Friday, June 28, 2013

Butterflies and Summertime



Longer days, warmer weather…the perfect time for this season’s sun-loving flowers to shine!  Many classic San Diego ornamental trees are blooming all around us, from the ferny leaves and lavender flowers of the Jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia), 


to the vivid canary-edged orange cup like blooms of the African Tulip Tree (Spathodea campanulata).  Flowering vines are also putting on a good show…Passionflower vines both edible and ornamental, Red Trumpet vines with forked leaves and delicate tendrils, and the large open flowers of Mandevilla dipladenia 



are lovely draped over arbors or gracing trellises.  Best of all, these bright blooms do more than just liven up the scenery; they welcome neighborhood friends of all sorts to visit!

You might already know that both hummingbirds and butterflies fall head over heels for red, tubular flowers of all kinds…but did you know certain plants act as a home base for many kinds of butterflies?  For instance, Milkweed (Asclepias



is a popular plant as it is both a main food source for Monarch larvae and a parent plant that adult butterflies lay their eggs on.  We have garden varieties of Milkweed with flowers in shades of yellow, orange, and red, and also carry a native Milkweed in our Native Plants section.  Narrow Leaved Milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis, blooms with creamy white flowers, is a valuable food source for Monarch butterflies, and grows well in full sun.  

Butterflies have several other favorites in the garden as well….the aptly named Butterfly Bush, or Buddleia, boasts plump spires of tiny sweet smelling flowers that tempt hungry butterflies to stay and drink their nectar.  Sage (Salvia) and Penstemon species come in many colors, leaf shapes, and sizes; their tubular shaped flowers are magnets for hummingbirds and butterflies alike.  Native plants like Red Buckwheat and Monkeyflower are tough little beauties that are very low maintenance once established, and entice native fauna to your landscape.  Be sure to notice the butterfly icons on the signs describing our native plants, as they will indicate which plants are best for drawing in fluttering friends.

And of course, summer is the perfect time to relax and enjoy your garden— and appreciate all the hard work you’ve put in earlier this season!  Mission Hills Nursery offers everything you need to put the finishing touches on outdoor entertaining, from cheerful paper lanterns and hanging baskets, to handmade patio furniture and hand painted ceramic table top torches.  Be it a neatly kept container garden on an outside patio, a monstrous vegetable garden rich with the smell of sun-warmed soil and ripening tomatoes, or a pocket garden just starting on a sunny kitchen windowsill, find time to share your growing plants with the ones you love.  Sip a glass of wine with a friend, laugh at the antics of the local wildlife, and watch the sun sink down over your own carefully tended bit of nature.  Cheers to the joys of gardening!  Cheers to summer!

Saturday, June 01, 2013

Bok bok bok bok Ba-GOCK! Have you seen our full grown black and white chicken roaming the nursery? Her name is Ash. Ash likes following Juan and Enrique when they are cleaning up and moving plants because there are usually treats, worms, earwigs, and crickets under the pots. She gobbles them up along with snails and centipedes. Her favorite employee seems to be China because she is the one to let her out of her coop each morning and fills her feeding spots with grain. Ash lays beautiful brown eggs, and in the warmer weather we average one egg a day. 

This month Fausto decided that more the merrier when it comes to chickens, since they are social creatures. Thus he brought in a brood which arrived in the mail peeping very loudly on their first day and each day since. They are quickly outgrowing their temporary housing but love to cuddle under the heat lamp between meals and play time. We are planning on keeping a few to grow up here while the others are ready for you to purchase and take to your own garden.

We have two types, Top Hat Special (photos from the internet)

 which have little puffs of fluff on their noggins and range from blonde to russet to charcoal gray. They grow up to sport stylish hair do's.




 Also in the mix are New Jersey Giants, they grow up to be big docile black chickens that are excellent egg layers.
Do you think we will ever see Fausto walking his around Mission Hills like this guy?


If your curiosity is piqued, check out the City of San Diego's page on keeping chickens in residential areas. The page can answer some Frequently Asked Questions as well as elaborate on the city requirements for chickens. Be sure to check your own city's or county's requirements before purchasing your new family members.

http://www.sandiego.gov/development-services/pdf/news/keepingchickens.pdf

Stop in and hang with our "peeps", we hope to have them in their new coop next week as they are growing bigger and funnier each day.

blog written by: Casey