An island garden bed that breaks up the lawn monoculture. 8 Natural Ways to Reduce Tick Exposure this Season. It's almost the time of year in the northeast when we all get to enjoy the outdoors again. Exhilarating after months of cabin fever! But most of us have one nagging fear these days [...]
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and Coreopsis rosea in the Monarch Butterfly Waystation at Wilton Mall in Saratoga Springs, NY. Swamp Milkweed is often a better fit for home gardens than Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), though both support the Monarch butterfly. At the Healthy Living Market, which occupies the old JC Penny's space in [...]
Natural gardens and natural landscaping with Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum) and Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). Wildlife Gardening Medicine- Healing Both Humans and the Land Is it possible to integrate the use of the native plants used in wildlife gardening into preventative, herbal health care? Wildlife gardening medicine may just be the future trend [...]
When I first read Crow Planet by Lyanda Lynn Haupt I remember being absolutely transported to another place as I tried to picture a day in the life of a wildlife rehabilitator, like Ms. Haupt herself. When I learned that a new friend was also a wildlife rehabilitator, I knew I had to connect with [...]
Native plant butterfly garden planting day in Schenectady, NY. This spring I was delighted to be contacted for a dream project: the volunteers from a nature preserve in Schenectady, NY contacted me to design a butterfly garden for the preserve. The Woodlawn Nature Preserve is a part of the connected Pine Grove ecosystem, [...]
Last week on the other website where I write, an article was published called Please Stop with the Lyme Tick Nurseries. The tick nursery analogy is the result of a correlation between invasive, exotic Japanese Barberry in a given region and an increase in Borrelia burgdorferi infected ticks, as studied by researchers at the University [...]
Year Two in the Corporate Habitat Garden Last summer I was contacted by a forward thinking financial advisor in Clifton Park, NY to renovate her landscaping into something more natural and easy to care for. The area where the garden was planted sits right under a mature Ash tree, creating dry, woodland-like conditions, and so [...]
Lately urban wildlife gardens have been on my mind a lot. Maybe its because of a book I read recently called Crow Planet, by author Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Ms. Haupt has a lot to say about the nature of wildness, that many of us are locked up in our heads believing that nature is out [...]
Corporate Habitat Garden Project In Clifton Park, NY (southern Saratoga county) on Route 9, a savvy financial advisor has been watching trends in landscaping. Deborah Christopher, whose Edward Jones office is located in a strip mall on State Route 9, heard about prominent entomologist Douglas Tallamys research and ecological trend-setting for redefining curb appeal to [...]
This week saw the much anticipated butterfly garden installation at the Woodlawn Nature Preserve in Schenectady, NY. The Friends of the Woodlawn Preserve contacted me to design a butterfly garden that the volunteers could plant. The nature preserve is located at the edge of a Schenectady district elementary school, and the butterfly garden site is [...]
Scenes from the librarian's wildlife garden There is a handful of people who were influential back when I was still in school and trying to configure my passion for habitat gardening into a career. One of them was the lovely head research librarian at the community college I then attended; her resourcefulness coupled with a [...]
Recently I wrote an article about the link between using Japanese Barberry shrubs in landscaping and an increase in human Lyme disease infection rates in the surrounding neighborhoods. As people in Saratoga Springs, NY are learning about how we the people are collaborating against ourselves in a public health crisis through lazy and shortsighted landscaping practices, [...]
Bog Habitat Gardening Inspiration In one of my college ecology classes, I remember doing some field work in a bog habitat in the southern Adirondack region of New York state. Bogs: though similar to swamps or marshes, are a distinctive kind of wetland where peat forms from dead plant matter, the BBC nature website explains. [...]
Recently I wrote about the story of how I came to be the landscape designer for Allison Mack's wildlife garden. I was as surprised as anyone in the summer of 2012 when my phone rang and on the other end was an internationally known actress and activist who had heard of my ecological garden design business [...]
Invasives and Nuance I've had a long and complicated relationship with Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum), and we finally broke up for good this year. The opening photo shows C. perfoliatum's cousin, Compass Plant (Silphium laciniatum). It's Invasive Species Awareness Week, so I thought maybe it's a good time to open up about my experience of [...]
Drone View of a Saratoga Lake Garden Natural Landscaping Photo Shoots in Saratoga Springs, NY This summer past we had the happy occasion to work with Ray Stockwell of Stockwell Media on a natural landscaping photo shoot in Saratoga Springs, NY. The sites photographed were naturally landscaped properties we designed or renovated over the past [...]
Butterfly Garden at the Ballston Spa Church This year we were delighted to be asked to create a butterfly garden in Ballston Spa at a Church: Christ the Savior Orthodox Church on Eastline Rd in Saratoga County. The butterfly garden was designed to accent the lovely roadside sign the church recently had built. This [...]
Blue Mistflower in a Saratoga Springs Garden This year brought many new native plant garden projects, and many return customers who wanted more projects where mature natural gardening projects exist already. Natural landscaping can be addicting like that, once a person experiences how easy and beautiful native plant landscaping is, and how many wonderful [...]
In the region of upstate New York where I live, Lyme disease- an infection of the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria that's spread primarily by deer ticks- has become an epidemic. All the odd controversies aside, there are physical realities about this situation that are not being acknowledged. Primarily the reality that we are a part of [...]
Conservation Bouquet with Invasive Plant Purple Loosestrife A deep appreciation for native plants usually is cultivated in a person's mind or heart once education about invasive plants really sinks in. Once I understood a little bit about how noxious, introduced invasive species can crowd out natural areas and prevent our wildlife [...]