viva verde

I am very very fortunate to know the fabulous people that run Back to Natives: a local non-profit that encourages and educates on local conservation and restoration. Well these fantastic people held a seminar at the store and focused on this nasty excuse of ivy as an area to build a native CA butterfly garden YES!

(before: yes i know, boring and ugly…you dont want to know what we found in there!)

(Reggie and Lori to the rescue!!!)

(it was not that easy. ivy was growing there for over 30 years probably, took several days of work to get them out-and there are still some roots!)

Remember: ivy does NOT go into green waster, it is evasive and will take over everything, it must go in the trash. Reggie, in addition to making a stellar plan (i will show it off later, it is framed in the store), designed this awesome path made from decomposed granite (aka “the road less traveled”) in the middle of the garden with a collection of native, butterfly attracting plants like yucca, 3 different types of sage, blue-eyed grass, deerweed and others (Reg, don’t hate me for forgetting!)

(2 months later)

this was only after watering the garden every few days for the first 2 weeks and then removing weeds/ivy every so often. So beautiful and EASY to care for…we get a ton of compliments all the time, it smells good and people stop littering around it

If you are interested in getting a consultation with the amazing Reggie to have your own garden, contact him at Back to Natives or..

we also sell the seeds at the store!