Posted in Native & Invasive Plants, Nature / Ecology, Plants & Flowers on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | 11 Comments »
Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is staring to leafing out in wetland areas so I know that spring is really here. Pretty soon, the ground in swampy areas will go from brown to green almost overnight as the skunk cabbage leaves unfurl.
Skunk cabbage leaves are pretty cool–big & wide, deeply veinated–but it’s the blooms that [...]
Posted in Nature / Ecology, Plants & Flowers on Saturday, March 8, 2008 | 11 Comments »
I’ve been reading a bit lately about butterflies and how to attract them to your yard and garden. It’s important to plant flowers whose nectar attract butterflies, but don’t forget the larvae (caterpillars). Many butterfly (and moth) caterpillars only eat specific plants. The best known example is the monarch butterfly caterpillar, which eats [...]
Posted in Nature / Ecology, Science Lesson, Trees on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 | 8 Comments »
Marcescence is when a plant part dies but is not shed. It’s most frequently noticed in the winter, when certain deciduous tree species don’t lose their dead leaves. Oaks and beeches have normally marcescent leaves. That’s an oak at left, and marcescent beech leaves are pictured below the jump.
Posted in Environment, Nature / Ecology on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 | 4 Comments »
This past weekend I participated in a seminar called 21st Century Landscape Literacy at Apeiron Institute for Environmental Living in Coventry, RI. Apeiron’s mission is to promote sustainable living practices and ecologically healthy communities in southeastern New England. On their property, they’ve built an eco-house using green building practices. (You can take a virtual tour [...]
Posted in Field Trips, Food, Nature / Ecology on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 | 9 Comments »
With approximately 15,000 acres of cranberry bogs, Massachusetts is the second largest cranberry-producing state. (Wisconsin is the first.) I recently spent an afternoon driving around southeastern Mass. looking at cranberry bogs and learning about cranberry farming.
Posted in Field Trips, Nature / Ecology on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 | 8 Comments »
Tower Hill Botanical Garden was loaded with monarchs when I visited last week. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many in one place. They must be getting ready to head south, no?
The monarch (Danaus plexippus) is native to North America and is well-known for their mass migrations to warmer climates, especially coastal California.
Posted in Environment, Nature / Ecology on Sunday, June 17, 2007 | 1 Comment »
A study released yesterday by the National Audubon Society found that the populations of many common birds have taken a nosedive, primarily due to habitat loss:
The dramatic declines are attributed to the loss of grasslands, healthy forests and wetlands, and other critical habitats from multiple environmental threats such as sprawl, energy development, and the [...]
Posted in Environment, Native & Invasive Plants, Nature / Ecology on Friday, May 18, 2007 | 2 Comments »
The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has a lot of interesting programs and information for “citizen scientists” and everyday nature advocates. A recent entry that’s pretty impressive is The Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming. They do a really good job of tying together many of the issues facing gardeners as global climate change becomes a [...]
Posted in Environment, Nature / Ecology on Sunday, April 29, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Today’s Boston Globe carried an interesting article about how climate change has caused and will continue to cause species to evolve as they adapt to new conditions. It seems that scientists have identified five species that have already evolved due to climate change: the pitcher plant mosquito; Canadian red squirrels; the European blackcap (a [...]
Posted in Environment, Nature / Ecology on Saturday, January 6, 2007 | 4 Comments »
If it seems like I’m obsessed with the weather, it’s because I am. Curt and I went on a CANOE RIDE yesterday. In New England, in January. (The blog header shows what the same lake looked like a year ago.) But rest easy everyone, because the New York Times’s Maria Newman wrote yesterday that the [...]
Posted in Environment, Nature / Ecology on Thursday, January 4, 2007 | 6 Comments »
A couple of days ago, I noted the warm weather but mentioned that we were “back on track” for cold weather. Wrong–today’s high is supposed to be 58 degrees F. The weather is so weirdly warm that it’s turned into a topic that everyone’s talking (and writing) about. From yesterday’s Providence Journal, Michelle Lee [...]
Posted in Nature / Ecology, Plants & Flowers, Trees on Thursday, December 7, 2006 | 2 Comments »
Ecological gardens–sometimes called forest gardens–are based on natural native or naturalized plant groupings or communities in your region. I’ve been looking into the concept and have felt for some time that the hardest part about planning this type of garden is knowing what to plant. OK, you know that in your area there are many [...]
Posted in Nature / Ecology, Trees on Thursday, November 30, 2006 | 13 Comments »
Allelopathy is a process by which a plant releases chemicals that can either inhibit or benefit other plants. Since most allelopathic plants cause harm to other plants, that’s the what I’ll be discussing here.
Posted in Native & Invasive Plants, Nature / Ecology on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 | 10 Comments »
For too many people, wildlife in the garden conjures up images of aphids, snails, crows, deer, or other so-called destructive pests. But these and many other pests are part of the native and natural food chain–they must simply be balanced with beneficial native species. (Although there are still certain invasive pests that you never want [...]
Posted in Nature / Ecology on Saturday, October 14, 2006 | 5 Comments »
Last night it got down to 30 degrees F. The pond across the street is not yet accustomed to the cold weather. Here’s what it looked like at 7:30 this morning.
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