Grow Mexican Sunflowers and attract Monarchs to your garden. Monarch Butterflies are so friendly once they know your garden is a welcome waystation for them. This male landed on the flower I was holding while taking a picture. I let it go just before I snapped this. Watch the Late Bloomer episode “Growing Mexican Sunflower” (click through to […]
December Blooms in Southern California! While many gardens are buried in snow or frost, and gardeners are dreaming of their spring gardens, a few plants are blooming in the Late Bloomer garden and I thought I would share. Hopefully, they will offer a little sunshine into your day! As I didn’t plant a full-scale winter […]
Tribute to an allotment and a loving father is “Save the Last Dance for Me” by English writer Dallas Dyson at http://crazytraintotinkytown.com/. I connected with Dallas when I first published Late Bloomer Show as a blog in 2012, and though many of my first WordPress followers disappeared when I converted my blog to a full-service website, Dallas […]
Loveliness After the Rain & More on our Water Woes. Last night’s light shower was nothing more than a blip on the radar of California’s vastly reduced water supply due to four straight years of drought. Still, the sight of dripping flowers in the morning light cheered me. I attended a Sierra Club Angeles Chapter water forum last night […]
October blooms both ethereal and lusty grace my garden this first week of October, and feed Monarchs, other butterflies, hummingbirds and bees. I thought I’d take a close look around, now that the summer garden is mostly finished, and see what’s blooming and providing pollen for the pollinators. After the huge squash blooms of summer […]
“Grow a Native Meadow in Your Yard” is the latest and 50th episode of “Late Bloomer!” Kaye shows the growth of her parkway native mini-meadow over the course of a year. Soil health, biodiversity (providing food for wildlife) and water conservation are three reasons to create a meadow in your urban garden. And the best reason, if you […]
After the rain, the Late Bloomer Garden comes alive! You may have heard about the drought in California. Well, we got a proper hosing the past few days. It coincided with cool season crops mature and lush. My new rainwater barrel is full along with several overflow trash cans, and the soil got a deep […]
Blushing blooms for the New Year abound in our Southern California neighborhoods! Because half my garden is taken up with edible plants, at first glance there doesn’t seem to be much color at the end of December. I have the staples that bloom all year, like Princess Flower and non-native yarrow, but I thought I […]
Late Bloomer – Winter Garden Wrap-up – Episode 32 finds Kaye pulling out all the sweet peas in her winter garden. It’s Easter and time to prepare for the summer garden. She learns the lesson, again, not to crowd vegetables together, especially in a coastal microclimate. Kaye runs into the usual suspects, aphids, slugs and […]
Late Bloomer – Summer Garden Plantings on Mother’s Day is online! Kaye reviews what’s planted in her front yard organic garden for summer from veggies to perennials, to herbs and berries in pots, all to the original guitar compositions by Jon Pileggi! In addition to all the edibles named in the episode, there is an artichoke, […]
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