When someone writes you a letter and invites you to check out a plant that smell like a dead, rotting horse, of course you say yes.
Terry called a few weeks ago, her voice filled with anticipation.
Every year, about this time, the lilies bloom outside her living room window in Paradise.
The …

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I wasn’t going to get my hands very dirty this year. I have oodles of very important things to do.
I love gardening, don’t you know? But my perennial flowers are lovely, and will thrive if I simply use the hose.
Yet, that little itch gets me.
Perhaps I could put just a …

Most of us have adopted little rules for living: Don’t snack after midnight; don’t take candy from strangers; don’t date musicians; read the instruction manual.
One of my rules is not to put vegetable plants in the ground until my birthday, which is at the end of this month.
The rule corresponds …

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking over other people’s fences.
Of course, this isn’t entirely new to me, but now I have a purpose.
My search to buy a house has been going on for a while. But recently I started packing boxes. The plan is that when my silverware …

After driving through the Mexican desert and back again on my recent vacation, I was eager to click my ruby slippers and chant “there’s no place like home.”
The sands of the Sonora mountains and beyond are rich with “stark beauty.” But March and April are enchanting in Chico.
Perhaps in contrast …

Sea of Cortez — a long journey through wet and dry to get there.
I was mesmerized by the power of water last week. Our family vacation began in water-rich Northern California, continued through the entire Central Valley, ending at the arid Sea of Cortez in Baja Mexico.
(Of the 600 photographs …

Last weekend I returned home and the boxes had arrived. A ginormous stack of cardboard was piled several feet high.
I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing, but the symbol of change had arrived on the dusty driveway where I park my car.
My co-worker heard I have begun …

“Your power animal is not the soaring eagle or the shrewd wolf or the brave bear. No, Taurus, it’s the rubber chicken.”
I’m serious. This was my horoscope from Rob Brezsney this week.
You can imagine the sound of my cackle as I read this aloud to friends at the pizza parlor. …

The garden at GRUB is alive year-round. This time of year the onions are progressing and row-after-row of seedlings have begun in the greenhouse.
 
Sorry if you missed it, but last weekend was the annual seed swap at the GRUB cooperative.
There’s a lot to be said about having something “new” even …

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I’m fairly proud of my hyacinths in pots. This is the third bloom, after taking them out each August and putting them in the crisper drawer in the fridge.

Early bloomers include hyacinth and daffodils. …