Native Plants

by John Mark Courtney

Plants are a key element to a balanced pond ecosystem. No matter how big or small the body of water may be, plants play an essential role in maintaining good water quality and a healthy balanced habitat. Some of the functions plants perform include bank and soil stabilization, nutrient uptake from the water column, and habitat for everything from beneficial microbes, insects, fish, and amphibians to ducks, small mammals, and song birds. Plants also provide us with visual aesthetics with showy flowers and blocks of texture and color throughout the seasons. [click to continue…]

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by Kathleen Salisbury

As you spend the winter planning additions for your landscape and troll through the countless catalogs you have been getting in the mail, it is easy to think about the colorful spring blooms that put an end to the dull winter months. However, as you plan, don’t forget the late blooming flowers! Order them as well to ensure a landscape that is not only interesting in all seasons but offers food for wildlife as they prepare for migration or the lean winter months. [click to continue…]

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Current Favorites – Native…and Nearly Native

December 14, 2012

by Lorayne Black, ASLA I always like this time of year. The deadlines seem to be spaced out a bit more than during the spring and fall months. The last of the site visits are wrapping up as the ability to write with mittens in the freezing cold and wet weather becomes more difficult. It’s [...]

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The Place and Time

October 14, 2012

by Jack Pizzo The time of critical mass is approaching. All around us we see green initiatives. The kids see it at school; we see it at work; we see it when we play. We hear about why a product or service is the one to buy because of some green ingredient or process. I [...]

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Spotlight on Native Habitat Gardens: An Interview with Ellen Sousa

September 14, 2012

Ellen Sousa, author of The Green Garden, is a garden coach who helps local gardeners build, maintain, and nurture safe, healthy, and beautiful landscapes. She writes and speaks about habitat gardening with an emphasis on native plants and recently answered some questions for ELA.

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Habitat Essentials

September 14, 2012

by Ellen Sousa The following excerpt is reprinted from The Green Garden (Bunker Hill Publishing, 2011) with the permission of the author. Habitat gardening is just like planning and designing the interior of your home. You consider the everyday needs of those you invite into your space, furnish or rearrange the space accordingly, and stock [...]

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Enjoying Our Gardens More with Native Plants

September 14, 2012

by Margery Winters To some of our visitors, the Marabeth Storrs Finn Native Plant Butterfly Garden at Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton, CT, is more of a wild area than a garden. Perhaps this perception comes from how gardens have been traditionally defined as a plot of ground, usually near a house, where various [...]

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Farmscaping with Native Plants

September 14, 2012

by Josh Fodor Farms worldwide have contributed greatly to the loss of native vegetation and wildlife habitat. Over the past twenty years native plants have begun to creep back in around the edges of farms as the utility of ‘farmscaping’ has been demonstrated. There are many practical and policy level challenges to successfully integrating native [...]

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Native Plants from the Portuguese Shore

September 14, 2012

by Joao Oliveira If I look at nature only and forget cars, houses, and signs, I might say that I live in California. Instead, I am in Portugal where there is great natural diversity, such as you might find along the coastline from Southern California to Oregon. But the Portuguese Shore is only 500 miles [...]

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You Calling Me a Purist?

September 14, 2012

by Sue Reed In the world of landscape design, my second-least favorite sentence begins: “Oh, you’re just one of those native plant purists who …” and then goes on to end with: “is trying to recreate some sort of mythical pristine Eden.… believes that anyone who wants some pretty flowers in their yard is evil.… [...]

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