to worm catchers, many of the inhabitants of oak leaf litter are barely visible to the naked eye even though they are everywhere you look. But there is an easy way to observe some of the larger arthropods in the litter beneath…