Archive for February 2009
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
Last evening we ended our first Book Discussion Group series with a discussion of Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home. For those of you who have read this book, you might have found it as inspiring and informative as our book group did. Dr. Tallamy takes the complicated relationships that plants have with insects and breaks it down into easy to understand and sensible stories.
Everyone in the group brought different points of view and stories of their own gardening efforts with native plants. One member remarked that they had no idea that suburbia had increased 5905% since 1960. Others brought stories…
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Thursday, February 5th, 2009
The other day I was speaking with a member of the Scott Arboretum about how she had the pleasure of witnessing a flock of robins descend on her planting of winterberry, Ilex verticillata, and remove every berry in sight within 45 minutes. You can imagine my delight when crossing campus several days later I witnessed a flock, maybe the same one, foraging on a large planting of Ilex ‘Sparkleberry’ outside of the McCabe Library.
Robins on winterberry enjoying the feast of berries. photo credit: B. Jones
This planting of five 13-year-old winterberry shrubs are normally rather striking in the winter landscape with their…
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Monday, February 2nd, 2009
Check out Andrew Bunting’s interview with TotallyHer and get some tips on sustainable gardening. Also visit the sustainable section of the Scott Arboretum website to learn about different sustainable practices and techniques for your garden.
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