— Corey Andrikopoulos, Gamble Garden Director, June 2023 Propagating succulents is an easy, fun, and rewarding activity to do in your home garden. Plant propagation, simply put, is the process of growing new plants from mature material. Some species of succulents are more difficult to propagate than others, but many can be propagated using just a few common techniques. Seeds are the most common way succulents propagate in the wild, but at home we typically use vegetative propagation methods that …

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Tourists aren’t the only creature who flock to California in winter. Orange and black Monarch butterflies, also known scientifically as Danaus plexippus, flock to California’s coastal areas on their annual migration to Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. Monarchs arrive by the thousands in October and leave by February. Sadly, the number of U.S. Monarch butterflies has decreased 90% since 1990, but you can still see these majestic creatures as they overwinter along the California coast. Here are some places in the Bay Area …

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The number of U.S. Monarch butterflies has decreased 90% since 1990 due to loss of habitat, use of herbicides and pesticides and climate change. You can help reverse the trend by planting a garden where monarchs and other pollinators can thrive. Growing a butterfly-friendly garden boils down to growing a garden with plants that give butterflies places to transform and to eat.  Here are some tips for attracting butterflies to your garden: 1. Study your area to see what species …

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Did you know that many of the world’s biggest commercial crops – like potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, sweet and hot peppers and tobacco – come from the same family of plants? And that some important (and in some cases irreplaceable) drugs like scopolamine, atropine, nicotine and capsaicin are also produced by those plants? Gamble Garden contains numerous solanaceous plants such as tomatoes, tomatillos, potatoes, peppers, and eggplant, as well as the nastier members of the family including tobacco, petunias, California nightshade, …

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Learn how to make seedling pots from newspaper. Newspaper seedling pots are inexpensive and earth-friendly. In addition, they help minimize transplant shock when seedlings are ready to be planted in the ground.

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