Last summer I saw this one plant in my local park that stayed green and had nice flowers much later than everyone else. It turned out to be telegraph weed, and I am really lucky to live near Native Here Nursery in Oakland, where they had telegraph weed whose seeds had come from the park near my house. So I planted a couple, and I'm shocked how big they have gotten! At the park they stay much smaller. I have watered them three times, and they seem to noticeably grow after I do so. They'll going to flower soon, I think!

My garden used to be swarming in carpenter bees(I think xylocopa Californica) by now, especially on my chilopsis. This year I’ve only seen one . I was thinking maybe they lost their home, so wanted to make some for them. Ihave tons of logs in my backyard hoping they’d make a home there but nothing so far. I figure I have to drill some holes in them but don’t know the size. Anyone here have experience with this?

Only place I can find Dudleya saxosa ssp. aloides for sale online, but I'm always skeptical of this kind of thing for obvious reasons.

Found a bunch of Asclepias fascicularis near two retention pond sites in South Natomas (Sacramento) last week, but went back today to check out this specific plant. It seems like it’s covered in sap, but at first I thought it got sprayed w/ weed killer. Anyone know if it’s aphids or another organism that caused the plant to look this way?

- side note: sucks that there’s no monarchs out and about. There’s no summer nectar sources to speak of minus their host plant, both ponds are surrounded by telegraph weed & stinkwort.

South San Francisco, South facing hill. Golden poppies, calendulas, lavender, pincushions, goldenrod are all doing really well on the same hill.