In Downtown Fallbrook, facing Mission Road, many pass a special green roof-top garden, and hardly ever take notice. This eco-roof belongs to everyone and it’s planted atop the town’s Library! It’s actually the first ever innovative and award-winning rooftop garden constructed in the San Diego Library system! The Fallbrook Woman’s Club, originally named The Saturday Afternoon Club, helped to establish the San Diego branch Fallbrook Library in 1913. It opened with only 250 books and occupied a small corner of Hardy’s Drugstore. The public was eager to withdraw books and did so in amazing numbers ..read more

Pandemics, politics, protests, and then there’s ponds. Making it a point each day to pass a certain pond to pause and reflect seems to drive all negativity from the other P-words away. The view there changes daily. The color of the water, the wildlife it brings, and the beautiful plants growing in and around its perimeter are new with each visit. This may be a strange way of introducing you to one certain swordlike perennial plant that can be found there. But I have to set the scene. Right? It’s the cattail. Typha latifolia, also known as bulrush, reedmace, and corndog grass, is spread by rhiz ..read more

In a home vegetable garden, crop rotation involves changing the planting location of vegetables within the garden each season. Crop rotation is used to reduce damage from insect pests and to limit the development of vegetable diseases by interrupting pest and disease cycles. Crop rotation also helps manage soil fertility by returning nutrients to the soil without synthetic inputs. Although crop rotation is usually geared toward large conventional farms, the lessons are the same for the home vegetable garden. As many large commercial farms plant the same crop, year after year, more chemical fer ..read more

WHY WE SHOULD CARE AND THE STORIES THEY TELL: PART ONE Why should gardeners make an effort to learn botanical Latin names? When we know the name of a plant, we have the ability to expand our knowledge about that plant. With the common name, some knowledge is gained. However, knowing the plant’s botanical name (genus and species) gives us much more. Genus and species provide a path to understanding a plant’s physical attributes, medicinal use, geographical origin, ethnobotany, cultivation, or history. Another reason to know the botanical name is that there will be no confusion as to which p ..read more

Increasing daylight and warmer daytime temperatures, give us hope that Spring is slowly approaching. But, once the sun sets, that familiar chill fills the air and reminds us it’s still winter. Thoughts of enjoying a warm beverage like hot cocoa topped with marshmallows comes to mind. Only, your store-bought marshmallows probably do not contain any part of the herbal Marshmallow plant. Instead, they are a confection containing corn syrup and gelatin. The Marshmallow plant often referred to as “Mallow root” or Althaea officinalis, has been used in herbal medicine for centuries. Although the or ..read more

As dedicated gardeners, we have long lists of chores and ideas for new projects. We head outside and busy ourselves with clipping, weeding, planting and watering. Or we might take a restful moment in a favorite chair and enjoy the garden as we have many times before. What I propose is to take a mindful wander around the entire garden, without tools or plans and really see and enjoy each plant. When I did this in mid December I noticed numerous plants with bright berries, colorful foliage and brilliant blooms. Amazing, considering it was almost the winter solstice! There were four woody perenni ..read more

For many, the joy of the holiday season is in the decorations. Whether you’re the one decorating or simply enjoying them, you can’t miss the appearance of this timely native herbal stunner. The brilliant red berries, or pomes, pop with color in contrast to its green leathery leaves. Some mistake it for Holly (Ilex); it is not. Others may think it’s Pyracantha (Firethorn.) Wrong; no thorns. It goes by many names, like Christmas berry, or California Holly. Legend has it that the name, Hollywood, shortened from Hollywoodland, was so named because this bush profusely dots the slopes and hillsides ..read more

Mistletoe is a parasitic and somewhat toxic evergreen plant that has been revered for thousands of years by cultures worldwide. There are a variety of traditions and myths associated with mistletoe. Most of them are connected with the winter solstice and the return of light. At this time, when the deciduous oaks are barren, the balls of green mistletoe stand out and are revealed. The ancient Celts believed mistletoe to be so sacred that it was not allowed to touch the ground. It was cut and collected by the Druid priests, who climbed the oak tree host and dropped the harvested plants into blan ..read more

As you gather together with friends and family this year, undoubtedly buttered corn will quietly make its way to your Thanksgiving table. . . again. But imagine this ordinary yellow or white veggie served in a completely different way. What if it looked nothing like corn but was corn, only transformed into a highly-prized delicacy originally from Central America. Would you try it? I did. In a trendy new restaurant in Northern California, I ordered the Mexican truffle quesadillas. (Hey, it was my birthday!) I knew I would be eating “corn smut,” or “Huitlacoche,” as it’s well known in Mexico. I ..read more

A California native bird that has captured my interest this year is the California Thrasher, Toxostoma redivivum (‘toxo’means arch or bow and ‘stoma’means mouth; ‘redivivum’means resurrected, referring to rediscovery in the 1800s after initial sightings in the 1700s.) Its habitat is California and Baja California chaparral, which has been declining. The result has been a reduction in the California Thrasher population by 35% in the last 50 years. The California Thrasher is extremely cautious and shy which probably explains why I have just ‘discovered’ them in my garden. The notoriously bold an ..read more