Hi Vivian, thanks for sharing and that’s great you found a way to overwinter your lavender plants, have fun growing!

Last Fall, I covered up my two lavender plants with straw, and then with plastic storage boxes, put a rock on top to keep in place. they did even better than just survive! They were still green in the spring, then growth just took off! Doing it again for the coming winter!

Hi Kat, that’s too bad about the pollinators in your area, while I can’t say why they have disappeared, I would just continue to build a pollinator friendly garden space, focusing on flowering perennials that won’t be killed off by normal winter weather in your location and they will last for many years, making them much more cost effective. It may be good to invest in some frost cloth that you can use to cover your more vulnerable plants if incredibly cold weather is on the horizon as the weather seems to be a lot more unpredictable these days. Hopefully as the weather warms, the bees and other pollinators will be filling your garden space with their buzz. Hope that helps and have fun growing!

Hi Amanda, your layout of plants will just depend on what type of look you are after, the size of the plants once fully mature and the specific climate you are growing in. We like to mix a variety of plants into a specific space, if you are worried about annuals reseeding each year and potentially crowding your space, mixing in more perennial type plants that grow year round or grow back once the weather warms in spring after they died back over winter is a way to keep your pollinator space to the specs that you first started off with. We like to mix in a number of perennial plants but also plant a few annuals here and there and if they reseed, the seedlings are often very easy to remove if necessary, but again, a lot can depend on your growing climate, the size the plants reach once mature, and how long of a growing season you have. Hope that helps and reach out if you have any other questions.

Hi Jay, at our old property we hand nasturtiums and various other pollinator plants, some annual and some perennials planted underneath and around one of our avocado trees but I can’t think of an exact ground cover you should use. I wouldn’t choose anything too permanent but I would suggest using wood chips as mulch if you aren’t already doing so. Hope that helps and good luck!

Thanks