Under the Solano Sun

 In my Horticultural Therapy class, we develop “tool kits,” including plants we are comfortable using in therapeutic activities. My recent focus has been on activities that are portable and indoors, so I wanted to learn more about “houseplants.” I was surprised to find that houseplants might simply…

When I first got my city-subsidized $10 worm condo some years back (many years back), I got really excited about worm farming. Back then, we just called it worm composting. The only book of “authority” was “Worms Eat My Garbage” by Mary Appelhoff. I learned from the book the term “vermicomposting,” and most…

The title actually was a question that came on the Master Gardener hotline some time ago.  It appears that the person calling had bought a Jacaranda “shrub” and was concerned because it kept trying to put out a large “stem” which required constant cutting back; also, it was never blooming as promised by…

This past week I have seen up to four monarch caterpillars and yesterday, there were none. At the beginning of the week, I was doing my daily count and there was a good-sized lizard attempting to eat one of the larger caterpillars. Lizards are known predators. I came to the rescue on that day and scared them…

At the end of May, there were a few monarch butterflies fluttering among my milkweeds. Five narrowleaf milkweed plants and five years later, I now have two good-sized patches of them. Then we had heavy rains and gusty wind conditions in Fairfield, which was concerning for the eggs and larvae. The milkweeds…