Under the Solano Sun

We all know about birthstones. But for all, you trivia fans, do you know about birth flowers? There is a flower assigned to each month, and supposedly individuals inherit the characteristics of the flower assigned to their birth month.

We recently received an invitation to submit photos from the past 40 years of California Master Gardener program activities. These photos will be compiled into a visual history, of sorts, showing the evolution of the MG programs. I began to wonder about how the program got started.

Each summer I anticipate the annual return of a dragonfly to my backyard patio-pool area. Like clockwork, this Odonata anisoptera appears, perching atop a narrow 3' high metal garden trellis, surveying the pool before zooming down to encircle the water.

When I first inherited this pear tree it was hemmed in between two structures and restricted to a 3-foot diameter opening in the concrete. I had noticed that several of the branches growing straight up were blacken and appeared dead. I assumed that the recent drought had caused the problem.

In early June on the way home from a trip to Bodega Bay, my husband and I stopped in at the Luther Burbank Gold Ridge Experiment Farm. Luther Burbank, the famous American plantsman, had purchased the farm in 1885 and used it as a base for his long successful career.