Tales from the Garden

2012 Bats, Owls, Spiders, and Snakes class at Magnuson I've been growing gardens since the mid-1970's and teaching kids and adults about gardening and nature since the mid-1990's.  However, one of the best things I've learned along the way is that, no matter how much you already know, there is always much more to learn about these things! I love to learn as well as to teach, and I've already taken 4 hours of online classes this spring. In fact,  I'm taking an IslandWood class tomorrow afternoon, and planning to sign up for more! That's why I think now is a great time to take a garden class in the Pacific Northwest Savvy Gardener "Gardening on Slopes" class I'm serious! Whether you are starting a new project or looking for ideas to improve your existing garden areas, learning from garden experts is a great way to get inspired to jump start your spring.   The Puget Sound area is a fantastic place to take a garden cl

Rhododendron and Columbine blooms in my former Seattle garden, with lots of Cotoneaster berries for the Robins May is a month that brings such delight in the northwest.  The beauty of a garden filled with lush spring-green leaves, and flowers in every color of the rainbow is beyond words.  It's also a time when northwest gardeners are brimming with hopes for a good season, with bountiful flower, vegetable, and fruit crops all around. Because I'm a lifelong baseball fanatic, I tend towards spring gardening analogies like, "don't mourn last year's losses, this is a new season", "every day is a new chance to get a hit", etc. to keep the optimism going strong.  As I'm sure all baseball lovers have experienced, this spring has been tougher than normal to keep on keepin' on... as no games at all is worse than losing, that's for sure.   When bad weather, pests, and diseases get us gardeners off our game, it's important to remember

 Male Broad-billed Hummingbird If you’ve observed hummingbird behavior yourself, you won’t be surprised to know that when the male Broad-billed Hummingbird flew into our picture window (and that I rescued in the story from my previous post), he was in the midst of a high-speed chase with two other males.   At any time of year, but especially during spring, males put on a dazzling “air show” competing for flower nectar, sugar-water feeders, and other females.   These battles can be extremely fast and fierce, with each male maneuvering to cut off their rivals from every direction.   It can even be hard for our eyes to follow their flight paths while each of them uses all the weapons in their arsenal: dive bombing straight up or down, sharp u-turns, hovering an inch away with tail feathers spread in order to appear as large as possible, rat-a-tat alarm calls, and more. Male Black-chinned Hummingbird And the battles aren’t just between males of the same species, as all of the

Rescue underway  On March 14 th , 2020, something incredible happened in my relationship with birds, which I will never forget.   Earlier that day, I had sat outside the Arivaca Schoolhouse with a group of fellow residents, talking about how we can support one another during the coronavirus outbreak, and though the conversation was very constructive, I was feeling very unsettled.   Soon after arriving back home, while sitting at the dining room table, I heard a tiny thud that sounded like a small bird hitting our front picture window glass.   Two days before, a Mourning Dove had accidentally flown into that same window and died instantly, which had made me realize that the window was a hazard again because some of the bird-deterrent decals had fallen off of it over the winter.   I had already bought more decals, and just needed to put them up.   Now, with a heavy heart, knowing that I had forgotten this important task, I went to the front door and looked out. A male Broad-b

One of my favorite northwest plants: Mahonia nervosa (Low Oregon Grape),  with its emerging flower bud in my former Seattle garden Chives shoots March is a magical time in the northwest garden.  Tiny green buds on the branches of deciduous shrubs and trees begin to open, early bulbs reveal their cheerful blossoms and send leaves up so fast you can almost watch them grow.  Little by little, the soil warms enough for tiny shoots to begin to pop out of the crowns of herbaceous perennials and grasses, and birds begin to sing more vigorously.  It's a great time to be out in the fresh air, whether in your own garden, a nearby park or natural area, or anywhere else in the great outdoors! Ornamental Gardening Tips for March: 1. Plant bare root shrubs They are so much less expensive than containerized or ball & burlap plants, because you are not paying for the soil, nursery container, and shipping weight.  You will also have an easier time planting them at the cor

Ella & Margie in Arivaca, 2018 Anyone who knows me also knows that I am a doting “parent” of 2 cats named Ella and Margie.   Just like every cat I’ve parented since 1975, they were rescue kitties, having thankfully survived being abandoned or lost and fending for themselves in the great outdoors.   Once they joined our family, these 2 became indoor-only cats though, for two big reasons: 1. Back in around 1995, our young cat Mozey had 3 attacks of acute pancreatitis that almost killed her each time.   She was a good hunter and much to our dismay had already brought several songbirds in the house to devour.   Our vet told us that her chances of survival would be much higher if she became an indoor cat immediately, so that we could control her diet to ensure she didn’t eat any birds or other wildlife, which were known as a possible trigger of this rare disease in cats. Mozey in Seattle in 2013, at age 17 When we did that for her, we also had to change the life of 8 yr.

Roadrunner adult male Like many young children in the 60’s, my first exposure to Roadrunners came through Looney Tunes cartoons, with Wile E. Coyote’s hapless and hilarious pursuit of a happy-go-lucky bird who could run so fast that he caused roads to ripple, distort, or roll up like a carpet! Thank goodness a real roadrunner can’t do that to Arivaca Road, or we’d have even more potholes to avoid when driving on it… but they can run at up to 20 mph, which is nearly as fast as famous sprinters Florence Griffith-Joyner at 22 mph and Usain Bolt at 28 mph.   Their speed gives them a big advantage when tracking their favorite prey, which includes venomous lizards and scorpions, as well as rattlesnakes.   With rattlers, they often hunt in tandem with another roadrunner:   one distracts the snake by jumping around and flapping its wings while the other sneaks up, then pins its head and bashes it against a rock.    Yowza! Throughout our 3 winters here, there has been a pair