Fountains for Birds

Birds are a large part of our Southern California gardens.  We have a plethora of native plants that attract them and if you design your garden correctly, you can have them around all year. But once they have their food, they will always appreciate some water (especially once the rains have stopped).  At our Topanga office, we have several different fountains which attract many visitors.  During the dry season, we have to fill them up on a daily basis. Hummingbirds and finches are the most common.  During the migratory season there are all different kinds of birds.  Occasionally, the mourning doves will come over, scare all the smaller birds away and take over the prime real estate of our largest fountain.  It's funny we haven't ever been able (or had the patience) to photo document the constant activity.  But one day, a few years ago during a particularly hot, dry summer, we had a very special, rare visitor, what we think was a juvenile Red Shouldered Hawk!  (Who subsequently ate our favorite squirrel, go figure!)

Hawk on Lava Fountain

So far, so good!

Today is June the First and it's sunny!  Go figure.  Here's to sun-kissed gardens in the month of June, (although we love the coastal fog) it's a nice break!

Euphorbia characias 'Bruce's Dwarf', Anigozanthos (Kangaroo Paw) & Platanus racemosa (California Sycamore)

Bouteloua gracilis (blue grama) meadow pictured above stairs

We're not out of the woods, yet. (And probably never will be.)

Even though we've received record rain in the past year doesn't mean can just forget about the ever present Southern California drought.  We all still need to remain vigilant with our water usage, especially because on average 70% of a home's water is used in the landscape (although our goal is to get it as close to zero as possible).  A few of our local water purveyors, especially LADWP and Los Angeles County DPW, are creating more user-friendly billing strategies to help us visualize our usage through graphs and charts.   

Below is a sample of the new LADWP bill

This is what the water bill portion will look like. 

Here is the LA County DPW bill which shows what the tiered billing looks like.  They describe HCF (hundred cubic feet) as "units".

In our G3LA training, we were taught that when thinking about HCF (hundred cubic feet) which equals 748 gallons, we should understand how much water a person needs to survive in a year.  If a person needs 8 eight-ounce glasses of water a day that equals 183 gallons a year...how many people could you care for with your garden's water?