Last summer and fall, we followed our tradition of planting as many free native plants as we could into the soil on our land. One neighbor’s tragedy was our good fortune, and I hauled two full-sized SUV loads of mature native plants home from a huge native garden that was bound for the utility company’s
Spring is Springing Read More »
For much of the spring and summer, I mow around these leggy, shrubby plants that look weedy and have no blooms. That’s because I know the payoff is in October. When many of the other blooms are spent and reduced to empty seedheads that the birds eat, the asters are just getting started. I have
I was so excited that my natural habitat was chosen to be a stop on the Native Backyard Habitat Challenge garden tour! We had more than 40 visitors who wandered through the paths, followed along the tour, asked questions, and used my temporary plant bed “labels” (I attached a list of plants on a cardboard
Garden Tour and speaking opportunity! Read More »
Every time I am tempted to make things a little simpler for myself and mow an area that only has one or two native plants in it, something shows up to remind me why I practice “precision mowing” and push the mower around a whole bunch of things: A couple of weeks ago, I was
Bugs, butterflies and birds Read More »
The old adage with native plants is: The first year they sleep. (You don’t see much progress. Maybe they germinate and get a few leaves or even a flower.) The second year they creep. (Some plants might spread a little, or get bigger than their first year.) The third year they leap! (The spread a
Sleep, creep, leap Read More »
“Neat” is one way to describe it. Sterile is also accurate. For many years, the lawn at Cubbage was untouched by chemicals, but it was also meticulously manicured. Any good, native species could never get a foothold without having its head lopped off at regular intervals. Even the clover, which thrived in the sunny front
