Seeing and learning about wildlife is an enriching experience that anyone can enjoy. When landscapes provide food, shelter, water, and nesting areas for reproduction, a rich variety of life follows. The result is a healthier, more resilient ecosystem for all inhabitants.
Darkness is disappearing from the face of the Earth, blinding wildlife in the light. Since life began, the Earth’s rotation has created cyclical darkness by which living things evolved, tuning instincts and behaviors over millennia. The loss of darkness has inhibited the sensory experience of wildlife, changing the behavior of species and how species interact with one another.
Forest trees are not singular specimens but are interdependent players in a dynamic natural community. The tree canopy casts critical shade, moderates moisture and temperature, drops leaf litter to help build living soil, and provides sustenance for a diversity of life on roots, trunks, branches and leaves. Using forest ecosystems for inspiration, we can bring maximal biodiversity, resilience and biomass back into human landscapes.
Insomnia weighs heavily on humans, and the same is true of bees. They depend on their circadian rhythms—their natural sleep-wake cycle—and when it’s disrupted, they become confused. For a bee, that doesn’t just mean overeating or losing patience with a spouse. It means never making it back to the hive.
Americans love their lawns yet they provide minimal habitat or ecological value for anything other than humans. From an ecological standpoint, I started to rethink the importance of the “lawn” and to consider a smaller lawn and? or? lawn alternatives that do not require fertilizer, water, or much mowing. Ultimately, I decided the best solution would be to replace the lawn with new gardens.
Echinacea, commonly known as coneflower, is experiencing a horticultural renaissance thanks to plant breeders’ hybridization work resulting in the flood of new Echinacea cultivars to the horticultural market. While many of these plants look fantastic on paper, Mt. Cuba aimed to assess their actual garden performance and document their ability to attract insect pollinators.
Proponents of ecological gardening are urging gardeners to reduce lawn areas and add native plants. Native shrub borders are lower maintenance than perennial borders, making them an excellent solution to this challenge. These plants often provide multi-season interest, including showy flowers, fruit, and fall foliage. Perhaps their best feature is the habitats and food they offer birds and pollinators.
Effective and sustaining landscapes are informed by the surrounding environment. They are created by incorporating structural and species diversity into planting schemes to push minimalist restoration efforts to efficient results.
Goodbye 2020 and good riddance!!! Though we are not out of the woods yet, I couldn’t help but feel a weight lifted as the ball fell at the stroke of midnight. 2020 started like any other year, with hope and possibility. The anticipation of a new season combined with knowing how crazy things would be in spring felt like I was on a rollercoaster about to hit that big drop. All I could do was hold on as the world rushed past. Little did we know that drop would be less like a rollercoaster and more akin to Niagara Falls.
Declining biodiversity has been making its way into the news more and more as researchers continue to record losses in plant and animal populations. Insects are no exception, and several recent studies that use long-term data sets show a marked reduction in insect abundance. A variety of factors contribute to these insect declines, including the loss of habitat, pesticides, invasive species, and, increasingly, climate change.
Pollinator friendly is certainly a buzz word these days and for good reason. Both birds and insects are being impacted by climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, and invasive species. This reality makes our choices in the garden that much more crucial.
What do Japanese spirea, burning bush, boxwood, and forthysia all have in common? They are all non-native common garden plants that can be invasive and do not support native pollinators. Growing native plants helps foster biodiversity, feed bees, and other pollinators. Many of our northeastern native shrubs are fantastic substitutes for commonly used exotics.
By Neil Diboll
Many flowers and grasses commonly associated with Midwestern prairies also occur in the meadows of New England. Some species are widely distributed throughout the region, while others are only occasional or rare. Most are more common in the prairie region, but some are abundant in the Northeast.
