Category: Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature

climate change / Conservation / Deer Resistant Plants / Edible Plants / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Foraging / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Plants / Propagation / Resource Protection / Wildlife Gardening

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Opuntia for Sustainable Gardens

Dangerously  Beautiful Opuntia Opuntia is a dangerous plant.  A beautiful plant, perhaps, useful and delicious; but always dangerous to anyone who comes near it.  Approach any Opuntia (Oh-POON’-tee-ah) you see with great care.  Wear gloves.  Wear heavy shoes and long pants.  Study it carefully before approaching and consider its mysteries with an open mind.  It is rife with contradictions. Opuntia is a native cactus that looks entirely out of place in most Virginia landscapes, though it grows here easily in...

Container Gardens / Deer Resistant Plants / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Perennial Care / Summer / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

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Peonies for Mothers’ Day

  Flowers for Mothers’ Day We traditionally honor our mothers, grandmothers, and the other important women in our lives with a gift of beautiful flowers at Mothers’ Day each May.  Some may favor an orchid or rose corsage, while others present a bouquet of freshly cut flowers.  And while flowers always make a lovely gift, the life of cut flowers is all too brief.   A Gift That Gives Joy Again and Again One year, when my daughter was still...

Conservation / Ferns / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Native Trees / Soil Conservation / Spring Flowering Trees / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

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Our Planetary Garden

  A New View of our Earth American soldiers and scientists working at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico took the first images of Earth from space in late October of 1946 when they attached a 35-millimeter movie camera to a confiscated German V-2 missile they were testing.  The missile reached an altitude of 65 miles, just above the limit of ‘outer space,’ before crashing back to earth with the film protected in a steel container. Subsequent missile tests...

Birds / Conservation / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Spring Flowering Trees / Tree Care / Wildlife Gardening

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Flowering Dogwood

  Dogwood trees explode into a profusion of flowers each spring.  They grow wild along the forest edge, in clearings and along highways throughout Virginia, transforming from grey woody skeletons into graceful clouds of pink or white flowers as winter melts into spring each April.   The State Tree of Virginia Flowering dogwood trees are cultivated in neighborhoods, around schools, in old church yards, and in private and public gardens, wherever they can shelter in the afternoon shade of taller...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Edible Plants / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Larval Host Plants / Native Plants / Perennial Care / Permaculture / Propagation / Wildlife Gardening

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Featured Plants for 2025

  Let’s celebrate some of our more unusual and lesser-known native wildflowers in 2025.  The Virginia Native Plant Society has chosen the Mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum, as its 2025 Wildflower of the Year.  The Perennial Plant Association has also chosen a native wildflower, indigenous to Virginia, as its pick for 2025.   Perennial Plant of the Year for 2025 The 2025 Perennial Plant of the Year is clustered mountain mint, Pycnanthemum muticum, a native wildflower in the mint, or Lamiaceae family.  It...

Young tree in hand

JCCW Master Gardener Association / Native Plants / Native Trees / Planting Trees / Trees

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James City County Tree Seedling Giveaway

A Public Service Announcement James City County is launching a new initiative to provide residents with free tree seedlings. The seedlings are all native species and will be available in various sizes according to their mature height (small, medium, or large). If you want a few tree seedlings for your property, please sign up using the link below. They may be out of the small trees but have medium and large trees available.  They will go quickly, so if you...

Food Forest / Foraging / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Planting Trees / Spring Flowering Trees / Trees / Wildlife Gardening

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Burst Into Spring with Eastern Redbud

  A Beacon of Spring A blooming redbud tree grabs my attention like no other spring flowering tree.  It just suddenly lights up like a neon beacon glowing brightly in the edge of the wintery forest; transforming from non-descript to gorgeous in the space of a day. Unlike other spring blooming trees which show visibly swelling buds for weeks, while they wait for winter’s cold to pass; clusters of redbud blossoms simply break directly out of its bark, anywhere and...

Bulb Gardening / Container Gardens / Deer / Edible Plants / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Herbs / Vegetable Gardening

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Protect Your Garden with Alliums, Gingers, and Herbs

Have You Eaten? Animals engage in the business of eating;  there is no common ground between our desire for a beautiful and productive garden and a deer or rabbit’s need for lunch.   While we may garden in harmony with birds harvesting berries from our shrubs and bees harvesting  nectar and pollen from our flowers, it is mainly because they can assist us with our gardening tasks and feed themselves without destroying our plants. Birds and spiders eat mostly insects, helping...

Birds / Conservation / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Jamestown Island / Native Plants / Native Trees / Resource Protection / Shoreline Erosion / Trees in Winter / Winter

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Bald Cypress at Glebe Gut

  This photo, used for our late January 2025 webpage header, was taken along the National Colonial Parkway at Glebe Gut.  It features a bald cypress tree and other native vegetation. Glebe Gut is a narrow, tidal channel that flows under the Colonial Parkway, between College Creek and Mill Creek, near Jamestown Island.  The waterway itself forms the western boundary of a 100-acre tract of land known as the Glebe Land, set aside after 1619 for the use and support...

Conservation / Deer / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Hedgerow / Ornamental Shrubs / Poisonous Plants / Resource Protection / Sustainable Gardening / Tree Care / Trees / Wildlife Gardening / Winter Gardening

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Oh Deer!

  Fallen leaves carpet the ravine behind our home, broken only by thick green stems of bamboo, taller than most of our trees; a few young pawpaw and scarlet buckeye trees; and the thick trunks of century old beech trees.  There are also a few fallen, decaying trunks of trees lost to storms, but none of the undergrowth you might expect to find in a wild ravine bordering a small lake.  The soil is rich and deep.  Dappled sunlight illuminates...