Tag: birds
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Board Member Outreach Brings Native Plants to the Urban Environment
Daphne Christle, Board Member of the OCCNPS, shares her passion for California native plants, inspired by childhood experiences and environmental activists. She emphasizes the importance of community outreach and hopes to re-wild urban environments. Her future goals include promoting biodiversity and encouraging others to appreciate and protect native plants.
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Native Plant of the Month: Bladderpod
Guest author Dan Songster submitted this article featuring an outstanding California native plant for May: This fast growing, densely-branching shrub routinely grows in a mounding habit, becoming about 3-6 feet tall and as wide. It produces abundant bright-yellow flower clusters at the ends of its stem branches. These showy flowers are about a half-inch to…
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If Money Were No Object, How Would You Grow Your Garden?
Learn about native gardeners’ dream gardens if money were no object.
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April’s Plant of the Month: Saffron Buckwheat
What: Eriogonum crocatum – Saffron Buckwheat Dan Songster shares his native plant expertise with this article featuring a California Native Plant of the Month. April’s featured plant is Saffron Buckwheat (Eriogonum crocatum). Saffron buckwheat is lovely whether in flower or not. A colorful, compact mounding shrub to 1 1/2 feet tall by 2-3 feet wide…
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Dreamy Native Plants
Our rain totals in Southern California have already exceeded the average 14 inches per rainy season. As I write, two more inches of rain has fallen with more to come. It is an understatement to say that our native plants are thriving. This is great news for the wildlife, birds, and pollinators that depend on…
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Botanist Shares Wonders of the Natural World
Thea Gavin presents her monthly feature of a member of the Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (OCCNPS) Board of Directors. This article features Ron Vanderhoff, OCCNPS Plant Science Chair and current President of CalFlora. With a career in horticulture that has spanned decades, Ron is also General Manager and Vice President…
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Native Plant Goals for the New Year
Native Gardener’s Corner-Member’s Tips, Tricks, and Techniques This article, compiled by guest author Dan Songster, offers OCCNPS chapter members and local experts a chance to share information related to gardening with native plants. This month’s query asked: Do you have any New Year’s resolutions for your native garden or plans for changing your landscape in…
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Keep Your Eyes Open Even on the Busiest Trails
The Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (OCCNPS) presents our monthly article featuring OCCNPS Board Member Jonathan Frank, team lead of the field trip committee. Past: Can you share a formative native plant memory from your childhood? Present: What native-plant related ideas/projects are you working on right now? Future: What are your…
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Native Gardener’s Corner–Tips, Tricks, and Techniques
August/September, 2023 Guest Article compiled by Dan Songster. This column is a newsletter feature offering OCCNPS chapter members and local experts a chance to briefly share information on many things related to gardening with natives. The Request for this Edition of the OCCNPS Newsletter was: “Which native tree would be your favorite to plant in…
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Board Member Feature: Native Plants in Every Garden
This is the second in an ongoing series of interviews with board members serving on the Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (OCCNPS). Guest feature editor Thea Gavin asked the following questions of Elizabeth Wallace, president of OCCNPS. Before her election as president, Wallace served as OCCNPS newsletter editor, recording secretary, and…
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OCCNPS Past, Present & Future: Insights from Board Members
Guest Article by Thea Gavin The Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society (OCCNPS) presents a Q and A that will highlight our Board Members’ experiences and knowledge. We begin this monthly series with an interview arranged by Thea Gavin that features Dan Songster, member-at-large and past president of OCCNPS. Dan Songster has…
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White Sage is Wild
When I first began gardening with California native plants thirty years ago, I was often unsuccessful. I planted my new native plants in flat planters next to my grass lawn. I overwatered and wondered why the plants weren’t surviving. Even poppy seeds didn’t grow. But one of the plants that survived my beginning native plant…