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 [...]
Sky View of New Construction Gardens This year we had the honor of being asked to do the design and installation landscaping for a new home built by the construction company Halfmoon Construction. The new home will be net zero for meeting and exceeding the highest energy efficiency standards. Creating a habitat garden [...]
New Woodland Garden in Saratoga Springs, NY This summer we designed and installed a new woodland garden in Saratoga Springs, NY, in the neighborhood near Saratoga Lake. Shade gardens are one of the easiest places in the property to landscape sustainably, because of the rich and diverse body of available native plants that [...]
Privacy Landscaping in Saratoga Quick, don't think about it just answer: what do you think of your neighbors? Do you secretly cringe when they catch you at the mailbox? Or do you like them enough to comfortably share the neighborhood without overthinking it? I'm asking because "landscaping for privacy" is brought up [...]
Archimandrite Athanasy in the Monastery Gardens This fall I had the delightful opportunity to design and install a new butterfly garden at St. Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery in South Canaan, PA in the yard for Archimandrite Athanasy. Butterfly Garden for St. Anna The monks at the Monastery keep honeybees and sell the [...]
Diane Donato interviews Jesse from Jessecology about native plant gardens in Saratoga Springs, NY.
A Native Plants Walk in Saratoga Springs, NY In Saratoga Springs, NY there's a public access trail right in town where people can walk, run, take their dogs and view some native plants in the wild at the same time. Having access to nature trails in an urban area like this exponentially increases the [...]