Water Water Everywhere...

Andrea Hurd • March 19, 2019

One challenge we face with every garden we create is, what can we build into the design to make sure the garden is not only beautiful, but also a regenerative place of abundant life? All life on earth needs food, shelter and water. We create food and shelter with the plants, but we also need to create spaces where water is accessible to birds, butterflies and bees, in order for them to build a home in your garden.

All gardeners know that gardens need water to stay green and lush, but the past several years of on-again-off-again drought mean we've had to think hard about the amount of water we use - and about how we can cut our water usage back. To make being water wise even more urgent, many municipalities have incentive-based and/or tiered-cost programs to encourage homeowners to reduce their water usage in the garden. It has become expensive to irrigate a garden, even on a small plot of land, using the more conventional irrigation systems.

Plants need water to survive and to provide their environmental benefits of food and shelter for our native pollinators. At Mariposa, we discourage the trend toward limiting plant choices, creating arid gardens, and taking away the elements that create life in the garden; that is not the way to improve the health of the environment for plants, pollinators, OR humans. Transpiration, or the movement of water vapor from plants to the air to form clouds is essential to a healthy water cycle and to a healthy planet. Arid gardens may look modern and stylish and require little water, but a suburb filled with plots consisting of succulents and gravel will contribute to disruptions in the regional water cycle and can actually exacerbate drought conditions by making the planet hotter and drier!

A diagram of the water cycle with arrows pointing in different directions.

This winter we've had a pretty good year for rain, but the specter of drought still hangs over the state of California, threatening to return. Using water wisely is always a good practice, no matter what the rain gods bring us, and the threat of drought is fundamentally related to the need to combat climate change with methods that promote sustainability and regenerativity.

To paraphrase Hamlet, to irrigate or not to irrigate is not the question. Instead, we need to improve the source of the water that we use in our gardens. Water harvesting and greywater reuse are two of the primary ways to conserve by keeping water on your property instead of pulling more from the municipal tap. In the next two posts we'll show you how you can implement simple water harvesting and greywater techniques to continue to irrigate your garden, without using additional water bought from the city.

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Summer Is Almost Here, Start Thinking About Your Soil

By Andrea andrea • June 9, 2025

CHECK YOUR SOIL! Isn’t it great to feel the longer and warmer days of late Spring? I love the feeling of going outside and seeing the sun, shining brightly on all of the green leaves and beautiful flowers. It is so wonderful to feel the glow of summer approaching. What a joy to get caught up in that glow, while we watch the gardens grow gorgeously. However, that joy makes it easy to forget that here in the Bay Area, we are entering the months long dry season. Our Mediterranean climate shifts this time of year, which can transform gardens from showing lots of flowering and new green growth, to gardens where soils and plants become dry and damaged. This transition can lead to health issues in the garden over the coming weeks and months. While plants are still thriving from the lovely winter rains, the soils are now drying out. We often don’t realize that the soils are becoming too dry because at this time of year, it takes plants longer to show signs of stress. However, if we know what is about to come, we can stay ahead of the dry season and the damage that hydrophobic soils can do to our garden.

Happy Spring!!!

By Andrea andrea • May 3, 2025

With the warmer temperatures and longer days, gardens are literally bursting with hope. New leaves unfurl and early blooms emerge under the lengthening days and warming temperatures. April never fails to inspire me with its magical expression in the natural world. Each year, as this phenomenon occurs, I am delighted by the immense force that nature has to replenish and re-emerge anew. Being able to count on the small miracles of leafing out and blooming helps to give stability in an unstable world. Tending a garden is not only therapeutic for our soul, but also will help heal your local environment.

Spring Cleaning For Habitat

By Andrea andrea • April 28, 2025

Spring is an amazing time of year to witness rebirth and transformation in the garden. Buds are swelling, flowers are beginning to bloom and butterflies are starting the procession of early, mid and late seasonal emergence into the garden! All of the subtle and beautiful change that happens day to day draws us gardeners out into the garden to witness the fullness of spring. During March, we see a chorus of changes in the garden, each element playing in harmony. Paying close attention to how your garden is changing and developing during this season can help you to become a better guardian for habitat protection. In Mariposa’s newsletters and articles , we discuss that in order to protect habitat in the winter garden, one must be very careful. Many grown pollinators and butterflies, as well as their dormant eggs gather protection under the leaves and in the dried stems of flowering perennials such as Echinacea (purple coneflower) and Rudbeckia (black eyed Susan).