Bluets (Houstonia caerulea): Tiny Spring Jewels in the Wild Garden. Looking for Spring through the Plants. One of the first true signs of spring in the Northeast is the quiet arrival of Bluets (Houstonia caerulea). Also called Quaker Ladies or Innocence, these tiny wildflowers are easy to miss at first. But once your eyes tune […]
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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,
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Native Gardens 101: The Benefits of Native Plants for Your Sustainable Garden Imagine your garden bursting with life, every plant thriving effortlessly. You’re not dreaming—this is the magic of native gardens. By choosing local plant species, you not only create stunning sustainable gardens but also offer a haven for local wildlife. Native plants adapt perfectly
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Native plants for New York State gardens. Native Plants for New York State Gardens. If you’re planning a garden in New York State, native plants are the best choice you can make. These plants evolved in our local ecosystems, meaning they’re naturally adapted to the climate, soil, and wildlife of the region. Native plants are
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Urban Wildlife Gardens: Restoring Nature in the City Urban wildlife gardens are transforming cities into vibrant, living habitats. As more green space is paved over, small efforts to rewild with native plants can make a huge difference—for pollinators, birds, and humans too. When you plant a native garden in an urban setting, you’re not just
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A Beautiful Local Rain Garden Story. In the spring of 2012, we designed and installed rain gardens at an inn on Lake George. This spring, we added more plants to enhance the design. Native plants typically focus on developing their root systems during their first year. Certainly, the gardens would be more spectacular and fuller
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Urban Gardening: Transforming City Spaces with Native Plants Urban gardening is more than just a trend—it’s a movement that’s transforming concrete jungles into vibrant green spaces. For city dwellers with limited access to nature, creating an urban garden offers a unique opportunity to connect with the environment, promote biodiversity, and improve well-being. What’s so special
Native Species Awakening. Gardeners often have an unexpected learning curve when they begin to add native plants to their gardens. In springtime, when native species wildflowers wake up from winter dormancy it can seem underwhelming for a while. The immediate gratification of vegetable gardening and big box store plant shopping are obstacles to true real
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Landscaping for Privacy Basically, if you’re lucky, you’ll have awesome neighbors. People who live right near you that you can share space and joy with are a blessing from God. Neighborhood barbecues and tea shared on the porch with people you actually like are amazing gifts. It’s not always that way. Additionally, even folks who
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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
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Continued from Parts 1 + 2. On a hillside in the SUNY Albany neighborhood, our team planned and executed a major transformation and restoration project. This urban garden was devastated by invasive weed infestations. Attention to soil health and quality was the key to the project’s success. After we removed all the invasive plant
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Sustainable Landscape Development. What an opportunity we all have ahead of us over the next decade. The future is bright. As eastern NY cities, villages and townships begin to consider sustainability in planning, we all win. Over the years, we’ve observed 5 principles for sustainability in garden construction. Removing invasive species, adding only native plants in
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Organic Soil. The quest to manipulate the land in any facet and call it “gardening” would be shortsighted without attention to the soil condition. Healthy soils beget healthy gardens. Even a more laissez-faire habitat restoration approach like rewilding does require acknowledgment of soil quality as it regards severe mineral deficiencies. There is not a lot
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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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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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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Native Plant Garden Projects: 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 garden landscaping is, and how many wonderful creatures show up overnight,
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Privacy Landscaping in Saratoga Basically, if you’re lucky, you’ll have awesome neighbors. People who live right near you that you can share space and joy with are a blessing from God. Neighborhood barbecues and tea shared on the porch with people you actually like are amazing gifts. It’s not always that way. Additionally, even
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