The Ojai Garden

Very proud to say, today, four of our young ones graduated this morning,
from 5-gallon pots to 15-gallons! This healthy youngster is the first of four Kei apples transplanted during this morning's fog cover.

Tradewinds Fruit
Daleys' Fruit

Continue reading "Graduation Day!" »

Posted by Millennium Twain at 11:36 AM | Permalink | author bio

Posted by Howard Smith at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | author bio

Tyler, thank you for the slide.com resource.
Here are some photos of the land I steward and where I call home. Some of these images will be part of a greeting card line I am creating for our guests.

Posted by Raymond Powers at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | author bio

The pictures are in two parts. They are from what I call the "Jing Mai Yuan," the Garden of Quiet Beauty. The first batch were taken in the spring. The last three were taken two weeks ago and are of the installation of a home-grown, hand cut and built Japanese Torii (gate) that now opens up into the garden below. The garden itself was something I spent two years hand-carving into a hillside on my land with a pick axe, shovel, pry bar and rake.

Continue reading "The Garden of Quiet Beauty" »

Posted by Howard Smith at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | author bio

Posted by Raymond Powers at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | author bio

I found this spider dangling from the passion flower vine-covered trellis in the backyard. It was feeding on a gulf frittilary caterpillar over an inch long, one of many on the plant. It sucked it down in about ten minutes.

So what is it? Click through to find out and see spider video!

Continue reading "Ojai Spiders: Orb Weaver?" »

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 10:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | author bio

Hello to new readers of The Ojai Garden. We hope you enjoyed the Ojai Garden Tour today, and had the opportunity to check out some beautiful local gardens. This website is a community blog - if you take a look at the right-hand column, you'll see the Ojai Destinations and Ojai Garden Authors who participate by blogging (aka journaling) about their outdoor experiences here in Ojai. If you are interested in being an author yourself, email tyler -(at)- ojaigarden dot com.

Click the "Continue Reading..." link below to see photos from all of the stops on today's Ojai Garden Tour!

Continue reading "Welcome to OjaiGarden.com!" »

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | author bio

Saturday morning, a little gloomy, hopefully the sun will peek out as garden enthusiasts make their way from garden to garden on the 2006 Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce Garden Tour. OjaiGarden.com is sponsoring the event, so you'll see a sign at each of the locations. And maybe me too. Enjoy one of the things that makes Ojai truly special and unique.

Fun photo after the jump...

Continue reading "Ojai Garden Tour today" »

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | author bio

I am pleased to announce that OjaiGarden.com is a top-level sponsor of the Ojai Valley Chamber of Commerce Garden Tour 2006, a self-guided driving tour of five gardens around the Ojai Valley, taking place May 6. Check out the Chamber's site for info and tickets. I've also put together a little logo for the advertisements and press releases we will be a part of.

Thanks much for your support of this site, our authors, and our beautifully unique Ojai destinations. Spread the word!

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | author bio

View the detailed listing for this home now.

Posted by Sarah and Todd at 12:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | author bio

This from one of my favorite websites www.TreeHugger.com

March 20, 2006 11:21 AM - Collin Dunn, Durham, North Carolina

Now that spring has officially sprung, it may be time for many of you to start planting gardens, flowerboxes and the like in anticipation of a warm, fruitful summer. If indoor aeroponic gardening isn't your thing, here are some of our favorite resources and tips for greening your green thumb.

1) The Waterwise Garden book is a great start for low-impact, green gardening.
2) Plants don't like synthetic-based fertilizers any more than we do. Feed them the good stuff, like TerraCycle Plant Food.
3) The same goes for when it comes to keeping your plants & gardens bug-free. Try organic insecticide to keep you, your plants and the planet happy.
4) Don't have any plants, but want some? The Free Trees & Plants will give you some for just the cost of shipping.
5) For those with a burgeoning green thumb, but limited gardening real estate, why not try Leopoldo’s hanging basket or the Hortuba garden table.
6) When it comes to lawn care, Dave Pollard has a good mantra: "Save water, save time, save your health, save the environment. And say no to toxic chemicals."
7) Growing a green roof? Motherplants is a nursery devoted to growing plants specifically for green roofs.

Posted by Raymond Powers at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | author bio

It's that time of year where Spring gardens start inviting our attention.
Come join other farmers and backyard gardeners to exchange seeds, scions and stories.

Ojai Seed Swap

Bring your favorites and excess to giveaway!

Find the seeds you’ve always wanted!

Discover varieties you never knew about!

Tues. March 28
7:45pm
Sacred Space Studio
410 Bryant Circle #1
(off of Ojai Ave., just east of Exotic Thai restaurant)

Please bring your own table, if you have one, to set your seeds on.
Also, bags to put the seeds you take in. - Thank you

For more info. contact: Raymond 805.715.0050 / Email:raypows@gmail.com

Posted by Raymond Powers at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | author bio

This is an amazing plant. Always has these blooms going year around. It is from the Australian Native Plants Nursery in Casitas Srpings and seems to thrive quite nicely in Ojai. Gravelia(?):

Posted by Sarah and Todd at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (17) | author bio

Nice rainy day for a virtual garden tour. Here's some shots around the house of our little garden areas...

