Garden
Budding Success
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.
Water Wise
Water Wise ‘Stress lawns, save trees’ in today’s drought By Dan Vierria July 2022 Welcome to the third year of extreme drought. As survivors of water restrictions and veterans of nurturing landscapes through heat, smoke and ash, we get rewarded with an...
Hidden Treasure
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.”
Going Buggy
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.
Growing Viral
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.
Urban Affair
One soggy morning, rain and wind buffeted Sacramento. At this perfect moment for baking blueberry muffins, my blue orbs were hibernating in the freezer. All were grown in containers last summer.
Growing edibles and ornamentals in containers is a gardening option. In many cases, it’s required. Tiny new home lots and some urban dwellings offer enough “yard” for the dog to turn around. Available outdoor growing space may be concrete or a Midtown balcony, rooftop or alley.
Containers and flowers go together like teens and texting. Inflation and the cost of food, continuing pandemic concerns and a boost in healthy diets are driving increased edible gardening. Pots are perfect!