Visioning Wildflowers In My World
I am beginning a one year wildflower envisioning event. For the next three hundred and sixty five days I am going to post to my twitter account, @KevinSonger, a photo or an illustration of a...
View ArticleGarbage In, Garbage Out
Garbage in-Garbage out. I had never even heard this phrase until a meeting with a reputable design/build company at a landscaping brainstorming session at a mega water park in the Wisconsin Dells. I...
View ArticleHope in Ecological Hopelessness
We are remaking the world in our own image. From carbon emissions to water use, to shifting climate zones and exotic plant choices, to habitat loss and oil extraction, not one square inch of this world...
View ArticleThinking About Fruit and Fragrance
English ivy under a Deodar cedar where other evergreens were removed.When we purchased our home last year, the front southwest corner had overgrown evergreens that poked into the path. The trunks had...
View ArticleLess Honey Bee, More Native Bee
Stop with the honey bee talk. Every day I come across a half dozen new articles on the plight of the European honey bee — it’s become sheer agony for me. Frankly, even though neonics and glyphosate and...
View ArticleSowing the Seed Heads of Love
I tried really hard to come up with a cheesy title for this piece based on the continual 80s music soundtrack I have in my head, and I think I succeeded. Name the band, get a free prairie!* But more to...
View ArticleA Recipe for an Autumn Habitat Garden
Creating your own habitat garden filled with native plants is easier than you think. Here’s a simple recipe for an autumn habitat garden filled with goodies for local wildlife that calls your garden...
View ArticleGetting Native in Lincoln
My city is making strides, bit by bit, in creating areas of partly native plant landscapes. It’s certainly good to see. Yet new spaces are still often dominated by the same exotic plants you’d see in...
View ArticleNative Stars of My September Garden
September in one of my perennial gardens I have a secret to tell you – I’m glad summer is over! While I’m reluctant to admit it, I find the summer garden a bit too demanding on a lot of levels. I’m...
View ArticleTaming Rattlesnake Master: Profile of an Unusual Native
Everything about rattlesnake master is bold and wild – strong, upright flowerstalks, spine-edged silver foliage and spikey, spherical, white flowerheads. Combine this prairie perennial with any other...
View ArticleFall Foliage in the Desert Southwest
A number of desert plants do change color in the autumn. Photo by J. A. Soule Many in our area have moved to the Southwest from “back East” and become nostalgic as the days shorten into autumn – they...
View ArticleNative Plantings in Public Spaces: Beautiful and Functional
Tour attendees get a personal tour of the prairie by one of the volunteers who maintains the site. Last night I attended an organized native plant landscape tour by the local Wild Ones chapter. The...
View ArticleSmall Patch Green, Value of Reconciliation Ecology and Wildflower Plantings
Wildflowers can help save the world. But instead of telling the world how, we are hiding the truth. For any movement to succeed, there must be widespread grass roots support for the cause. Today...
View ArticleSkunk Rue
Henry Mitchell, that grand old garden writer, once wrote of a favorite plant that he had never seen a photo that would make anyone want to grow it, and he had never met a gardener who, having seen it,...
View ArticleDeer and Drought
Mule deer mom and half-grown fawn crossing an urban street–headed for greener pastures? Normally when I come in from working in my yard, I smell like earth, sweat and whatever plants I’ve been working...
View ArticleFlorida Green Roof Providing Habitat, Clean Rainfall and Fresh Cool Air
I am so excited to be bringing vertical green to a new coffee shop on the main street of Downtown Disney. The project’s primary designer has been so exciting to work with on this project....
View ArticleNative Plants – Availability and Size Class “the chicken and the egg”
Fringed sage, Artemisia frigida As a practitioner and provider of Native Plants one of the challenges we are perpetually faced with is the request for “Larger Materials”. People are constantly looking...
View ArticleWildflower or Robo-Plant? Trends Toward C4 Gene Implantation In C3 Plants.
This is a call for a full press effort to encourage and teach the importance of sustainable lifestyles throughout our communities. It is now crucial for us to conserve water, build green and create...
View ArticleCurb Appeal in a Wildlife Garden
A patch of native ferns and Virginia bluebells herald Spring Ah, Spring! It’s been a long, cold, snowy winter here in Connecticut and the arrival of the first day of Spring is a welcome event. Like...
View ArticleEvaluating Native Shrubs
Sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) has proven to be a stand out in Dr. Lubell’s research studies. In my last post, I told you about work being done at the University of Connecticut on breeding sterile...
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