Barbara Strona
Barbara Strona is a native Californian who grew up in the Mid-West and Los Angeles. She and her architect husband, Carl, came to San Diego in 1968 and have lived in Mission Hills since early 1971. Barbara received a Bachelor of Arts from Scripps College with a major in English, and a minor in Art. She attended UCLA graduate school and received a General Secondary Credential. She taught English in Los Angeles, Pennsylvania, and at Point Loma High School. She has been a Realtor specializing in residential sales since 1984. Her passions include her job, reading, writing, foreign languages and foreign countries, animals (feathered or furry), theatre, and her family: husband, two adult children and two grandsons.
Barbara Strona's Latest Posts
Ecologically Speaking with Greg Rubin
Reluctantly I went to the Garden Club meeting since I’d heard the speaker before. Was I in for a pleasant surprise! I learned more in that meeting than I can possibly relay. However, I will point out the highlights. Greg Rubin, a former aerospace engineer, is an award-winning landscape contractor. In the past 23 years […]
A Reading Addict
I have an addictive psyche. I am addicted to overeating and buying shoes, but I am not addicted to alcohol or coffee or sodas. At times I have mastered food and shoes, but not my earliest addiction: reading. Long before I could read, I took a book with me wherever I went. Our bathroom had […]
Honor Thy Friends and Family as Guests
If you are sixty or younger, you may have decided to keep your lives simple and spurn the “stuff” your parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles used. Among this “stuff” is our good China, our sterling, our crystal, and our linens – from table linens to guest towels. Most of you feel it’s too much […]
For the Love of Plants
October’s Garden Club meeting featured a past president of San Diego Horticultural Society and our own garden club, Jim Bishop. He introduced himself as a plant-a-holic. He explained his first slide by saying he always loved to dig. There was Bishop, maybe two years old, shovel in hand at the beach in Panama City, Florida. […]
The Amusing Aspects of Aging
People complain about getting older. They hate the way they look, the way they feel, the way they are treated. These are just a few complaints. However, getting old should be fun! Have you ever looked at a rose bud and watched its progression until the petals fall off? Our skin is very similar to […]
Gardening Challenges That Have Become Fulfilling
Most of my column’s readers know I have never been a fan of gardening. This stems from my childhood. I loathed sitting at the dinner table, bored to tears, while my parents discussed crab grass and dichondra or bonsai or orchids, depending on which parent had the floor. I still cannot comprehend how they could […]
Life with a Drip System
Most of you know that gardening is not my favorite pastime. I love flowers and produce, but their care and feeding are not my favorite activities. As a teenager, I groaned in boredom during dinner conversations about crab grass, dichondra and orchids. My parents must be laughing at me now: 19 years of writing garden […]
Proper Trimming of Trees and Shrubs
This past year, John Clements gave the Mission Hills Garden Club a presentation on pruning trees and shrubs. Although September is not the month for pruning roses, the principals of pruning are basically the same. John showed us the tools he considers essential, some of the sprays he uses, gave us the rationale behind pruning, […]
Soft Succulents That Are Easy to Handle
Jeff Moore spoke to the San Diego Horticultural Society about succulents that “do NOT draw blood.” While succulents is not a scientific term, it has come to mean fleshy plants that store moisture. Many of these have such pretty leaves that flowers are unnecessary to enhance your garden. Best of all, Moore says succulents have […]
Save Our Bees!
I have attended three lectures on bees since I began writing this column. Years ago, a speaker gave an anecdotal talk to Mission Hills Garden Club about how she and her sister took over their father’s hives after his death. A few years later, at the San Diego Horticultural Society a speaker from UCSD brought […]
