Aug 28, 2022
Abandoned last fall when its blueberry bush was transplanted into a more spacious container, the pot needed new tenants. Life intervened, I gave it scant thought, and the pot sat empty and forgotten.
After much procrastination, the pot was reborn in spring with one of my favorite plant families: herbs. Tarragon, sage and thyme now thrive in that old pot.
Every gardener should welcome herbs. Lavender and rosemary are not uncommon in Sacramento gardens. I grow four different lavenders and both upright and trailing varieties of rosemary.
Jul 28, 2022
Brown Thumb Mama is a mother of two, garden writer and corporate world escapee who wields her superpowers from a suburban Sacramento home.
With her Brown Thumb Mama website (brownthumbmama.com), weekly newsletter, social media sites, videos and TV appearances, Pam Farley recently exceeded a website milestone—more than 1 million annual readers.
May 28, 2022
Psst. Want to know a secret? Snuggled between J Street and a parking garage is the University Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Yup, a petite parcel of trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials on the Sacramento State campus.
Easy to miss, the arboretum is a surprisingly tranquil retreat from modern mayhem. The Sacramento Tree Foundation, which awarded the arboretum its “Legacy Award,” says schoolchildren call it the “Forest in the City.”
Apr 28, 2022
Gardening is fertilizer for the soul. Admire a flower. Inhale a patch of lavender. A few minutes with nature bring obvious benefits. Less obvious and underappreciated are creatures that live in our soil, on our plants or drop by Sacramento gardens for a visit.
Gardens teem with both pests and, hopefully, beneficial creatures. Beneficial, in a gardening sense, means critters that help in pollination and control pests. They also can improve soil.
As a lad, I learned to appreciate honeybees. Dad was a honeybee hobbyist who tended hives and extracted honey. Guess who was conscripted to help.
Mar 28, 2022
Fads are fleeting. Remember steampunk, planking, selfie sticks, the ice bucket challenge and the Macarena? Social media platforms and marketing staffs predict and inflate fads. Eventually, the air escapes and we read about the next must-have product.
Gardening has fads, often called trends. By definition, a fad arrives overnight and quickly disappears. Trends gradually evolve and may (or not) endure. Both are lumped into one category when predicting the most popular colors, plants and design choices for gardens and outdoor living areas.
