Happy Earth Day 2013!

The Dalai Lama said it best "As people alive today, we must consider future generations: a clean environment is a human right like any other. It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than we found it."

Let's take care of our mother earth in the same way she takes care of us!

Here are 5 fun activities to Celebrate Earth Day!

• Plant a Tree: This is not only a fun activity with the whole family, but planting trees help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Trees provide a habitat for different bird species and even other plants. They provide with plenty of shade that in turn keep your house cool without the need for air conditioning.
• Pick up trash from your local park or beach: Wear gloves and encourage others to join you. Parks and beaches provide with beautiful outdoor areas for everyone in the community to enjoy. 
• Take a nature walk with the family: Get the children on their bikes, the dog on a leash and head for the local mountains beach or foothills. Most of us don't do this enough! It gets you out of the house and away from the routine. It increases your blood circulation and lowers stress levels. 
• Cook an organic meal: Go to your local farmers market and pick up organic locally grown vegetables. We all talk about eating better, but it is easier said than done! Invite others to join you! Make lemonade from local grow lemons, add berries for color!, grill veggies, and throw a green salad together! You will be surprised of how fun this could be!
• Watch a Green Film for Earth Day: Here is a list of some of the most popular films to watch on Earth Day. "An Inconvenient Truth", "Earth Days", "The Cove", "Who Killed the electric car", "Crude: The real price of oil"  

Let it rain!

Finally got some rain after over a month! Even my California native plants and succulents were starting to look a bit dehydrated.
The beauty of water wise gardening is that just that 1/2" of rain will help native plants survive for another month easily without the need to water them.
Today I'd like to share a beautiful plant that we all have admire at one point or another when traveling our Spectacular California Coast. If you can't get one of these  to grow, then you might just consider that gardening may not be for you. It's literally the easiest plant to grow.
Pride of Madeira is just everywhere! This large shrub grows up to 6' to 8' in diameter extremely fast.  The flowers come in different shades of blue, purple and even a light pink. They are very invasive and require a serious pruning after the flowers have dried up in order to keep it under control. Excellent for slopes and garden edges. Attract butterflies, hummingbirds, bees and all kinds of life! This is a fun beautiful plant to have around. Best part of it! Needs little to no water in the summer once stablished.
It's truly spectacular the way it grows wild in Big Sur right on the Coast.
Enjoy!

Pride of Madeira (echium candicans)

Flowers from seed

 So many of us don't have time to take care of a garden so there is a simple solution!  Get California wild native seed that attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. It'll cost less than 20.00 bucks for a 15 x 10' area.
All you do is spread seed in the area you want flowers and wait! I laid down seed on my drought tolerant garden in November and here they are today!
All they require is that you don't step on the seeded area. No watering! The beauty of California wild flowers is that you don't have to go through the whole loosening the soil and do the constant watering. You can have a beautiful spring Garden full of flowers, butterflies and hummingbirds almost effortlessly.
Happy Spring!

Who said drought tolerant trees are boring? This beauty is a Palo Verde (parkinsonia florida).Native to the Sonora Deserts and Northwestern Mexico. Excellent choice for a water wise landscape in Southern California. Provides with plenty of shade and you don't have to water it once established.
Grows to approximately 35 ft.

Beautiful SC

Hello world!
I am lucky to live in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful areas in the United States, Southern California. When one thinks of Los Angeles thoughts of palm trees, beach and sun come to mind, but very few of us realize that the Los Angeles area is very much a desert. One that is screaming with warnings that most of us are choosing to ignore. 

Ever since I was a child I've heard of the water crisis in the area, and how we will one day run out. As a kid I often asked myself how so? There is water everywhere you turn a corner! There are lakes and rivers and the ocean is right there! 
Fortunately, the naive child grew up, and now I can find out for myself of what I can do to coexist with this beautiful area without consuming all of its resources.

Southern California with its 20 million people gets it’s water from a variety of sources. Groundwater makes a small percentage and the remainder is imported from the Owens Valley, the Colorado River, and the State Water Project. 

The Los Angeles Aqueduct carries water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, to major urban areas of Southern California. 

I often ask myself if people around me even know where our water comes from. It's almost impossible to ignore sprinklers outside of city buildings and some private homes feeding their large lawns even during the few times a year we get rain. Just in my neighborhood alone 3 out of 5 of my neighbors still hose down their driveways once a week. 

It sometimes seems hopeless to even try to bring awareness to the issue, but we can't give up!

I keep on thinking what about if I could influence just one person to maybe replace their  lawn for a California Native garden, then that person could pay it forward and so on. I think it's worth a shot!

So here I am! The purpose of this blog is to give away the little knowledge I have of our beautiful plants and local flowers, as well as sharing some simple and inexpensive design ideas for water wise landscaping along with other tips on how we can save money while conserving our precious water.

We have been expecting rain for a few weeks. I hope tonight is the night.

Good night world!