Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
Healthy Gardens. Healthy Planet
Some of us just can’t wrap our heads around scientific names for our flora and fauna. Try as I might, every time I snap a flower photo I have to go to the Institute of Systematic Botany’s Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants to look up the proper scientific name. It doesn’t matter if I’ve photographed [...]
Outreach to educate people about the importance of using native plants in their landscapes to support butterflies and birds is critical because there are powerful forces working against this. One of the biggest problems is big box stores that make a lot of money selling alien plants. To maximize the profits, they sell showy annuals [...]
While out and about I spied a long slithering thing…not an unusual occurrence in my garden. At first glance it looks like it is likely a black racer snake. But this one has a certain shine to it. A closer look proves it to be an Eastern Glass Lizard (Ophisaurus ventralis). It is only the [...]
Sometimes I just want to beat my head against a wall! I was surprised and saddened to learn of a recent poll of people living in and near Jacksonville, a city bisected by The St. Johns River (the largest river in Florida), that revealed that only about half of those polled thought that what they do [...]
Is native gardening a fairy tale? Once upon a time, a gardener decided that she wanted more butterflies and more birds in her yard. She read books and oodles of online material and then she attended classes, conferences, workshops, and garden fests. After all this education, she found that she really could make a big [...]
Depends on who planted it. I’d have to say the best description of my native plant garden would be “a hot mess”. If Better Homes and Gardens ever saw my place, they’d be issuing an executive order declaring it a disaster area. On the other hand, I’d likely get the Medal of Honor from the [...]
It’s holiday time. Suppose you were given the task of rewriting words to the tune of “The Twelve Days Of Christmas” based on what you found in your native plant garden? Here’s a look at my place: Twelve Days of Christmas A Native Plant Garden On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to [...]
As you may or may not know, I have a natural wonderland (at least in my eyes) that I call home. I live on a rural acre and Mother Nature planted the majority of my plants. I’m particularly fond of my pond area and am constantly amazed with the new things that pop up at [...]
Peppervine (Ampelopsis arborea) is a fast growing, deciduous perennial with use as a ground cover or it can be trained to cover a trellis or fence. I purchased my first peppervine at a local native plant nursery here in Central Florida. I was looking for something tolerant of moist (sometimes too moist, as in temporarily [...]
I heard a loud drone while walking out back. I glanced over to an area I have let restore that consists of a patch of Winged Sumac (Rhus copallinum). There, covering the creamy white blossoms was a gang of pollinators of many shapes and sizes. There were solitary bees, honeybees, flies, ants and many Thread-waisted [...]
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