Tag: native plant blog
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How to Build a Bird-Friendly Yard Without a Feeder
Bird feeders are a great way to attract birds, but they require regular cleaning and refilling. If you want to support local bird populations naturally, you can create a thriving habitat right in your yard. By planting native plants, incorporating water sources, and designing a layered landscape, you can turn your outdoor space into a…
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Spring Garden Clean-Up: Timing for Pollinators’ Emergence
As the days grow longer and the temperatures rise, it’s tempting to jump into garden clean-up mode on the first warm day of spring. However, it’s essential to be mindful of when you clean up your garden to ensure that pollinators, like bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects, have time to emerge and thrive. Pollinators…
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A Serene Landscape Design & Installation (& video)
This serene landscape design was installed in 2023. This video shows post installation, in the fall. After this installation, we also installed over 30 trees on the property! The gardens around this newly built home included a front yard garden with native plants, sweetbay magnolias, boulders, and a paver walkway. In the backyard, we installed…
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Snow Day for the Birds
With all the snow and very cold temperates this January we’ve had, my bird feeders have been full of birds looking for some good nutrition to keep them warm! Please remember: Do Not feed birds any form of bread. It starves them to death by filling them up with food that offers no nutrition. They…
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The Winter Garden As Habitat for Beneficial Insects
It may not seem like it, but gardens are still full of life even in winter and fall. Most if it is hibernating, but if you look close enough you can find evidence. I got out in my garden last November and played detective, finding a few fun things in the garden. This lady bug…
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Early Fall Garden Harvest
With cold weather approaching, I took some last days of t-shirt weather and did some tidying up in the garden. I completely advocate being a ‘lazy’ gardener when it comes fall time to create winter wildlife habitat. There are some things I do before winter gets here though and it mainly has to do with…
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Bulb Planting Season
It’s a month into fall and that means there’s one last chance to get spring bulbs planted in Kentucky! November is nearing and so are chances of frost, so we have a couple of weeks left to get bulbs in the ground. This year for my own garden I picked out some snowdrops and a…
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How to Save Tomato Seeds to Plant Next Year
Some plants are easier to save seed than others. Tomato seed is easy to collect, but there are a few more steps to getting viable seed than just allowing the seed to try. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll be saving seed in no time! Why Save Seed? Although it’s a lot of fun…
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Crows, Blackbirds, & Ravens
What’s that black bird over there? There are several species of birds that have all black feathers. Crows are a familiar bird that can be found nearly everywhere in America. They are a very adaptable bird, which allows them to live in various environments. It may be one reason why humans have given crows some type of…
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Effects of Light Pollution on Wildlife
It was an October night, I was standing outside on the second floor of a motel looking out to the ocean of Myrtle Beach. Out there I saw true darkness, but it was still hard to see the complete darkness for the glare of a motel light. Bugs and moths were buzzing all around it.…
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Native Plant Series: Butterfly Milkweed
Butterfly Milkweed has been listed as plant of the year 2017 by the Perennial Plant Association. I’m not surprised, this ‘weed’ is a beauty. Despite it’s name, it doesn’t act weedy in the garden, so don’t be afraid to add it to your landscape. It’s just starting to bloom here in Kentucky, with its orange…
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Kentucky Heirloom Green Beans & Tomatoes: Berea Sustainable Agriculture Center
I love growing green beans; they produce a lot of food in a small space. If you don’t have a vegetable garden, they’re easy to grow even in an ornamental garden bed on a nice looking trellis, and it’s unlikely anyone would even realize you’re growing food. By growing your own beans, you’ll be getting…
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Easy Composting with Coffee Grounds & Eggshells
If you’ve thought about composting, but have been apprehensive to try it, there a couple of very easy ways to improve your soil (for free!) without having a compost heap. (Although composting is very easy, easier than dealing with stinky trash!) These easy things simply begin with two magic things… These two specifically don’t necessarily need to…
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Feeding Birds in Winter
If you enjoy birding as much as I do, you must also enjoy feeding and watching birds in the winter. Birds stand out in the landscape of leafless trees and white snow, making them easier to watch. They’re likely spending a lot more time at your feeders trying to stay fat to keep warm all winter. There…
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Birding with Cats: The #1 Killer of Birds in the World
Have outdoor cats, but love birding? You and I are in the same boat. Sylvester the cat and Tweety the bird aren’t just a cliche in the animal world. Cats can kill between 1.4- 3.7 Billion birds annually in the continental US This number tells us that bird deaths due to cats is a serious issue.…
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How to Make Insecticidal Soap for Houseplants
Every winter spider mites seem to get worse on my indoor plants. However it’s easy and inexpensive to keep them at bay! You can make a simple insecticidal soap that will kill only soft-bodied insects such as spider mites, aphids, and mealybugs. In my home, my Croton and Arrowhead plants fall victim to spider mites.…
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Yew Dell Gardens Hummingbird Festival
Yew Dell gardens is just northeast of Louisville, about an hour and a half away from Lexington. Every August they have a small hummingbird festival with some speakers and other activities. I hadn’t been to Yew Dell before, so I thought it would be the perfect time to go since I love hummingbirds! Yew Dell…
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Is Mosquito Spraying Affecting our Pollinators?
The following article was written for Wild Ones Lexington newsletter September 2016 We seem to be seeing an increasing amount of advertising for mosquito spraying services in our area. We are also noticing lower numbers of pollinators, especially butterflies. While populations of our pollinators are suffering due to many factors, could the chemicals used to kill…
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Raising Spicebush Swallowtail Butterflies
Raising caterpillars to butterflies isn’t something I’ve done before, but I finally did a little research on how to go about it. About a week ago we saw a Spicebush Swallowtail flying around our 2 Spicebush shrubs. We knew it was laying eggs on the shrubs! We looked, and there they were on the underside…
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The Robber Fly
Once you start planting a garden, you start witnessing fun things, especially when you plant native plants, edible plants, and pollinator loving annuals (all without pesticides on them of course!). As I was looking at the flowers on my hanging basket, I saw this guy fly up and land. Its giant green eyes were nearly…