For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."
plant these flowers 🌸 to attract more hummingbirds (and beneficial insects too)
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Of all the pollinators that visit my garden, hummingbirds might just be my favorite. In Central Oregon, I see a lot of Rufous, Anna's, and Calliope hummingbirds (I love them so much that I also wrote a full guide to identifying hummingbirds all over the country). I even see them in winter occasionally but as soon as it warms up, many more show up and wander the yard in search of nectar. While they'll usually go for nearly any flower that's in bloom, hummingbirds definitely have a preference in order to keep returning: flowers that have plenty of nectar, stand alone or grow in loose clusters, and are tubular in shape—shapes that perfectly match their long, slender beaks. The good thing about planting more hummingbird-friendly flowers is that many of them are also attractive to bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, not to mention all the beneficial insects you want to keep around your yard to help with aphids, mites, and other pests. A lot of these beneficials aren't known by name, and they're usually highly underestimated, but they do important work—often unseen. So if you have a vegetable garden going this year, be sure to grow lots of flowers on the fringes of your beds! Not only will they attract the kinds of bugs you want, they'll also mulch the soil and keep it healthy. Building up an army of natural predators is one of the methods I teach in my Lazy Gardening course. This "biological control," as it's called, is one of the most effective ways to reduce pests in your garden, as you're mimicking how nature works to create and maintain a vibrant ecosystem. If you're just getting your garden started, or you've had a garden for a while but know it could be better, I'd love to share what else has worked for me over the last 15 years of growing food organically. I call it "rule breaking," as many of my real-life (and most successful) practices go against conventional gardening wisdom. So, I've created three short videos that cover exactly that: three gardening rules that are meant to be broken, and how they can help you build a highly productive yet lower maintenance garden this year. These videos are a sample of what you'll get inside Lazy Gardening Academy, and even if you feel it's not the right time to sign up for my course, I hope you'll still find them useful! When you click on the link below, you'll receive a new video every day (for the next three days) in your inbox. No strings attached. No paywalls or ads. Watch these videos at your leisure and put the advice to work in your own yard! 🌟 Click here to get the first video. 🌟 If you love what you see and want more, then I hope you'll join me inside Lazy Gardening Academy for more easy wins like those. P.S. Plant these flowers to attract lots of hummingbirds to your garden. P.P.S. Click here to receive three free videos in your email and learn about the three rules you need to break when it comes to gardening. |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."