These are our biggest enemies at our house in Western Massachusetts. I wrote this up to share with my family: The reason we care about these in particular is that they do the most damage to the native plants that feed the birds, primarily because insects will eat native species […]
Ecosystem
The uphill battle of aster identification
Asters are no longer asters, they are in the genus Symphotrichtum, unless they are Eurybia, and there are dozens of species. They are all harassed-looking daisy-types with 1/4″ or 1 1/2″ flowers, heart shaped leaves or lance-like leaves, in varying shades of murky blues and purples and whites and pinks. […]
Lake Hitchcock and the Laurentide Ice Sheet
Other than the stars, the planets have the longest damn memory. Ours included. I wanted to have a larger view of the history of the land where I garden, which seems so impossibly old. So: We are at latitude 42.38, longitude -72.65, in West Hatfield, Massachusetts, on the western side […]
Pollinator garden, drafts 1, 2, 3…..
One of the front pollinator beds was added in April 2020. At roughly 4′ x 15′, it contains twelve Golden Alexanders (host plants for black swallowtails and food source for a lot of the little solitary bees) and twelve Bottle Gentians, both from Prairie Nursery. There’s a birdhouse at the […]
Special guest: Fountain frog
I set up a whiskey barrel water feature in the dappled shade of the grove every year, using whatever found items we have lying around-old glass lampshades, terracotta pots – whatever allows for the fountain tube to pass up vertically. This year I added a papyrus along with some water […]
Rejecting despair: Gardening on a vulnerable planet
Reject climate change despair. We don’t control much beyond ourselves and half the time not even that. We’re just a bunch of pixels in the end. The bad news is: nothing lasts. The good news is: nothing lasts. I’ve been taking welding and soldering classes in order to make water […]