It is said that gardening creates community. And this pleasant saying rings true each time that I tend and nurture a growing garden.
Oftentimes, as I’m tending the Children’s Square Foot Garden in front of the Mary Reinhart Stackhouse Education Center, I get many curious onlookers who are interested in what’s growing. Ultimately, they ask what’s my role at the Arboretum – they wonder whether I’m on staff or am I a volunteer? My answer is always the same - I tell t...
"The most common way gardeners attempt to connect with insects is by planting for butterflies. It is a noble idea... Sadly, the execution of this enterprise is so often directed by misinformation that we end up having fewer butterflies than we started with."
-Doug Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home
Sometimes when I go for a walk around the grounds I sometimes forget we are in the middle of a pandemic. While Covid-19 has turned our world upside down, the natural world is moving along as if nothing has changed – the flowers are blooming, the bees are pollinating, the fireflies are dancing; nature seems the way it have always been, rather normal. Though in nature, nothing is ever normal.
Whenever I am talking about adaptations, I always tell my audience, "Everything in nature – ...