Attracting Birds

Wildlife Miscellany: Trends, Native Plant Books, and Special Thanks to Carole Brown

January 26, 2012 1 comment
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A quick wrap-up of some recent posts on wildlife gardening from around the web. . . You know how I love to read the garden trend reports at the start of each year, and this year I’m seeing a lot of trends that I like. Over at Beautiful Wildlife Gardens, Carole Brown posted a list [...]

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Bored of Your Winter View?

January 25, 2012 1 comment
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Perk things up this winter by adding some winter-interest plants, attracting birds, and creating colorful containers out of cut stems and evergreen boughs. That’s my advice over at Landscaping Network, where I talk about some superstar plants and some non-intuitive ways of bringing birds to your winter garden. A special tip o’ the nib to [...]

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How to Get Your Garden Certified as a NWF Wildlife Habitat

July 4, 2011 0 comments
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As one of the National Wildlife Federation’s recommended landscapers, I’ve been learning a lot lately about encouraging wildlife in your garden. One of the easiest ways to begin getting in touch with your local wildlife is to go through the simple process of getting your garden certified as a wildlife habitat. I wrote an article [...]

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Fall Leaf Raking: Finding the Middle Ground

November 6, 2010 17 comments
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All gardeners evolve. There is something about being outside and working hard in nature that inspires learning and growth. The issue of fall leaves is one I’ve been struggling with lately. Last year I wrote about why you shouldn’t let your fall leaves stay, and all of those reasons are still true, but… This year [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Pruners, Leaf Litter, and Attracting Pollinators

October 25, 2010 0 comments
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Was absolutely delighted to get this awesome comment from Heuchera on my Hand Pruner Showdown post comparing the different types of pruning shears: Recently I lost my old Felcos and needed to find a new pair. I had owned a different model, so I decided to research the web to see if the No. 2′s [...]

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Monday Miscellany: Wildlife Gardening

October 11, 2010 10 comments
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Fall is a great time of year to be thinking about the wildlife. If you can hold off deadheading, leave some fall leaves on the ground for overwintering insects, and make any fall-planting choices good for wildlife, you will have really amped things up for your local butterflies, birds, and other creatures. Here’s some reading [...]

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The Ten Best Native Plants for Coastal Northern California Wildlife by Peter Haggard

September 3, 2010 8 comments
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On the heels of our recent Garden Designers Roundtable on Inviting Nature Into the Garden, I wanted to share a resource that I’ve been finding incredibly helpful in recent months. While we all know that planting natives is a good way to attract more life into our gardens, if we only have space for a [...]

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Plants to Love: Mexican Feather Grass (Nassella tenuissima/ Stipa tenuissima)

July 4, 2010 0 comments
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This waving blonde grass is a great way of bringing a sense of movement to your garden. It looks great massed, and brings a beachy feel to the garden with its bleached straw-colored seedheads. Nassella tenuissima does need to be cut to the ground once a year, but I’ve had great luck doing it at [...]

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Container Plants that Birds Love

March 21, 2009 9 comments

Finishing off our series on planting to attract birds, here’s my love poem to container gardeners – some of my favorite plants to attract birds and hummingbirds to your urban or patio garden. Fuchsia thymifolia or Fairy Fuchsia This is the fuchsia that makes me go starry-eyed with love. Blooming all year  long on the [...]

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Nectar Plants for the Hummingbirds to Enjoy

March 5, 2009 14 comments

If you’ve been following my series on Planting to Attract Birds, you may already have a few plants in mind to attract hummingbirds to your garden. Who wouldn’t want to bring that energy and life into their garden? Even though I’m a landscaper and get to see hummingbirds every day, they never lose their magic [...]

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