AS I KNOW I have already mentioned (do I sound desperate yet?), I am waiting for things to happen, for sure signs of life as I crawl around the leaf litter these tenaciously cold days, uncovering possibilities. What am I waiting (hoping) for? Things like the fiercely alive, sharpened-looking shoots of hostas. What are you waiting for in your garden?
THE LECTURE that he’s been giving for a number of years is not-so-subtly called “Kill Your Lawn.” Ecological horticulturist Dan Jaffe Wilder knows that starting over and creating an entire native habitat instead of a lawn isn’t for everyone. But Dan just wants to grab our attention and get us to start to make some changes at least in the way we care for the turfgrass we do want in our landscapes. And maybe give up a little square footage of it to some other kind of more diverse planting, too, like the wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana, inset). Alternative, more eco-focused styles of lawn care, along with some lawn alternatives is what he and I talked about on the podcast. Dan is Director of Applied Ecology at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts, and its 8,000-acre sanctuary. He’s also co-author with Mark Richardson of the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.”
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Hi Margaret,
Your blog is so nice…I especially liked your post on magnolias. I grew up in California, and we only had the white ones with glossy leaves, and I always wondered about the pink ones here.
Claire
Thanks, Claire. To a cold-climate gardener like myself “the white ones with the glossy leaves” (the magnolias you had in CA) are like some kind of unattainable treasure. The grass is always greener, huh?
So glad you visited. I shared your knitting blog, http://www.newyorkminknit.com/, with my sister, who’s a demon knitter (I am hopeless at it).
Margaret