I have plants all over the inside of my home. There are potted plants on my kitchen windowsill, on my desk, in my glass-walled front porch, and even in my bathroom. They have come into my life from friends and family over the years, and some of them have started to feel like a part of the family!
I wrote this article to share some of my own stories, not so much about how I care for my houseplants but about why I care for them.
Today I want to share something thats a little farther from your yard than usual. It’s not about planting natives, but about helping preserve biodiversity on a bit of a larger scale.
In this article, we take a bit of a road trip to explore some of the ways that wildlife are being threatened and protected in my home state of New Jersey. Planting a pollinator garden and lots and lots of natives is a great way you can do something for the local wildlife on your own, but it’s also important that you support your municipality in their efforts to protect on a larger scale!
a Peregrine Falcon, like those that have returned to the Hudson Valley
One of my favorite things about gardening is being able to share it. Whenever I head to a dinner party or a family event I like to bring a vase of some fresh cut flowers. What goes into the vase is often plucked from my cutting garden, but usually supplemented with cuttings from various other garden beds I have around my yard. From ferns to seedheads to traditional cosmos, in a few minutes I’ve got something lovely to gift my host almost any time of year.
If you take a good look, and you have a wide variety of natives, you too could find something worthy of sharing in all four seasons. In this article I share some of my favorite native annuals, bulbs, and perennials I make the most use of in creative and delightful ways.
Have you considered letting go of some of your lawn? I write about adding more native plants to your yard, but maybe you’re all out of garden beds, or maybe you never considered how much time and space you dedicate to that non-native ground cover. One way to fit more natives into your yard is to shrink that lawn!
Unless your kids or your dogs need the room to run and wrestle, you could be saving so much time and energy if you filled some of that space with plants that will bring more life to your yard.
In this article I share a step by step guide to removing some (or all!) of your lawn and have a few sample plans that show you how you can use the space to add more natives that will have a positive impact on your suburban ecosystem.
A sample plan showing one way you can balance lawn and thriving garden beds.
I talk a lot about how important natives plants are, but today I’m going to dedicate some time to telling you how beautiful and beneficial native trees are.
Yes, they offer shade for you and your family, but they have so much to offer your backyard wildlife! The offer food and shelter to countless birds and other critters, they help keep temperatures a little cooler so you can turn off your a/c sooner, they help with stormwater runoff, erosion, carbon storage, and of course they create oxygen for us to breathe! And they do all that while also being able to provide 4 seasons of interest to your landscape.
A native Witchhazel blooming with fruit and flowers in September.
For some specific favorite natives of mine, as well as some helpful hints for planting your next tree (I really hope after reading the article you’ll be planting a tree), click here for the full article.
If you check in here regularly, I bet you’ve noticed me extolling the benefits of native plants. I, like most ecologically minded gardening writers, will tell you that native plants are good for the environment, that they use fewer resources and require less maintenance, that they preserve biodiversity … but what does all this really mean?
Are natives really low maintenance? Should I put in a few varieties, or lots of different ones? Why are non-natives so bad, anyway? How did we get to the point that this is a problem? And can we talk about the deer?
Find the answers to these questions and more in the full article here. You’ll also find a list of native plants that are deer resistant - or as resistant as possible! Go Native. You won’t regret it!
Bee on native thistle
