How-To’s
A Dirty Dozen: 12 Invasive Plants to Avoid (and What to Grow Instead)
Read more: A Dirty Dozen: 12 Invasive Plants to Avoid (and What to Grow Instead)Last month we talked with Evelyn Beaury, a scientist and assistant curator at the New York Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Restoration Ecology, about the dangers of invasive plants and what gardeners can do to slow the spread. (Read the story here.) One solution is to stop buying those super-aggressive, non-native plants in the…
Growing Community: The Altadena Seed Library
Read more: Growing Community: The Altadena Seed LibraryWhen fleeing a natural disaster, many people’s first instinct is to protect mementos of the past—photos or cherished family heirlooms. But when Nina Raj evacuated her home in Altadena last month during the devastating Los Angeles fires, her mind was firmly fixed on the future. The first thing she packed was her seeds.
All About Invasives
Read more: All About InvasivesStep outside for a nature walk and you’re likely to encounter invasive plants—barberry and burning bush, to name just two that are fast encroaching on Northeast woodlands. But you may be surprised to learn that there are nurseries and online plant stores selling these self-same invasive plants.
Radicle Thinking: Radicle Surprise
Read more: Radicle Thinking: Radicle SurpriseDespite the alarming news I read each day, watching our environmental protections get torn apart, my thoughts tend toward a radicle optimism. Surprise!
Three Smart Gardening Chores to Do in the Winter
Read more: Three Smart Gardening Chores to Do in the WinterNot far from the Brooklyn waterfront, the Naval Cemetery Landscape (NCL) is both a memorial to the dead and a haven for the living, teeming with lush native plants and countless birds and pollinators. “By purposefully bringing in life through an abundance of plants to a space that memorializes the dead, the landscape honors the…
A Tree Sculpture at Stoneleigh
Read more: A Tree Sculpture at StoneleighAt Stoneleigh: a natural garden, in Villanova, PA, a majestic and unforgettable London planetree stands beside the house like a guardian. “It’s a towering, hulking tree that’s gorgeous,” says Ethan Kauffman, the public garden’s director. The tree’s most mesmerizing quality? It’s no longer alive. . . .
A New Year’s Tradition for Nature-Based Gardeners: Sowing Native Seeds
Read more: A New Year’s Tradition for Nature-Based Gardeners: Sowing Native SeedsWith the winter solstice almost here and the year coming to a close, we’d like to propose a new tradition to kick off the New Year: Sowing native seeds–outdoors. Many native seeds need a period of cold stratification in order to germinate, and one of the simplest ways to do this is to sow them…
PRFCT Ground Rules with Lindsey Taylor
Read more: PRFCT Ground Rules with Lindsey TaylorThis fall, Edwina von Gal, Perfect Earth’s founder, raised a call to action to all gardeners and landscape professionals to commit to making and caring for gardens that will heal and not harm the Earth. With the realities of biodiversity emergency and climate crisis upon us, gardeners and landscape professionals can be powerful agents of…
Courting Royalty: Planting Milkweed for Monarchs
Read more: Courting Royalty: Planting Milkweed for MonarchsMilkweed is the sole food source for hungry monarch caterpillars, and with more than 70 native species, there are varieties that thrives in every ecoregion in the U.S. They grow in dry or wet terrain, in blazing sun or part shade, and come in shades of pink, purple, orange, green, and white.
Ask the Expert: Holistic Plant Care with Longue Vue
Read more: Ask the Expert: Holistic Plant Care with Longue VueIt can get hot in New Orleans, really hot—and really humid. Climate change can cause drought one month, followed by floods the next. Then there are insect and disease pressures, infestations of invasive plants, frequent epic storms. What’s a historic garden to do? Longue Vue, Perfect Earth Project’s newest Pathways to PRFCT partner, is trying…