Blog
Vegetable Planting Calendar
We've had a few days of such lovely warmth that we might forget it's still winter. There is plenty of planning to do before vegetable gardens can be planted, so here is a Planting Calendar to help you organize for plan what can be planted first. Get those seeds...
Stones & Castles
Sometimes, a work space turns into someone else's play space. This wall is the foundation for a sugar shack, but on this particular summer afternoon, it was the princesses' castle wall. Planning for family activities is an important part of landscape design. Sometimes...
Death to the Butterfly – Cutting Back and Raking Up
Summer has rapidly receded, and the autumn colors and cool nights herald the end of the growing season. You might be tempted to go clean up your gardens, but the fallen leaves and dead stalks of plants have great value to many birds, small mammals, and insects,...
Dancing in the Moonlight
Nighttime in the garden is a magical place, with silverly moonlight caressing leaves and flowers as they sway in a light breeze, the flowers' fragrance meanders then lingers with the music of nocturnal creatures. The transformation made by moonlight on plants and...
Trees Share Carbon
Interspecies collaboration among trees to share carbon? Pretty cool! New research shows that trees that have an environment with heathy mycorrhizae in their ecosystem not only share water and nutrients with each other, but also carbon. It was also found that trees...
Plant Book: Planting in a Post-Wild World
I heard Claudia West speak this past winter at the ELA conference in Amherst, MA, and as a result, this became the first book in a long while that I was excited to read. It does not disappoint. Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West offers a...
Earliest Blooming Native Plants of the Northeast
Spring brings an element of excitement to many of us who experience long winters. Whether those winters are mild or extreme, we live without foliage and blooms during those many months. Here are thirty different blooms you can plant to welcome spring next year. Many...
New England Caterpillar ID
Since spring is solidly here for us here in the Northeast and people are out exploring their gardens, this caterpillar identification key might come in useful: Caterpillars of the Eastern Forests. The Eastern Black Swallowtail (Papilo polygenes) caterpillar in the...
Spring Butterfly – Morning Cloak
Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) When flying, these often look black with a yellow margin on the bottom of the lower wing, but if you get a chance to look at one when still, they have quite a few more colors. Caterpillar Host Plants: Birch, willows, poplar, red...
Early Spring Butterfly – Spring Azure
Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon) Caterpillar Host Plants: Woody shrubs such as native flowering dogwood, blueberries, viburnums, New Jersey tea, and small blue-eyed Mary (Collinsis parviflora). Thanks to Sam Jaffe of The Caterpillar Lab for photo permission of the...
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