Natural Gardening. One benefit of a natural gardening practice is closer contact with nature. If you’ve wanted to hold a baby bunny, you may be able to! It depends on the unique nuances in your neighborhood’s ecosystem. And the flow of your land matters. There’s lots of native fauna besides the Eastern Cottontail, too. The […]
Albany Deer Gardens. Albany Deer Gardens. In the summer of 2017, we got a call to renovate the gardens surrounding a townhouse in Albany, NY. The townhouse was located within the Albany Pinebush ecosystem, right near the park. The gentleman of the house was known to his friends as, “Miami Joe.” He was the first
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Native Plants: What Are They? What are native plants? How can you differentiate a native species versus an introduced species? What designates a plant as invasive? Can a native plant be invasive? We consider a plant native to a region if it existed there already before the explorers (like Henry Hudson and Christopher Columbus)
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Invasive Plants. The problem in America of invasive species rapaciously displacing native flora is weird. How did we get here? Is it like this everywhere in the world? Why? And logistically: what can we do? Invasive Natural History When you read the American naturalists (Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and others), quite
Organic Garden Lifestyle. We passed the official 3-year anniversary of Covid-19’s paradigm shift reframing society this week. The world is a very different place now and most people have been forced to re-evaluate a lot of their values. Organic gardens are a major component of many Americans lives in a new way. Organic gardening
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Organic Gardens Design People expect more from their landscaping these days. It’s no longer adequate for most folks when a garden is high maintenance with no benefit or returns on inputs. Many people are looking to augment edible plants into an edible garden system. Organic gardens designed with native plants are becoming more and more
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Community Education What an amazing time to be working in the green industry! There are daily mainstream media news articles extoling the virtues of sustainable landscaping and organic, native plants gardens. The public is really getting onboard. Our team currently has a collective 39 years of experience as of 2023. When we all started
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Monarch Butterfly Garden. Monarch Butterfly Garden development is easy, fun and visually beautiful. It’s good for the local ecosystem and the larger environment. And it’s good for us as people. Recently the Monarch butterfly was officially registered as an endangered species. In the ecology world though, we’ve been watching the species carefully for a very
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Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) is a beautiful and versatile plant that is native to North America. It is a tall, slender plant with spikes of deep blue flowers that bloom from June to September. The plant can grow up to 4-6 feet in height. As a matter of fact, it has a wide range of
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Interpretive Nature Sign Gardens. One thing that differentiates a botanical garden or arboretum from an amateur nature lover’s garden is signage. Interpretive nature signs in a garden or nature preserve transform a pedestrian stroll into an educational event. When plants are labeled, the people enjoying the nature and gardens can study the plants. Labeling the
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Habitat Garden Network Over the past decade our company has been honored and delighted to create habitat restoration landscaping projects with hundreds of Capital Region residents. Our mission is to restore ecosystem function to our urban + suburban neighborhoods. By now, the gardens have absolutely taken on a new life of their own. They’ve
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Natural Landscaping in Saratoga Springs, NY This summer past we had the happy occasion to work with a photographer and drone expert on a natural landscaping photo shoot in Saratoga Springs, NY. The sites photographed were naturally landscaped properties we designed or renovated over the past few years and the native trees, shrubs, ornamental grasses and
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More Rain Gardens. In spring a while ago, Jessecology designed and installed some rain gardens in Lake George. The gardens were created at an inn right on the lake. Later, we added more plants into the design. Recently we stopped by to see the progress of these Lake George rain gardens in their maturity. Native
Woodland Gardens in Saratoga Springs, NY Before this summer we designed and installed new woodland gardens 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 thrive in shade
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New Construction Landscaping New construction landscaping is the best opportunity for habitat restoration. People need homes. The land is disturbed during construction. As soon as the construction phase is over, adding native species trees, shrubs, perennials and native grasses is the way to bring balance to the equation. A good ecological future is possible when
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Mature Tree Planting Without doubt, mature tree planting with native tree species is the best way to add- pound for pound- the largest and fastest habitat restoration improvements to a property. Perennials are a necessary piece of the ecosystem, and wildflower gardens are our company’s flagship product. Butterfly habitat gardens, pollinator gardens, shade gardens and
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Sustainable Landscaping/Gardening: 5 Principles. Part II. Read Part I Here. The 5 Principles of Sustainable Landscaping/Gardening are: 1. Stop using all chemicals. (see previous post) 2. Remove all invasive plants. The US Forest Service defines an invasive species as being: “Non-native (or alien) to the ecosystem under consideration; and, Whose introduction causes or is likely to cause
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Green New Construction Landscaping Green new construction landscaping projects are timeless and in vogue right now as well. The opportunity presented by clearing an acre+ space around a new home is breathtaking. If there were invasive species on the property previously, the excavating machinery cured the land of the problem. Subsequently, building a new biosphere
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About the Wildflower Lawns With attention to season, much of the year is the ideal time for spreading wildflower seeds. Native species perennials have unique cultural needs. Perennials in the northeast need stratification to germinate. The seeds have a tough exterior hull that needs to freeze and thaw to crack open and start growing. Some
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