If you happen to come across a pawpaw patch in the springtime, when the trees have covered themselves in small, deep red blossoms, please don’t be tempted to step closer to smell the flowers. Admire them from afar. Zoom in to take a photo. Like skunk cabbage and jack-in-the pulpit, pawpaw flowers have a putrid odor to attract the flies and beetles that pollinate them, and the dull color of their flowers resembles rotting meat. Pawpaw’s small flowers, rarely...
Our once shady front yard was left a bright expanse of coarse wood chips and mangled leaves after the arborists pulled out their heavy equipment and left, that hot summer afternoon almost a dozen years ago. A freak summer thunderstorm had harbored a waterspout or small tornado when it blew in from College Creek a few days before. Our first clue that something was wrong had been seeing the underside of a muddy root ball rising 8 feet or...
Summer at last! Tomatoes are ripening, flowers blooming, and we are enjoying prime time in the garden. July and August can be our most productive season in the garden. But these months challenge our ingenuity and dedication when the weather turns hot and dry. All our garden dreams can wither under the summer sun or topple over in a summer storm if we neglect the basic maintenance routines that help our gardens thrive. Here are a few tips to...
What To Do in May and June Avid gardeners find lots to do during May and June as spring melts into summer. The enjoyment of spending time outside watching things grow and listening to the birds can distract us from our spring to-do list. But taking care of business early in the season will result in a more attractive garden and more success through the summer months ahead. The days are getting noticeably longer and warmer as the first flush...
“I use only native plants, native to the planet Earth. I am using indigenous plants; they are indigenous to this part of the universe.” Bill Mollison, Founder and Director of The Permaculture Institute In the Beginning… Let’s begin with the obvious: we live within an ever-changing ecosystem. Europeans came to North America more than four centuries ago, cutting trees, planting fields, building homes and roads. Native Americans also cut trees, built homes, planted fields, hunted, and lived...
A Mystery and A Memory We found several large evergreen shrubs in our new yard that we couldn’t immediately identify, when we moved here over a decade ago. We could pick out the boxwood and Camellias, but we were especially curious about the very tall, open shrubs that the birds loved the most. It was August, and tiny bluish gray drupes were ripening along this shrub’s woody stems. Its leaves were fragrant. Birds gathered in its dense and twiggy...
Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium and More That pile of wet grounds left from your fresh pot of coffee contains nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and iron. Does that list of ingredients sound familiar? You may recognize this nutrient list from the last bag of fertilizer you read. Brewed coffee grounds, the dried and ground remains of the coffee bean, which is a seed, can be repurposed to enrich compost and improve soils. Grounds may contain up to 10% nitrogen, intended...
Colonial Williamsburg welcomes visitors to the natural beauty of one of the wilder, quieter portions of the historic area. The Bassett Trace is named after Burwell Bassett, Martha Washington’s nephew and a Virginia legislator and congressman. In 1800, he purchased a white farmhouse near the trailhead. In 1936, that farmhouse, now known as Bassett Hall, became the favorite home of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his wife Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. During the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, an...
“… despite its bad reputation, Phragmites provides many benefits that are generally unknown and unappreciated. After studying salt marsh ecology and the impacts of stressors, including invasive plants, for many years, I have concluded that removing this invasive species wherever it is found – especially along vulnerable coastlines – is a very expensive and often foolish procedure.” Dr. Judith Weis, Professor Emerita in Biological Sciences Rutgers University Historically, Phragmites Are Part an Important Part of the Ecosystem Our...