Colin the Plant Dude

This weekend, I went to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden to volunteer at the Crescent Farm, a piece of land just under one acre in the Arboretum. It is called the Crescent Farm because of the land’s unique crescent shape. This plot of land is focused on California native plants and has…

Recently, my dad and I drove to Glendale to visit the Sunshine Preserve. It is a wildlife passageway for apex predators such as bobcats and mountain lions, and also pollinators like bees and Monarch butterflies, through the San Gabriel Mountains. Volunteers from the Sunshine Preserve have planted native plants all along the hills and roads…

A few weeks ago, my Dad and I went to volunteer at Hahamongna Nursery to see what we could do to help out, because they are pretty close to the Eaton Fire Evacuation cut off . While we were there, we met Matthew, the main Director of the nursery. He gave us a job to…

Today, I decided to build my own air plant terrarium because I was curious about how they would do in a glass terrarium. I wanted to simulate the natural conditions that they would get in the wild. I put them in a glass terrarium that wasn’t quite airtight, then added different layers of black, white,…

I went to a bonsai workshop on the weekend with my mom at Huntington Library. I think that this bonsai workshop that I went to was a very organized and productive class for kids and teens. Each kid had a volunteer bonsai expert to themselves. The class was held in a peaceful setting in a…

I have just planted a few new California Natives and they fit just right with the rest of them. I got Deer grass and Yarrow. They were in regular nursery sized pots just like most of the other natives. We bought them at San Gabriel Nursery and I spent my own money on them. However,…

During Hurricane Hilary, we went to check on the hugelkulture work site to see how the rain goes from the sidewalk to the rain garden. The water was going through a hole in the side of the curb and was accumulating in the rain garden. The rain garden is basically a little pond. From the…

I recently went to Taiwan where we stayed for one month. The weather was very different. It was very hot and humid. Most of the plants were tropical and I didn’t know what they were. Those plants would not survive here in California. It’s too dry. Here are some pictures from our trip and some…