Create Wildlife Habitat. Protect the Environment
Ecosystem Gardening--teaching you to garden sustainably, conserve natural resources, and create welcoming habitat for wildlife in your garden so that you will attract more birds, butterflies, pollinators, and other wildlife to your garden. Start by learning about the 5 Pillars of Ecosystem Gardening and then explore more Ecosystem Gardening topics
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Meet other passionate wildlife gardeners from around the country. Share your successes. Learn from your failures. Discover the best resources to help you create welcoming habitat for wildlife in your gardens with native plants so that you will attract more birds, butterflies, native pollinators, and other wildlife to your garden.
I really like to begin each new year the way I want the rest of the year to happen. So I always make sure I have cash in my pockets, make my wildlife garden resolutions (plans for what I want to add this year), and head outdoors to welcome the start of the New Year in nature. This year we packed up our Plott Hounds and headed to our favorite local nature patch, the John Heinz National Wildlife … [Read More...]
Birds of late summer at the urban oasis of John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge near the Philadelphia, PA airport 6:30 am alarm clock on a drizzly Sunday morning. Sounds like a great reason to stay in bed, snug as a bug under the covers. But this morning I have a wonderful reason to drag my … [Read More...]
As I travel around the country speaking at conferences about Ecosystem Gardening for Wildlife, the question I get asked most frequently is "What should I plant?" The easy answer is that you should add lots of locally native plants to your wildlife garden because over thousands of years wildlife … [Read More...]
For me, there’s not many positives to be found at a Flower Show. Garish displays of exotic plants from all over the world hold no appeal at all to me. Since my focus is to teach people to create welcoming habitat for wildlife with native plants so that they will attract more birds, butterflies, … [Read More...]
The Agony of Bishop's Weed I've been doing battle for 14 years now with an invasive insidious persistent thug called Bishop's Weed, also known as Goutweed or Snow On The Mountain (Aegopodium podagraria). Every year I swear I'm going to get the Bishop's Weed all pulled out in early spring, and … [Read More...]
Mount Cuba Center is dedicated to the preservation of native plants of the Piedmont, and is a fantastic place to observe many different native plants in natural settings, some woodland, some meadow, and some pond-side. Mount Cuba Center is a 600 acre preserve located in the beautiful rolling … [Read More...]
Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) is a native tree of the southeastern United States. Often growing in wet woodlands, Loblolly Pine provides great habitat and value for wildlife. The native range of Pinus taeda covers eastern Texas to northern Florida, and all of the southern coastal states up to … [Read More...]
Slow down. Look carefully. You may be missing out on a lot of wildlife in your garden! When I travel around the country speaking at conferences about Ecosystem Gardening for wildlife, I teach people that the best garden tool is a lawn chair. Take the time to look closely and observe what is … [Read More...]
After the Polar Vortex, incessant snow storms, never-ending ices storms, sleet, hail, thunder snow, and frigid temperatures of this winter, it’s finally time to get your wildlife garden in shape for the coming early spring season. The good news is that early spring chores in a wildlife garden … [Read More...]
Collecting seeds from native plants in one area of my wildlife garden to spread throughout other areas of the garden. This year I had an abundance of several species of wood asters growing happily in my front garden. I had the White Wood Aster (Eurybia divaricata, formerly Aster divaricatus), and … [Read More...]
A birding adventure at the Cambridge Waterfront of the Choptank River on the eastern shore of Maryland to see the wintering ducks. You can tell a lot about the health of a river, lake, or ocean by the presence or absence of birds and other wildlife. If the river is healthy, you'll see lots of … [Read More...]
The Wild Turkey is a very different creature than its factory farmed cousin. You can see them in forested areas with interspersed clearings, and even attract them to your wildlife garden. It's the time of year when we're in search of the perfect turkey to grace our Thanksgiving Day table. A time … [Read More...]
If you want to learn more about the birds in your wildlife garden, one of the best things you can do is to attend birding festivals near you to learn more about birds in their natural habitats. One of the big things on my bucket list is to travel around the country going from birding festival to … [Read More...]
The Monarch Butterfly has been much in the news lately as we receive the devastating news that the current wintering population in Mexico is at all time low. There are many reasons for this decline in Monarch Butterflies: Current agricultural practice Genetically modified crops Pesticide … [Read More...]
The Monarch Butterfly is in deep trouble, and many passionate organizations have been created to save this single species. But a focus on protecting habitat instead of concentrating on a single species will provide lasting benefits for all species of wildlife and the native plant communities that … [Read More...]
Every sighting of a butterfly in my Ecosystem Garden is precious this year as very few butterflies seem to be about despite my best efforts of attracting them with native larval host plants. But last week I discovered a freshly emerged adult Black Swallowtail butterfly posing on my tomato plants … [Read More...]
Neonicotinoids are systemic pesticides that will kill the very pollinators you’re trying to attract to your wildlife garden. A systemic pesticide is absorbed into all parts of the plant: leaves, flowers, pollen, and nectar which means that any caterpillar feeding on that plant, any butterfly … [Read More...]
Growing for Pollinators: 10th Annual Garden Symposium, with Carole Sevilla Brown, William Cullina, and Dr. Frank Drummond at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens On Friday June 20 I'll be speaking at the Growing for Pollinators symposium at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens with William Cullina and Frank … [Read More...]
Want to attract more pollinators to your wildlife garden? I recently reviewed Heather Holm’s new book Pollinators of Native Plants, where I asked readers to leave comments telling us what they were doing for pollinators in their gardens (We had 2 copies of this book to give away to randomly … [Read More...]
I'm so thrilled that I'll be presenting Ecosystem Gardening for Wildlife at the 14th Annual CAMP Rehoboth Women's Fest in beautiful Rehoboth Beach, DE on April 12, 2014. This workshop will teach sustainable landscaping, conserving natural resources, and creating welcoming habitats for wildlife in … [Read More...]
I'm so happy that I'll be joining the faculty again this year for the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens Certificate Program in Native Plants and Ecological Horticulture. This 2-day intensive course will occur on June 17 & 18, 2014 in the beautiful LEED Platinum Bosarge Family Education Center … [Read More...]
I'm so pleased to announce that I'll be giving the Keynote Address at the Connecticut Master Gardener Symposium at Manchester Community College, Manchester, CT March 15, 2014. The Theme for the 2014 CT Master Gardener Symposium is "Lessons in Horticultural Diversity" As reported in the … [Read More...]
I’m a Conservation Biologist and have spent over 20 years as a consultant designing, installing and maintaining wildlife gardens for people who want to share their space with birds, butterflies, frogs and toads, bats, reptiles and amphibians, and yes even insects. Read More…