Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
Sue Reed is a registered landscape architect who has helped hundreds of homeowners create comfortable, livable and beautiful landscapes that save energy. She has worked in western Massachusetts for nearly 25 years, including twelve years as an instructor at the Conway School of Landscape Design.
Sue is an expert at designing sustainable landscapes that are environmentally sound, ecologically rich and energy efficient. Her new book, Energy-Wise Landscape Design, was published in April 2010 by New Society Publishers. To learn more about the book, visit Energy Wise Landscape Design, or the book's Facebook page
I have recently attended three very different garden shows that together reveal a big shift in our society’s gardening attitudes and interests. Yet I also found that a troublesome old belief – the idea that people’s garden dreams are more important than the health of the natural world – not only persists but is being [...]
Many people and organizations these days are looking for ways to reduce excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, in the hope that this might slow the warming of the planet. Even the turf industry claims that “well-managed” lawn absorbs carbon and thus should be considered a good thing. “Lawn is a valued resource for sequestering [...]
ScottsMiracle-Gro is in the lawn and garden business. The National Wildlife Federation is in the environmental protection business. Scotts makes profits for its shareholders while NWF is just a non-profit organization, but both need money to operate. One earns money by selling products. The other gets funding by selling ideas and ideals. Both are businesses. [...]
What is the point of gardening in support of pollinators, birds and wildlife habitat, when the natural world is on the verge of becoming strange and unfamiliar, if not unlivable, to so many species? Climate change is the most serious problem of our time. Its consequences will dwarf the impact of our current economic troubles. [...]
Between the flamboyance of autumn and the silvery finesse of winter, New England squeezes in another season: late November-early December, a gray and unloved time. Unlike its cousin at the other end of winter – Mud Season – this one has no name. And while Mud Season at least brings maple syrup, this one offers [...]
When it comes to nature, people seem to fit into three basic groups. In the first group are those for whom the natural world is inherently precious and deserving of protection. They don’t need a reason to care about the environment. The second group consists of people who have a more utilitarian attitude. They say, [...]
Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the issue of how much I enjoy exploring the New York Times archives, and whether this might be some sort of obsession that requires treatment. I invite you instead to focus on a significant trend that showed up in my latest research. First, a bit of background. Presumably the [...]
Phlogiston. Flah’-jissdahn. Sounds like a tiny east-Asian country, or maybe some kind of dinosaur, or could it be the sticky residue that collects around the edges of a band-aid? If you don’t know what phlogiston is, you’ll surely never guess. According to the Phlogiston Theory, it’s a colorless, odorless, tasteless and weightless substance that exists [...]
There’s a big tempest going on these days in the world of conservation biology. I suppose a certain amount of controversy among scientists isn’t too unusual, but this one directly affects us native plant advocates, so it has gotten my attention. Here’s the thing: a few respected biologists have recently been proposing that we should [...]
The pendulum of home landscape fashion is starting to swing in a new direction. For a long time now, whether aware of it or not, we have based our ideas about landscape beauty on wealthy English estates of the Romantic era. An expanse of mown lawn sprinkled with a stately tree or two: Americans have [...]
