Mountain Stories: Strawberries Missing in Strawberry Valley?
by Paula Panich
Here I am in what is known as Strawberry Valley in the San Jacinto Mountains, and the only strawberries I can find are boxed in plastic at the Mountain Harvest Market. Forest food flora abound here. But most people don’t know about these plants, or even what to do with them if they did. The Native […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: CA, Fragaria californica, Heyday Press, Idyllwild, Katherine Saubel, Malki Museum, San Jacinto Mountains
Mountain Stories: ‘Crazy-Person Gardener’
by Paula Panich
Pesky problems in your garden? Winter too harsh or too dry? A few snails? Maybe some powdery mildew? Howard Weiss will trade his problems for yours. Mr. Weiss gardens on a third of an acre at about 6,000 feet in Idyllwild, California. He has never gardened in any other conditions. (He doesn’t know that some […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: CA, Idyllwild, San Jacinto Mountains, Southern California gardening
Mountain Stories: The Pacific Crest Trail
by Paula Panich
The 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) has been in the news lately. It’s the trail Cheryl Strayed took for her transforming months-long journey recounted in her best-selling memoir Wild. But here in Idyllwild, California the thru-hikers, as they’re called (and spelled), have a special place in this mile-high town. This is the very time of […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: CA, Idyllwild, Pacific Crest Trail
Mountain Stories: Magical Manzanita
by Paula Panich
Among the plants rooted in California is the genus Arctostaphylos, made up of evergreen shrubs commonly known by the Spanish folk name of manzanita or “little apple” for the small, round nutritious fruit beloved of bears, coyotes, foxes, quail, and other animals, including human beings. Californian native peoples made a refreshing seasonal cider from the […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: CA; horticulture; Bart O'Brien;, CA; Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden, Manzanita; California native plants; San Jacinto Mountains; Idyllwild
Mountain Stories: A Gardener In the Wild
by Paula Panich
The San Jacinto Mountains, above Palm Springs, California, shoot up 10,804 feet from the desert without, as one writer has it, the geologic fanfare of foothills. I’d come in January 2006 to one of its mountain towns, Idyllwild, to try to recover some shred of a self fractured from a September move. I left a […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: CA, Idyllwild, Palm Springs, Riverside County, San Jacinto Mountains
Mountain Stories: A Woman’s Passing
by Paula Panich
The small Southern California town of Idyllwild, in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs, is about two and a half hours east of Los Angeles. The town is a mile high, not incorporated, and is home to about 3,000 permanent residents. I began spending time here in early 2006, when I met Anna Bielecki […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: CA, Idyllwild CA, Riverside County, Southern California Mountains
Mountain Stories: A Gardener in the Wild
by Paula Panich
The San Jacinto Mountains, above Palm Springs, California, shoot up 10,804 feet from the desert without, as one writer has it, the geologic fanfare of foothills. I’d come in January to one of its mountain towns, Idyllwild, to try to recover some shred of a self fractured from a September move. I left a beloved […]
Categories: Mountain Stories • Tags: California native plants, manzanita, Mountain Stories, San Jacinto Mountains, Southern California, Southern California Mountains, Tricycle Magazine