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ELA counts many ecological professionals among its members and supporters. We sometimes highlight their work and share their expertise through product and book reviews, or by asking them to answer specific questions posed to the ELA community.

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Eco-Answers from the Pros: What Should I Do with Leaves?

I am a groundskeeper who is trying to manage my grounds in a more ecological manner. I currently mulch (chop into tiny bits with the lawnmower) my leaves and leave the mulch on the lawn. I’m wondering would it be better for me to leave the leaves whole and let them blow around where they may. Or perhaps collecting them and dumping them into nearby non-lawn naturalized areas? Any insight you can provide is very helpful.

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Eco-Answers from the Pros: Designing Complementary Sun and Shade Gardens 

Eco-Answers from the Pros: Designing Complementary Sun and Shade Gardens

I can’t figure out how to have a shade bed complement the sun bed directly across from it – it’s not that things have to be matchy-matchy, but the brickwork makes them a symmetrical pair of beds. I am having trouble finding shade plants that I can combine into an ecological design, except low groundcovers and short woodland plants, and I am having a hard time visualizing what would work right across the bed of climbing roses, lambs ears, baptisa, gaura, japanese anemones, euphorbia, and salvia. ANY suggestions would be so, so appreciated. I am completely stumped!

 

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Aesclepias - Butterfly Weed 

Members Making a Difference: Native Plant Demonstration Garden Is a Labor of Love

by Maureen Sundberg

ELA member Marie Chieppo initiated a collaboration with the Town of Needham to install a native plant demonstration garden at a busy public park. With the help of local volunteers and her own teenage children, the installation took place over six weeks this spring, and she continues to maintain the site.

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Anemone-acutiloba 

ELA Names Winners of 2019 Spotlight on Natives Contest

Photographers from across the country submitted nearly 100 images to ELA’s 2019 Spotlight on Natives Photography Contest. Each sought to capture the special allure of native plants – the unique structure of trunks, stems, leaves, blossoms, seeds; the juxtaposition of plants in a community; the interaction of flora and fauna. This year’s entries again encompassed an outstanding array of plants and habitats.

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