Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
Last week while in Albuquerque I discovered a wonderful native plant demonstration garden at the Rio Grande Nature Center, which I stumbled upon quite accidentally as I was driving to meet a friend for lunch and then go birding on Sandia Crest. I had spent a lovely morning at the Butterfly House at the Albuquerque [...]
The Salal chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society began creating a native plant demonstration garden a few miles west of Mount Vernon in the early 2000s. It is adjacent to the Master Gardeners demonstration garden and the Washington State University Research Station, 16650 State Route 536. The garden is an all-volunteer effort, supported by [...]
On a bright, sunny Saturday morning in April, I had the privilege of touring the garden that Sara Stein chronicles in the book, Noah’s Garden: Restoring The Ecology Of Our Own Back Yards. I was excited to see the garden that shaped the way many of us on Team NPWG view gardening and the role [...]
Every city has parks, however not all parks are created equal. Many are used primarily for recreation, others for dogs, but some are devoted to nature. Seattle is lucky to have a lot of parks, over 400 of them (counting open spaces) and the largest is over 500 acres. Following are five of my favorites [...]
The small south-central Massachusetts town of Monson (population 3,800) is home to a native plant and wildlife lover’s dreamland, Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary. Free and open to the public — Norcross has over 1000 acres of fields and woodland trails (April to November), beautiful vistas and an education center that offers free classes, tours and lectures throughout the [...]
Perhaps you live in the city, or you’re visiting for a conference, family or vacation. We’re all nature fiends here and we need our nature fix. Even those who are not self declared nature fiends need their nature fix, they just aren’t aware of it. Worry not, it’s not as hard as you might think to find [...]
The beautiful Strahov Monastery, which sits on a hill overlooking the city of Prague, was one of my favorite stops when I visited a couple of years ago. While the two ornate libraries are the main attractions (and rightly so, they’re absolutely gorgeous) there is a single bookcase which contains some fascinating books for plant-lovers and the curious. It’s [...]
One more time, I think to myself, one last walk to see some blooming flowers before the year stretches inevitably to its conclusion and color vanishes from the fields until spring. It is late in November, but I know where some asters, a group well-known for their persistence, are likely to still be in flower. [...]
In a brief instant one year ago this week my life changed dramatically for the better. After toiling atop a living roof garden for the most part of an afternoon, I climbed down, took a shower and ate a quiet dinner. My family was spending the night in our new Palm Coast house sixty miles south of [...]
Last week, I took my mother to France. It was her sixtieth birthday and I offered to take her somewhere that she really wanted to visit, and since she hadn’t been to France in thirty-odd years, that’s where we went. I myself have never traveled beyond North America, and so it was interesting and moderately [...]
