I asked for your opinions last week about an article that proclaimed that invasive plants can have beneficial ecological impacts. And boy did you have opinions! Thank you for sharing them. The article was a study of Japanese Honeysuckle in areas of Pennsylvania in October. The short version is that these researchers concluded that since [...]
Invasive Plants Beneficial–Really?
I’m about to dash off to the airport to speak at the Wildflower Preservation and Propagation Committee of McHenry County’s Natural Landscaping Seminar, but I came across a very troubling supposedly scientific article and I wanted to hear your thoughts about it. Ironically enough this post appeared the week prior to National Invasive Species Awareness [...]
The Great Native Plant Debate
Dreaming of Spring on a cold and gloomy day The Great Native Plant Debate The great native plant debate is one that never seems to go away or be resolved, and I’ve written about it frequently here. This week though, many others are writing about it too, so I’m gathering them all together for you [...]
Ecosystem Gardening and Native Plants
Here at Ecosystem Gardening we’ve been discussing the goal of adding more native plants to our gardens to increase the value to wildlife in our landscapes. But did you know that saying the words “native plant” will send some in the gardening world into passionate heated arguments? I am finding this out with repeated frequency. [...]
Sentimentality and Silk Trees
[Guest post by Ursula Vernon] I have occasionally wondered why people are so protective of their invasives. I first noticed this when I was fighting silk trees—mimosa—which are a weed-tree down here in the Southeast, and I blogged about how awful the bloody things were and how I felt like I was fighting a really [...]
Carolyn Summers: Designing Any Garden Style With Native Plants
Welcome to the latest edition of Ecosystem Gardening Radio. Up today, an Ecosystem Garden does not have to conform to the stereotype of the “wild garden,” says Carolyn Summers, but can be designed to give you any style of garden that you’d like, while using native plants. I was honored to meet Carolyn Summers when [...]
Most Hated Plants: Bush Honeysuckle
[Guest Post by Gail Eichelberger. This post originally appeared at Beautiful Wildlife Garden] Bush honeysuckle has been my gardening nemesis since I decided to let my suburban yard revert to the oak/hickory forest that was here 60 years ago. Our back yard was filled with tall canopy trees, what passed for lawn and a small [...]
Learning From Our Mistakes
Humans are blessed with the capacity to learn from situations, assess the consequences, and alter our behavior in the future. We can learn from our mistakes. Unfortunately, when it comes to the environment, we rarely exercise that capacity (Can we say Oil Spill?). We have refused to learn from our mistakes way too many times [...]
Doug Tallamy: Native Plants Support Local Food Webs
Welcome to the next edition of the Ecosystem Gardening podcast series! In this installment, I’m talking with Doug Tallamy, one of my Heroes of Ecosystem Gardening, and author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens. Dr. Tallamy is Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at [...]
The Bloom is Off the Rose
Guest post by Michele S. Byers, Executive Director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation [Editor's note: this article originally appeared in the NJ Conservation Foundation newsletter. I am very grateful for their permission to reprint it here, because it fits so nicely into our "Most Hated Plants" feature]. Mother Nature can be a capricious mistress. In [...]
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