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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Butterfly Garden DIY: How To Jesse taught a workshop at a regional garden expo. “Butterfly Garden DIY: How To” was the topic. Subsequently we’ve heard from folks who wanted to attend and couldn’t. This post will summarize the butterfly habitat gardening presentation. A wildlife biologist friend writes frequently about butterfly gardening and the lifecycles of
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Black Cohosh plant (Cimicifuga racemosa) Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa, aka Actaea racemosa) is one of the finest native woodland plants. It’s also beloved as a woman’s herb. It graces the shade garden and part sun gardens and woodlands around the US. Black Cohosh has many nicknames, i.e., Bugbane or Black Snakeroot. There is also
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Native Fruit Trees in New York. Planting native fruit trees is one of the best parts of this work. Shown in the photo is a line of Red Chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) trees we planted for an upstate New York homeowner. Straightaway, the fruit tree site location is a half mile from a major wildlife
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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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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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A nature preserve in Schenectady needed a butterfly garden designed and supplied with native plants. The volunteers from Woodlawn contacted our company to design a butterfly garden for the preserve. The Woodlawn Nature Preserve is a part of the connected Pine Grove ecosystem, aka the Albany Pine Bush. The Friends of the Woodlawn Preserve group
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Shade Gardens in NY Recently we designed and built new shade gardens in Saratoga Springs, NY. There was a small, disorganized collection of existing shrubs and perennials in one established bed by the patio. This garden was adjacent to a woodland area that we rewilded into relaxed shade gardens. For that reason, many shade tolerant
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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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Woodland Garden Design Recently we were invited to design and build a new woodland garden in upstate NY. The picture above shows Yellow Trillium (Trillium luteum) and Woodland Phlox (Phlox divaricata.) One reason landscape design for shade gardens is enjoyable is the malleability of structure compared to full sunspaces. And the plants! Certainly, native woodland
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Urban Gardens A recent year we were contracted to do the design and install for the landscape renovation of an urban garden. The client’s urban location crystalized a wildlife corridor in Saratoga Springs, NY through the positioning of several dozen individual local properties with eco-savvy landscape design. This habitat renewal space is located in front
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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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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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Shade Garden in Clifton Park, NY In Clifton Park, NY a legacy shade garden shines. Homeowners and property managers are often puzzled by the shady parts of their property. They may want a garden but think non-native Hosta and Astilbe are the only options for a shaded space. Undeniably, the world’s forests, loaded with beautiful
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Giant Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) is a gorgeous New York state native species plant that’s listed as endangered and rare in NYS. It is notably difficult to find for sale, even at specialty native plant nurseries. NY Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) is another native Ironweed species that’s easier to locate for purchase at nurseries. Both Giant Ironweed
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Why Seed Sow Wildflowers? Certainly, for hope. In the northeast, winter’s dreary cold can almost make us forget the glorious spectacle and fun of summer. A close connection to the land and growing things starts to feel like a distant memory. As a result, many gardeners and nature lovers overcome this by engaging in winter
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Schenectady, NY Butterfly Garden in a nature preserve. A dream came true spring 2017 when we designed and managed the installation of a butterfly garden in a Schenectady, NY nature preserve. This week saw the much anticipated butterfly garden installation at the Woodlawn Nature Preserve in Schenectady, NY. The Friends of the Woodlawn Preserve contacted
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Sustainable landscaping for new construction. Certainly, we were delighted in 2014 when a longtime landscaping dream finally came to fruition for the first time. Because we were hired that year for our first of many new construction landscape design/build projects. At this time, the construction site was in beautiful southern Saratoga County. The homes are
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Ballston Spa Nature Preserve Over the past month, we’ve had the honor of being a part of a lovely project. A couple in Ballston Spa, NY (just outside of Saratoga Springs) contacted us around Mother’s Day with an opportunity to build a nature preserve, with native plant gardens on a half an acre of their
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Monarch butterfly habitat at the farm. A week in recent memory there was a disheartening NY Times article that illuminated this year’s decline in Monarch butterfly species population. Building Monarch butterfly habitat at the farm seemed like a nice idea. Our local organic farmer friend agreed to collaborate on building some Monarch butterfly habitat at
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