How-To’s
8 Tips from Leslie Needham on Designing Gardens that ‘Blur the Edges’
Read more: 8 Tips from Leslie Needham on Designing Gardens that ‘Blur the Edges’“A garden needs a heartbeat,” said Leslie Needham, founder of her eponymous design firm in Bedford, NY. And Needham will be the first to admit that her former English-style garden—tightly clipped hedges, filled with plants originating from around the world—didn’t have quite one. “It was pretty stagnant,” she says.
PRFCT Moment: Leaving Stems at The Battery
Read more: PRFCT Moment: Leaving Stems at The Battery“Here’s a picture demonstrating our practice of leaving stems for cavity nesting native bees. We recommend home gardeners start cutting back in mid-April (at the earliest), leaving stems, like we’ve done here with Bluestar (Amsonia hubrichtii), at a minimum of 18-inches tall. Bee babies are sleeping in them!
Ask the Expert: Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Rashid Poulson
Read more: Ask the Expert: Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Rashid PoulsonRashid Poulson probably wouldn’t be where he is today if he hadn’t gotten bored at work. The horticultural director of the Brooklyn Bridge Park (BBP), one of the city’s most exciting new parks and our newest Pathways to PRFCT Partner, had zero interest in gardening when he was studying engineering in college. . . .
One Simple Way to Protect Birds
Read more: One Simple Way to Protect BirdsAfter the birth of my daughter, rising early went from a habit to a mandate, shifting from the reasonable hour of six to the brain-destroying, body-weakening predawn hours somewhere closer to four in the morning. With her every . . .
Ask the Experts: The Native Plant Combinations the Pros Love
Read more: Ask the Experts: The Native Plant Combinations the Pros LoveIn our post last week, we heard from a group of horticulturists and garden designers where they go to source native plants and seeds. Now we’ve asked these gardening superstars (plus a few more) to share their favorite native plant combinations. We’ve all heard why native plants are vital to supporting our ecosystem. Studies have…
Where the Pros go to Source Native Plants
Read more: Where the Pros go to Source Native PlantsEver since I spotted the heart-shaped leaves of a violet in my backyard as a child, I’ve been smitten with native plants. Decades later the excitement has not abated: spring beauties, lady slipper orchids, gentians, bloodroot—“heaven in a wildflower.” It was only much later that I learned about how important these native plants are to…
Radicle Thinking: Eat Poop Die
Read more: Radicle Thinking: Eat Poop DieIf you Google “Food Web” or “Web of Life,” you’ll find a plethora of oddly tangled images of animals and plants with arrows pointing out, up, and all around. Do you get a general idea of what it all means?
Out with the Old
Read more: Out with the OldIt’s a new year, new garden—or, rather, a new way to tend to your garden. And there’s a lot to be hopeful about. Gardeners across the U.S. want to be more sustainable. According to a recent National Gardening Survey a third of people are now choosing plants to support wildlife and a quarter of them…
The Buzz on Native Bees
Read more: The Buzz on Native BeesIt’s winter. The trees are bare, the ground is (hopefully) covered in fallen leaves, and the palette of the landscape is muted. While it might look barren, there is a whole world living just out of sight. “Native bees might not be buzzing now,” says Sarah Kornbluth, a field associate in Invertebrate Zoology at the…
Native Seeds at Hilltop Hanover Farm
Read more: Native Seeds at Hilltop Hanover Farm“A seed contains the past and the future at the same time,” said the poet and writer Ross Gay, in a recent interview in The Nation. Hilltop Hanover Farm, a Perfect Earth Project partner in New York’s Westchester County, understands this firsthand. Through their native plant seed initiative, they are preserving the past by cultivating…