Moths are drawn to light. They exhaust themselves flying toward strong security lights and die or get picked off by predators (bats, birds, rats, mice). More than 60% of invertebrates are nocturnal. The Xerces Society’s advice on being thoughtful about night lighting to help fireflies helps a lot of insects - and saves energy too.
How do we support resilient local food webs? Entomologist Doug Tallamy notes that caterpillars transfer energy into the food web better than anything else, so we need to increase their numbers. Dr. Tallamy's research shows that some native plants are more ecologically productive too, that 5% of our native plants make 75% of the food that drives food webs.
Curiosity about how things really work in nature led me to world of environmental scientists who deal in facts, not just feelings. The more I learn from them, the more I know that what we do at home makes a difference (positive or negative) and that every yard counts. Entomologist Doug Tallamy has given substance and urgency to the importance of restoring insects to our landscapes. He speaks eloquently on “Restoring the Little Things That Run the World” (i.e. insects).
Plant a Menagerie for Kids If we want to share our love of gardening with the kids in our lives, we need to give them something fun to remember. Tickle their fancy with plants named after the animals they resemble - in a pot, in a plot or as a secret to share. Bat-faced cuphea [...]
Learn how to jazz up your garden with color, contrast and movement and solve garden problems with environmental mindfulness on July 13 and 14 - and enjoy a day in this gem of a garden and arboretum...
If you can’t please yourself in your own garden, where can you? Why put up with plants that just sit there without speaking to each other - or to you? If a home landscape conveys all the charm and originality of a heavily mulched McDonald’s parking lot (minus cigarette butts), it’s time to fill in with more plants, more color and more contrast to make it more personal and exciting.
My gardens are alive with memories of plants and people. When grandpa’s peonies bloom every June, deep-in-my-bones recollections come bubbling up. Even as a toddler, I was irresistibly drawn to the gigantic compost pile inside a crumbling old stone foundation behind his barn. Lusciously fragrant, audaciously magenta peonies bloomed beside the steaming, teeming life-filled mound.Maybe that’s where I caught the gardening bug so early on.
Humans are hard-wired to receive sensory input from nature. Our yards – gardens, landscaping and wild places – offer boundless opportunities to learn from and engage with the natural world. Join Karen Bussolini on June 9 and learn how to engage kids' minds, bodies and senses to create yards that will delight kids and grownups alike...
Providing nesting material helps birds save energy otherwise expended looking for it, but what materials? Birds will construct nests with whatever they find. When filling nesting balls or leaving nesting material outdoors, make sure it's non-toxic, untreated materials that don’t absorb moisture, degrade or entangle baby birds ...
Because we have diverse bee species (long-tongue and short-tongue bees, big ones and small ones, specialists and generalists) with different needs and life cycles, we need diverse kinds of plants - with different sizes, shapes, bloom times, scents, markings, reproductive structures. Read about what's blooming in May and special plants for specialist bees...