Fun pot o' succulents on the table underneath a big Bacon avacado. The succulent down next to the table hasnt been in dirt for over a month and it's still happy. Will plant soon. So hearty. The vine on the right is star jsmine. Still looking forward to the first bloom...if we're still here.

The walk through garden in the back. Peaceful. Nice to gaze into while soaking in the spa adjacent. (Don't mind the dead thing in the foreground.)

These banana trees were literally 3 feet tall last April. They grow up so fast, dont they? A frost burned out all the new leaves though. =u( We'll trim em off when the heat comes back.

A papyrus planted by Lisa Phelps last June or so. It grew a few feet since then!

Here's a close up of something very Fuscia.

The deck near the spa surrounded by giant timber bamboo. If we let the shoots go as they will, we'll have a nice 15+ foot privacy wall.

And heres one of 6 aloes in the front yard thats interspersed with lavendar. I love the creepy crawly octopus arms that these things grow into. They dont mind being chopped back either.

Posted by Sarah and Todd at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | author bio

This is Sol - he's all of thirteen months old, visiting from Sonoma County. I was watching him yesterday afternoon. He helped me garden, but when he was ready to play he laid on top of half a dozen onions and squirmed around.

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | author bio

A few photos from a friend's property in the East End of Ojai. Cold last night, warm this morning. In the photo on the right, the plant with spear-like leaves was covered in dew - I was inspired by Les Dublin's marigold photo from a few days ago, although mine doesn't compare :)

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 01:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | author bio

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. My father and I, one year, I was about 10 yrs. old, dug up the backyard lawn, made raised beds in rows, and planted all kinds of vegetables. He told be of his life in Poland, where he lived until he was 14 yrs. old and then about the soil he grew and planted in Palestine where he arrived in 1931. Though we didn't call it organic, we used no pesticides and fed the plants with commercial feeds. We also had a couple of chickens that helped manure the beds. The time he and I shared together not only bonded us to the land and each other, but also began my love of gardening, growing food and permaculture practices. He's 86 now and stays as active as he can, though the lawn has replaced the garden many years ago.

Continue reading "LA Trans-Plant" »

Posted by Raymond Powers at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | author bio

It was 45 minutes before it got too dark to do anything in the garden. I got the hose going gently and passed that around from plant to plant every few minutes. I continued weeding the resilient, invasive crabgrass Bermuda grass coming up in the path between the river rocks, and got down some more mulch on the path once it was cleared. There's about 1/4 left of the path that needs weeding, better definition, ground cover and a little elongated kidney-shaped flower and fern bed tucked fairly close to the north side of the house. After that, the front half of the garden will have really taken shape. Lots more to do in this hot Ojai winter (!).

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | author bio

A little photo of our backyard, taken last Wednesday as the sun was going down and streaming across the yard. These plants get a lot of sun, so they are all drought-resistant. The bluegrass is probably planted a little close together and may crowd - we'll see. You can see three of them on the right side of the photo. That's a solar pagoda in the foreground.

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | author bio

A little slice of our backyard from June 11, 2005. On the right are some onions, garlic and swiss chard.

On the left is an archway further into the backyard. There were two passion flower vines, and one got inhaled by the caterpillars of the gulf fritillary butterfly. So now I pick them off and set them on their way.

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | author bio

Logging into this site reminded me that I have been slow-watering the newly planted bamboo for about two hours.

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 08:12 PM | Permalink | author bio

Today I weeded. The soil is loose from relatively recent rains. I put down a few wheelbarrows of chipped mulch, on the path and around some plants. I finished the rockwork on the center circle and firepit area, but will probably create some plant spaces around the outside, which I continued today, putting in some bamboo that will grow to 7 or 8 feet.

I watered only a few plants that were a bit dry, including the saj sage, which is a transplant from beyond the horse pasture above Thacher school. One of the three plants has some new growth, and an older leaf perked up. It's bloom is a beautiful purple blue spiky flower, I think in the fall.

More weeding to do - crabgrass on the west side of the backyard. Have to create the rock island near the house, with the ferns and grasses which won't get much sun. More mulching. More clearing sycamore leaves. Start a new compost pile and filter the finished pile. Plenty more beyond that...

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 08:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | author bio

The Ojai Garden's name is derived from not only the numerous private gardens found throughout Ojai but also a metaphor of the greater Ojai Valley as a garden to explore, cultivate and learn from. Many gardens throughout the valley blend almost seamlessly into orchards and meadows, and beyond into the millions of acres of national forest bordering Ojai.

Ojai is also home to many businesses and other destinations that maintain stunning gardens that heighten the Ojai experience. From hotels such as the venerable yet newly-remodeled Ojai Valley Inn & Spa and The Lavender Inn, a downtown Ojai bed and breakfast, to healing centers such as the Krotona School of Theosophy and Meditation Mount, Ojai offers endless local outdoor adventures.

This site is a community blog, featuring authors who maintain home gardens to adventurous hikers seeking out flora and fauna to local businesses that take pride in contributing to the beauty of the town. Enjoy your visit and check back in. If you use an RSS reader [?], please add our feed.

Posted by Tyler Suchman at 10:36 PM | Permalink | author bio