Steve and Santia at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco

Hello and welcome to our garden blog! We’re Steve and Santia, and we’re excited to be back in northern California, where we grew up and where we love that we can grow redwoods, palms, citrus, and bananas, all in the same place.

After starting this website here in the Sacramento region years ago, it became Steve’s garden blog in Utah around 2005. There’s a lot of great information about plants, garden techniques, growing from seed and cuttings, pruning… all kinds of stuff. We’re leaving the Utah info in here because it’s been so useful to people over the years, but you’ll start seeing a lot of northern California content as we go forward.

Steve started his love of gardening as a teenager, when his mom let him design the front yard of a new home and then worked with him to make it a reality. She often recruited him to help harvest vegetables, even though it didn’t solve his childish refusal to eat them! (He’s grown up a bit now). Eventually, Steve took the Master Gardener course from Utah State University and further deepened his knowledge about all things gardening. Santia has loved flowers and gardening her whole life, a devotion inspired by her sweet grandmother. She used to lay in the dirt among the tomatoes as a tiny kid, pretending she was a little garden gnome! How cute. We both love growing flowers, fruit, veggies, shrubs, trees, and generally beautifying wherever we live.

Anyway, after living as a commuter couple between Utah and NorCal, then consolidating in Utah, then moving back home to California, we’re putting down roots here in Fair Oaks. It’s a great place! And we were gone too long. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Feel free to post comments anywhere on the site. We pay attention and will answer your questions and exchange thoughts on gardening with you anytime.