‘Satsuma’ Mandarin: the Perfect Fruit Tree
If you are looking for a fruit tree that produces in the fall with a minimum of care, consider a ‘Satsuma’ mandarin. Ronald Chong, our conscientious correspondent from Hacienda Heights, emailed a ph...
Category Archives: Advice
Fall Planting of Deciduous Trees
When it comes to deciduous shrubs and trees, fall and winter are the seasons they get serious about root growth. In places like Southern California, where the ground never freezes, roots never stop ...
Euphorbia Trees and Growing Cherimoyas
At one time or another, most of us have probably seen one of those television shows that highlight valuable works of art, antiques, or odd ball memorabilia that were found quite by chance in someone’...
Keeping Grass Green in a Drought
Two weeks ago I asked if anyone had succeeded in keeping a lawn green despite watering restrictions. Here are some of your responses: Where we live, it’s much drier than most anywhere in Los Angeles...
Macadamia Orchard, Finger Limes, Sweet Cherries
The pleasure of hanging out with plant people is what you learn from them. Such people, and the plants they grow, are typically full of wonderful surprises. Just the other day, I met Ash Jahanbin, w...
Lawn Alternatives
Slowly, over the last few years, more and more front yards in Los Angeles have turned brown and stayed that way or, in some cases, turned to dirt. It is no longer a stigma for the owner of any sort ...
Dragon Fruit Experiences and Smoke Trees
Imagine a cactus that grows rapidly in ordinary garden soil and whose luscious fruit are on sale at the supermarket for $4.99 per pound. Would you want to try to grow that cactus? I recently wrote ab...
Lemon Verbena and Lemongrass
If you want to see something new – which, at least where horticulture is concerned, is to learn something new — I urge you to pay a visit to the Sepulveda Garden Center on the corner of Hayvenh...
Growing Plants Under Glass
Nathaniel Ward was an Englishman who loved to observe the behavior of insects and was fond of enclosing them in glass jars. Once, he forgot about one of his jars and, when he noticed it again, a fern...
Dragon Fruit
It’s about time you considered growing dragon fruit, also known as pitaya. Although dragon fruit is native to the Central American and South American tropics, I have seen it growing in the San Fernan...
