Jill Severn

Our summers are getting longer. This year the last full week of September was the first time the night temperature dipped below 50. By mid-afternoon, most days ...

The harvest season’s vegetables, fruits and fragrant herbs remind us of the earth’s generosity. This season’s cuts to federal food benefits remind us of ...

By August first, those buzzkill ads for back-to-school supplies were already everywhere — a sure sign that summer is on the ...

For donkey's years, we’ve known English ivy is a menace to our trees, forests, and landscapes, but it’s remained legal to sell ivy ...

Most of us have the experience of seeing or smelling a flower that startles awake a memory of a childhood experience. For a friend of mine, the memory was of …

If you want to start an argument among gardeners, ask what they think about growing native vs. non-native plants. This is a topic that elicits strong opinions ...

If you Google “squirrel damage,” AI delivers an instant list of all the ways those furry little creatures create mayhem in plumbing, wiring, insulation, attics and roofs, while also …

On Sunday, June 22, the Thurston County League of Women Voters is sponsoring a tour of six local gardens, all tended by democracy-loving gardeners. All six gardens are the ...

A walk in the neighborhood can be a gardening seminar. There’s so much to learn from other people's front yards, and if a neighbor or two happens to be outside ...

Back in the day, calling someone a pansy was an insult. It meant weak and wimpy. For boys or men, it meant effeminate. Today there are many newer and more pungent insults to choose from. But pansies ...

In 1990, Olympia’s Yashiro Japanese Garden opened to the public, but because it’s tucked away behind walls along a five-lane street with fast-moving traffic ...

This week I found myself humming a tune from a song in the musical "Camelot."  These are its opening lines:   “Tra la! It's May! The lusty month of May! That lovely …

People on my street were without water for eight hours earlier this week. In the 30 years I’ve lived here, my house and my hose have never been without ...

This glorious week of sunny weather put most of us in a good mood. People were smiling and chatty in the line at the grocery store. Neighbors walked their dogs without coats on, and the dogs wagged …

It's the worms' turn

Swallows — those amazing aerial acrobats — are back in town, and birds both large and small are carrying nesting materials in their beaks as they ...

The Tumwater School District is facing a painful budget crisis, and the school district’s student farming program, called FRESH, may fall under the budget ...

The first plants to come up in spring are weeds, and among the weeds the earliest are usually the most prolific. And the most prolific and fast growing of all are often shotweed and dandelions. …

Pacific chorus frogs are singing — a sure sign we’ve made it through another winter. Meteorologists may say it’s not official until March 20, but frogs’ joyous, noisy courting ritual …

You might think that gardening is the same for all of us: soil, sunlight, water and seeds are universal, right?