Clik here to view.
Out with the Old
Edwina von Gal adds order to a looser planting style, packed with native varieties, in her home garden by plotting her design into graphic, geometric beds. Photo by Melissa Ozawa It’s a new year, new...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radicle Thinking: Eat Poop Die
The soil food web. Illustration by Soil Biology Primer/USDA-NRCS website. by Edwina von Gal If you Google “Food Web” or “Web of Life,” you’ll find a plethora of oddly tangled images of animals and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Where the Pros go to Source Native Plants
Coastal plain Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium dubium) and New York ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) grow in seed increase plots at The Hickories, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a hub of the Eco59 Farmer-Led...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ask the Experts: The Native Plant Combinations the Pros Love
A native spring woodland planting at Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware includes Eastern red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia), and woodland phlox (Phlox divaricata). Photo...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Simple Way to Protect Birds
Northern Cardinals, like this female, forage on the ground or on low branches for berries and seeds from flora like dogwoods, grasses, sedges, and sumac. Photo by BirdImages from Getty Images...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ask the Expert: Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Rashid Poulson
A meadow grows in Brooklyn. This native flower meadow at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s pier 6 explodes with blooms and pollinators from spring through fall. It’s planted with milkweed, Joe Pye weed, swamp...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PRFCT Moment: Leaving Stems at The Battery
Tulip and Narcissus display at The Battery gardens in downtown New York City. Photo by Jennifer Bishop. This winter we talked with The Battery, a Pathways to PRFCT partner, about what they’re doing to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
8 Tips from Leslie Needham on Designing Gardens that ‘Blur the Edges’
A native spring woodland planting by Leslie Needham Design. “A garden needs a heartbeat,” said Leslie Needham, founder of her eponymous design firm in Bedford, NY. And Needham will be the first to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
PRFCT Moment: Edwina’s Bee Beach
Maya Lin designed Edwina’s “bee beach,” which features a very slow drip of water. You can also create one at home using a shallow bowl filled with large pebbles that sit above the waterline, so bees...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Protecting our Beaches with the Naples Botanical Garden
The beach at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park in North Naples, Florida. The Naples Botanical Garden is working on nature-based dune restoration. I love the beach. I’ve spent at least part of every...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wear Weirdness on Your Sleeve
Tim Erdmann, a horticulturist at Chanticleer, aims to grow plants that are “beautiful and tough, and not so demanding on the environment.” The tall hot pink manuka, native to New Zealand, does not...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Manitoga: An American Treasure
“The house is interwoven with the site, the hillside is connected by views to its larger context of the Hudson River Valley,” writes Carol Levy Franklin in Manitoga’s Design and Management Guide....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radicle Thinking: Going for 100
Photo by Roger Serrat-Calvo Calm from Getty Images by Edwina von Gal How long can we live? Can we try to live extra-long by learning from the extra old? Old people, old communities, old trees? There...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fertile Ground: Silvopastures, Sheep, Sustainability, and more!
“I love multi-purpose,” says Logan. “I’m always asking, how do we grow plants that look beautiful and are also edible or serve a purpose like holding the earth and slowing down water.” This overhead...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bringing Biodiversity Back
A Conversation with Andi Pettis, Director of Horticulture at Governors IslandSunny yellow oxeye sunflowers (Heliopsis helianthoides), which are attractive to hummingbirds, bloom in Hammock Grove, which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How (and Why) to do a Biodiversity Audit in Your Backyard
Tama Matsuoka Wong walks through her meadow, which is a haven for biodiversity, in her New Jersey home. As she says in a recent story in Gardenista, “I’m letting the garden be much more the way it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spotlight on Izel Native Plants
In this bed at the Lurie Garden in Chicago, Echinacea sp. mingles with prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis). This versatile grass provides valuable nesting spots for native bees and birds and is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Radical Ethics of Ecological Horticulture
“Although Native Plant Trust is known as a scientific-minded organization, I think in reality, our work is about helping people connect their hearts to the natural world,” says Johnson. The plantings...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Radicle Thinking: Eating Dirt
Photo by Martin Majer by Edwina von Gal The soil beneath your feet, in your garden trowel, and on your gloves is fabulously alive, brimming with billions of organisms and untold communities of pro- and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The NYC Biodiversity Task Force on 5 Ways to Support Your Ecosystem
In lower Manhattan, a monarch sips nectar from butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa). This native plant, which is integral to the monarch’s survival, was voted New York City’s favorite wildflower last...
View Article