It’s a jungle out there. At least that’s what it sounded like last week when I went out to the garden after work to score some delectables for supper. The oak tree was filled with all sorts of birds, hopping from branch to branch, and of all them chirp, chirp, chirping up a storm. The abundance and variety was simply amazing. We’ve always been blessed with plenty of birds here on the edge of the wilds but this was really extra crazy.
The sight (and sound), I suppose, shouldn’t have been so surprising to me. As I wrote in a previous post about birds at Michel-Schlumberger, it makes perfect sense that if you increase the amount and quality of food, water and shelter for any organism the population will readily respond.
Which leads me to the topic of this week’s post. Kate Frey, a good friend and serious expert on plants and bugs and bees is designing a series of brand-spanking new gardens on the estate. With harvest 2008 slowly creeping to an end it’s time to get some serious planting done before the big Fall rains hit (you didn’t think we all took a nice big vacation after Crush, did you?).
The plantings will be fairly extensive but the highlights include a honeybee garden (Kate also designed the amazing Melissa Garden in the Russian River Valley), a beneficial/pollinator garden to provide blooming flowers and habitat all season long, and a small native grassland to give folks an idea of what was growing here before all the exotics arrived.
There’s still a ton of work to do but I’ll try to post updates and photos as we go. Once we finish rolling out this red carpet for our buddies the bugs and bees I expect a nice, deep baritone buzz to accompany our chirpy serenade. The fun never ends…
