Front Yard Pollinator Garden The front yard pollinator garden movement is transforming our culture. Even HGTV has caught on to the will of the people to have more life and nature in their suburban and urban front yards. For decades, vacation was considered a brief relaxation state of being physically away from home. Traditional vacations …
What is a rain garden? From an article elsewhere on our blog: “Rain gardens are the future of stormwater management. Imagine a system that harnesses nature to re-engineer a site to capture and sequester toxic runoff before it even starts. And habitat restoration with native plants for butterfly + pollinator gardens are part of the …
Do Deer Eat Pumpkins? Do deer eat pumpkins? This question is not so flippantly dismissed as the Deer + Mums query. Because pumpkins are amazing. Whether you love pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin bread, roasted pumpkin seeds or just a happy orange globe of decoration you can’t do fall without the pumpkins. We …
Perennials to plant in fall. When you plant your garden in fall, you mimic nature’s rhythm exactly. Cooperating with nature makes all the garden work much easier. In autumn, the visible parts of perennials are beginning to go dormant. But underground? The roots are stimulated by the lower temperatures and increased rainfall. Planting in autumn …
Do Deer Eat Mums? The answer to the question, “Do deer eat Mums?” Is a quick, “Yes.” Of course, they do. Why wouldn’t they? They’re hungry and Mums are abundant, freshly planted and bland as heck. Here’s a better question. “Why do you want to plant Mums anyway?” Chrysanthemums are indigenous to East Asia and …
Climate Resilient Landscaping Looking into the future, climate resilient landscaping is everything. Climate resilient landscaping is more than a new buzzword. Did you know we can actually affect the health of the planet with the choices we make in our gardens? Climate resiliency is a thing that humans can build. Being thoughtful about our consumption …
Natural Landscaping Ideas Besides just “using native plants,” what comes to mind when you want some natural landscaping inspiration? In general, cooperating with the land and celebrating what’s there is a good start. There’s a lot of inspiration just waiting for you right where you are. If you slow down in your garden, you’ll collect …
Fall Garden Plants. Fall is really the best time of the year for planting perennials, trees and shrubs. In the spring and summer, plants are concerned with their aerial parts growth and procreation. In the warmer months, plants pay less attention to their root development. There are good reasons to plant during these warm months, …
Rain Gardens in Niskayuna, NY In beautiful Niskayuna, NY near the Mohawk River, there are a lot of families who have called our company in recent years to create new rain gardens on their wetland adjacent properties. We love this work. Rain gardens are the future of stormwater management. Imagine a system that harnesses nature …
Landscape Installation Landscape installation by professionals is a logical, connected second phase of the professional landscape design and planning process. In recent years, people have become more aware of general environmental crises. Unseasonable weather has been hard to ignore, especially in geographic regions with catastrophic weather phenomena. Two out of three indigenous American songbird species …
Wildflower Yards. Creating a wildflower yard is an act of conservation, artistry, experimentation and possibly even performance art in higher visibility sites. People do love to watch a new native garden develop. Butterflies, songbirds, bumblebees, dragonflies, hummingbirds and mammals will also keep an eye on your new low maintenance centerpiece. There’s a learning curve for …
Apple Picking in Upstate NY: Top 5 Places to Visit. Top 5 Apple Picking Farms to Visit. 1. Your own backyard. Seriously, why not? Plant some apple trees today and soon you’ll never need to leave home for apple picking. You can do the planting yourself or hire a professional. 2. Saratoga Apple. Located in …
The act of restoring wetlands is one that invests in a healthy future legacy for the region’s ecosystem. Wetland restoration is simple at heart. Much like the rewilding motif of garden design, invasive species are removed and natives are added or supported. Wetlands ecosystem function is similar to the kidneys in a mammal’s body. …
Rewilding is a wonderful and relaxed form of land management that anyone with plant literacy and land can practice. Essentially it boils down to removing any invasive plants and letting the natural seed bank express itself. Rewilding is not like formal garden development. A new garden bed is not created, and soil amending isn’t …
In Saratoga Springs, NY there is a network tapestry of beautiful native plant gardens. Our company has worked with hundreds of unique design/build projects over the past 15 years in the Albany, Saratoga Springs + Niskayuna/Altamont region. The Saratoga Racetrack Gardens are some of the most beautiful, functional and eco-productive that we have ever …
Ecology Education. There’s a lot of noise in our world right now. Lots of distraction, not a lot of signal. It can be extremely easy for people to be swept up in dramas and agendas that have nothing to do with their actual reality or what they’re capable of producing. Unwrapping the buried treasure in …
Permaculture: When Weeds Talk. Continued from the invasive plant series. Part I. II. III. Plants spontaneously show up on land and colonize a micro-region sometimes. Usually this is viewed as a headache at best. And yet, using permaculture principles, a weed colony can be interpreted as a communication about soil quality instead. This is true …
Low Maintenance Modern Front Yard Landscaping Low maintenance modern front yard landscaping has become a pioneering trend in recent years. People have learned that landscaping doesn’t need to be high maintenance and involve chemicals at all. The earth wants to express beauty. Steering it is possible if you hire professionals who have land literacy. The …
You have your gorgeous native plant landscaping system all designed, built and on its way to mature establishment. What happens now? Garden art projects. Now the exciting times really begin! “Garden art” is a vast category of creations, with a likely-to-be endless scope. Many of the plants and weeds in your garden are possibly edible. …
Making your own natural bug spray to use during gardening is extremely easy. It’s inexpensive too. You have the choice of different essential oil brands, some of them are more or less pricey. If your plan for using your blend mostly involves spraying your clothing and shoes before gardening, do you really need more …