We all do it. We plant fruit trees and don’t manage to pick all the fruits as they ripen. We buy produce at the farmer’s market or the supermarket and let some of it go bad — not intentionally — but because we don’t get around to eating as fast as we expected. Or we were r

California has more rare, threatened, and endangered plants than any other state. Plant populations disappear as homes, shopping centers, schools, and other developments replace habitats. Native plants are also lost to too-frequent wildfires, to climate change, and to human overuse an

There’s no better way to give your garden a sense of place than by using native plants. Still, it can be challenging to decide what is truly native, and figuring out how to use those plants in a garden setting, rather than a restoration. Restorations essentially recreate the plant com

A number of years ago, I was touring gardens in Shady Canyon, then a brand new development of grand homes in Irvine, California. The homes wound up and down the side of a hill – each property with a gorgeous view. As we stood in the backyard of one home under construction, I looked do

— Nan Sterman On the last garden tour I led to England, I was impressed to see how all the gardens, both formal and informal, included spaces for bees and other pollinator insects. Every private garden we saw included wild grasses and blooming wildflowers – what US gardeners wou

–Nan Sterman In these hot days of summer, we take pleasure in watering vegetable gardens and fruit trees but we don’t often think about watering pines, liquidambar, magnolia, floss silk, and all the other trees that grow so well in our climate. Once tree roots are deep in the ea

By Nan Sterman Here’s something I’ve long wondered about. There are more than 4,000 species of bees native to North America, all of which are pollinators. With the problems that European honeybees have had in recent years, are there enough native bees to pollinate our crops instead? E

March in the Garden Get Ready for Spring — Nan Sterman March is such a busy month for gardeners. There’s so much to see, so much to learn, and so much to do. Where to begin? Here’s my list for getting your garden ready for the months ahead. Edibles Start your home ve

  — Nan Sterman (Continued from last week’s blog) How to attract pollinators to your garden Water, habitat and food are the basics for attracting pollinators into your garden. Water Offer pollinators a constant drip or a shallow dish of water or water in a birdbath. A

— Nan Sterman How often a gardener sends me a photo, asking me if the bug in the picture is a “good bug” or a “bad bug.” Most people assume  every bug is bad but the truth is, most of the insects in our gardens are “good,” or at least, they aren’t “bad.” In my garden, this is an