habitat garden Archives - Summer-Dry | Celebrate Plants in Summer-Dry Gardens

Salvia x ‘Bee’s Bliss’

Nora Harlow2024-06-27T19:38:01-07:00Categories: Blog, groundcovers, Nora Harlow, subshrubs|Tags: nora harlow, ground covers, subshrubs, habitat garden|

The groundcover salvia known as ‘Bee’s Bliss’ has been popular with gardeners and nursery professionals almost since its introduction in 1989 -- and for good reason. With so many excellent salvias in the trade today, there are others that are more powerfully scented or more conspicuously floriferous but few are as accommodating, reliable, and inherently useful in the mostly summer-dry garden. Salvia 'Bee's Bliss' This cultivar was discovered at the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley and is believed to be a hybrid of Salvia leucophylla and S. sonomensis (or possibly S. clevelandii). ‘Bee’s Bliss’ stays

Is It Okay to Feed the Birds?

Birds are what bring a garden to life and gardeners have always known this. We plant fruit-bearing shrubs and trees as much for the birds as for our own enjoyment. Bird houses and bird baths are ubiquitous features of home gardens. Many if not most of us also set out food for birds at backyard feeders. Bird bath in habitat garden that provides nectar, seeds, and insects for birds Bird populations have been in sharp decline for decades, a result primarily of habitat loss and pesticides. Yet we often hear that feeding wild birds can make things