The Pollinator Conservation Handbook, by The Xerces Society and The Bee Works, is a wonderful resource for all Ecosystem Gardeners to support native pollinators. Most of you have probably heard of Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon where honey bees are dying off by the millions. A large part of our agricultural food supply is dependent [...]
Conservation Gardening Weekly Best of the Web
I thought I’d share some wonderful articles from around the web this week. It is great to see so many other writers committed to the principles of Conservation Gardening. So here, in no particular order, is what I read this week: Joel Gillespie wrote about Obsessively Green Gardening, where he touched on many of the [...]
Butterfly numbers plunge by 50 percent
Butterfly lovers have noticed an alarming trend–butterfly numbers are down over 50 percent this year. The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) has sponsored butterfly counts since 1992, and has noted significant drops in butterfly populations this year. Pat Sutton is a founding member of NABA and has participated in these counts since their inception. To [...]
Ecosystem Gardening in Practice: How to install a dragonfly pond
One of my favorite things to do in summer is to sit by a pond and watch the dragonflies and damselflies perform their aerial acrobatics. These amazingly beautiful and agile fliers create a swirl of color before my eyes, darting across the surface of the water and flashing in the sun like precious jewels. There [...]
Sustainable Lawns Revisited
Yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer had a great article by Virginia Smith: The complexities of Greening your lawn which refers to lawns as “drug addict in need of detox.” She points out the dangers of toxic chemicals to people and pets, and the dangers of not using these chemicals properly. This is a very good review of [...]
5 Ways to Help Amphibians in Your Ecosystem Garden
Ecosystem Gardeners are in a great position to develop habitats forfrogs, toads, and other amphibians on their properties. These habitats must include both aquatic and terrestrial environments, and provide access to food, shelter and migration corridors, plus aestivation, hibernation, breeding, and nesting sites. Install a Garden Pond Since most frogs and toads need water at [...]
Why Lawns are not Sustainable in Conservation Gardening
The American Lawn is the Best Illustration of Unsustainable Practice In order to fully understand sustainability in conservation gardening, it is quite illuminating to look at examples of unsustainable practice. There is no better illustration of this than the American lawn. We have idealized this concept so much that it has become the norm no [...]
Why Your Garden is so Important for Ecosystem Gardening
Habitat Loss due to Human Action is the Number One Cause of Species Decline We humans have an extraordinary propensity for building new things: shopping centers, malls, condos, office parks, suburban subdivisions, roads, parking lots, etc. This need to have more and more is really not a great situation for the wildlife that were thriving [...]
Recent Comments