A Word to the Wise re. Gardening in California... A GARDENER'S FAERIE TALE (based on a true story!) Once upon a time there was a gardener who took care of a yard which was heavily over-planted with exotic, high-maintenance, water-thirsty flowers. One summer when he was swamped with a lot of work, he falsely assumed the garden would be OK left alone a little longer between visits, since a brand new top-of-the-line irrigation system had just been put in! Unbeknownst to him, the homeowner was away for a much longer time as well. The homeowner had also hired some contractors to do some remodeling work on the house. Assuming her trusty house-sitter would report anything "unusual" while being gone, the homeowner happily vacationed far, far away... Then one day one of the contractors turned off the nice automatic watering system, forgetting to turn it back on again! With the warm California sun baking, baking, baking down upon the garden, and with no possibility of summer rain in sight (after all, California is famous for its rainless summer weather!), nobody noticed all the pretty flowers wilting to death. Finally, the homeowner came home to a BIG surprise! Then, guess who got fired? The gardener! The moral of the story? Plant more drought-tolerants! ANOTHER LESSON TO LEARN: THE STORY OF PLANET CALIFORNIA A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, on a planet named "California", a very talented and artistic gardener decided to move from her native planet of "East Coast" to the exotic kingdom called, "San Francisco"... This new talented gardener from the East reminded the old long-haired geezer gardener of the famous TV alien named "Martha Stewart!" So talented and creative was she that the old geezer marveled and turned green with Martian envy over her incredibly artistic hand in the garden. However, Martha Stewart #2 was lacking one small aspect of practical knowledge about her new planet of California: the natural climate of coastal and Northern California, and how her strange new Kingdom of San Francisco fit into that picture. So, Martha Stewart #2 did what all wannabe Martha Stewarts tend to do: she planted familiar water-thirsty summer annual plants that did well in her old stomping grounds on her native planet of East Coast. At first this idea was OK, because the early spring rains of San Francisco were not too different from her home turf planet of East Coast; but, as Father Time moved along, and spring gradually came closer and closer to summer, Martha #2 was increasingly baffled at why the Kingdom of San Francisco hadn't had any rainfall in a long long time... "It's been a long time since we've had any rain; are we in a drought year?" asked the beautiful and talented Martha Stewart #2. "No, we've had plenty of rain this past winter: this dry late spring weather is just typical for San Francisco, and all of California in general," answered the old geezer gardener. "So, when are we likely to have our next rain then?" asked Martha #2. "Probably not until late October at the earliest, more likely not anything significant, though, until November or even as late as December." Martha #2 did not believe the old geezer, assuming he was maybe joking or something. After all, what would an old guy who's just lived out in the strange planet of California know, just because he's lived and gardened in the Kingdom of San Francisco for a long long time? When summer arrived, all the pretty little water-thirsty annuals that were planted far far away from any irrigation system or not sufficiently near enough to a hose for hand-watering all gradually died, one by one.... How sad! And, even more oddly, this sad situation was still very puzzling for Martha #2 to understand what exactly happened, as well as WHY it all happened... The moral of this story: please learn about the climate you are living in (especially if it is a new one to you), and take time to learn about the plants that NATURALLY thrive in it and are beautiful and easy to work with, to boot!

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