Bringing a Breath of Fresh Air Indoors
By Paul Hicks Pullquote: Gardening success on a smaller scale When we recently moved from a home on an acre of land with lots of gardening space to a condominium with a few small planting beds, our cultivation of plants had to be adjusted along with a number of other habits. The first step was […]
Poor Chris’ Almanack
The No. 1 myth about baby birds is: if you find one and return it to its nest, the mother will reject it. This is untrue! If you find a nestling on the ground, do your best to return it to the nest. Did you know the berries of Eastern Red Cedar/Juniperus Virginiana feed more than […]
Sam Bridge, a Business With Deep Roots
By Caitlin Brown While most garden enthusiasts are familiar with Sam Bridge, the business, few know about the family that grew this business. Sam Bridge was a born gardener. By 1930, he was planting geranium cuttings in his father’s cow pasture for his mother and her friends. After earning certificates in horticulture at Cornell and […]
How Does Your Garden Grow?
Pullquote: Just think of your property as a sanctuary — for people, plants, and wildlife. There are different ways to think of the greenery that surrounds your house. Some of the most familiar are <lawn, yard, or garden>. While each of these words has positive associations for most of us, and connotes a certain level […]
The Dynamic Duo: Lichen and Moss
By Bill Lawyer My neighborhood, which I call “Halsted Hill,” has a large number of properties that include rock retaining walls and natural outcroppings. They provide delineation of different parts of the yard, as well as texture in their own right. For those of us whose properties are along the slope of Halsted Hill, we […]
The Jay Estate, the Jewel in Our Backyard
By Caitlin Brown This year, the Jay Heritage Center proudly celebrates its 25th anniversary. The deed to preserve and protect the integrity of its namesake property, The Jay Estate, the boyhood home of Founding Father John Jay, was signed on August 20, 1992. Thanks to the hard work of staff and volunteers, the generosity of […]
Ode to Gardening
By Annette McLoughlin Your gardening skills are between you and the worms, and they’re excellent at keeping secrets. Full disclosure before you read on: I have no business writing an article in a respectable publication (or any publication, really) about gardening. I’m a self-taught, impulsive, bargain-biased gardener on my best day. That’s not to say […]
Keeping Lyme at Bay
Spring is the time of year when ticks become very active. Deer ticks transmit Lyme disease and we live in a high-risk area for the disease. Now is the time to start thinking about taking precautions to protect against this long-term and debilitating infection. Here are some simple precautions you should take: • Avoid heavily wooded areas […]
Grow a Pollinator Garden, Please
By Chris Cohan Good things happen when you grow a pollinator garden. Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, as well as every gardener and farmer will applaud you. The pretty pollinators will flutter over to your home and perform a daily show for you. Honeybees have been disappearing in record numbers, and they are not the only pollinators […]
Of Time and Tide
By Jana Seitz Am I more in love with the idea of adventure than with adventure itself? I think to myself as I try to break free of my house and domestic responsibilities to catch the tide under the bridge that divides me from my plan. My brain tries to change its mind: wait ‘til […]