Beeswax Soap Recipe

When you're a beekeeper, you find yourself with lots of beeswax laying around and you find ways to use it. One of my favorite uses for beeswax is in soap making. We'll host a soap making class a little later in the season, but here's the recipe I've been using for a few years now and it's my favorite.

Ingredients:

• 360 g olive oil

• 225 g coconut oil

• 175 g palm oil

• 32 2 castor oil

• 7 g beeswax

• 264 g distilled water

• 114 g sodium hydroxide

• about 1 tablespoon honey

• 1 – 2 tablespoons fragrance or essential oils, as desired

This recipe has worked well for me, creating a creamy colored bar that does not turn to mush in the shower while still providing good lather. 

Not into making your own soap? We sell it here in the store.

Explore Our Wildlife Habitat

Last year, we updated our nursery yard to create a wildlife-friendly environment. Almost immediately, we saw toads move into the stream bed, bees and butterflies visiting the pollinator gardens, and so many species of birds visiting the feeders. It is such a peaceful place to visit!

We want to encourage little explorers to wander through the yard and see what wildlife they can spot, so we've created a scavenger hunt checklist. The lists will be available in our Kids Garden area, and anyone who completes the scavenger hunt can return the list for a Wildlife Explorer Badge. (Ok, it's a sticker, but who doesn't like stickers?)

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Bring your little ones in and go on a wildlife scavenger hunt together. Hopefully you'll feel inspired to invite nature back into your backyard!

Full of Flowers for Spring Planting

A walk through our annual and perennial departments is kinda magical right now. We are fully stocked with some of the most beautiful plant material we've ever had. The selection is awesome, and I feel inspired every time I turn a corner.

Drop by and take a look, if only just to see the most gorgeous flowering wisteria on the planet!

Getting our Website Back

A few weeks ago, our website was hacked, flagged, and then shut down by our server. We've been, inconveniently, offline since then.

Rather than remaining angry about this disruption during what is a very busy time for us, we decided to look at the bright side and take this an opportunity to re-design our site and bring even better content to you.

Please bear with us as we add more information back to the site, and don't hesitate to give us a call at the store if you have any questions at all.

Also, a HUGE THANKS to everyone that came out to see us at the Plantasia show this weekend! We had a great time, and we're feeling excited for spring!