For Mother’s Day….. Central Florida, May 12, 2012. Twelve of the many native wildflowers that grace my property. I wish all the moms, daughters and sons of moms, a very happy Mother’s Day. May all your native plant gardens grow.
Reader Appreciation: Damon Morris, Mount Cuba Center
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I want to thank Damon Morris, a docent at Mount Cuba Center, for not only inviting me to attend the National Public Garden Day event at Mount Cuba, but also for arranging an interview for me with Julia Ehrhardt, Director of Visitor Experience, who took time out of her busy schedule to show me around the [...]
A Bestiary: Part Six – Weasel
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Looking out on the view just outside from where I am writing, I recall many encounters with wildlife that share this land I call Flower Hill Farm. These chance meetings recorded in photographs continue to morph into my Bestiary . . . tales from a wildlife habitat. Down below a serpentine Black Cherry canopy, dramas [...]
Hope Is Riddled With Holes
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After 500 folks came through my garden on an Audubon tour last Father’s Day, I was prodded to start a native plant garden coaching business. This spring, I had a table at Earth Day and at one of the largest plant sales in the Midwest called Spring Affair—thousands came through each day. At both events [...]
A Rose By Any Other Name Is Still an Ecosystem
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Above is a sight that most gardeners never wish to see. My rose bush had an aphid infestation. Every inch of new growth on the bush looked like this. I know there are a lot of ways to handle aphids, and I’m not just talking about chemicals (which I won’t use). A quick blast from [...]
Choice Words
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Words are very important. Advertising agencies know this quite well, and toil in search of the perfect, most evocative term, the one that carries most impact. Politicians also do this. Words like “leaf damage”, “blemish”, “weed”, and “pest” carry a heavy stigma, whether they deserve it or not. I struggle to find better ways to [...]
Speaking up for “the little guys”–pollinators
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Last summer, my late husband Richard and I were preparing for a week-long stay at The Nature Conservancy’s Carpenter Ranch in northwestern Colorado, where thanks to the support of the Terra Foundation, we had a working residency designing a sculptural interpretive garden. Betsy Blakeslee, the ranch’s facilities manager, emailed before we left to ask if [...]
Down Under Flowers
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What are Down Under flowers? Nope, not plants from Australia, although those are worthy of an article too. Down Under flowers are those native plants with flowers that hang underneath their foliage and point towards the ground. These are the flowers that you sometimes have to get right down to ground level to actually see… [...]
Preventing Bird Collisions With Airplanes
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Problems from Bird Strikes January, 2009: Capt. Chesley Sullenberger ditches Flight 1549 in the Hudson River after colliding with a flock of geese following takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York. April 24 , 2012: A JetBlue plane bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., makes an emergency landing at Westchester Coumty Airport north of New York City after a bird [...]
Don’t Go English for Hawthorn
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My copy of the thick garden reference, The American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, has a full page devoted to Crataegus, the hawthorns. I’ve been thinking quite a bit about narrowly endemic northwestern species lately. None of those are in the Encyclopedia, but the book does include several eastern North American species. Here [...]
