Nature's Palette Landscape Design

12/25/2020

Change is in the season, and in the air and soil all around us. Time for a change here, too - I’m officially shuttering Nature’s Palette. I’ll be switching my blogging over to my main FB page for the time being. Watch for new posts about farm happenings over there!

12/01/2020

Finally, the fall salad greens are mature enough for picking - right in time for winter salad. LOL (Getting the new water lines working properly made the difference.)

07/11/2020

Let’s not Save the Monarch or the Honeybee. Let’s save or restore entire ecosystems and the services they provide right in our own backyards. Plant More Natives, a huge variety of native plants, starting with the magnificent Oaks.

07/06/2020

Yes, plant more plants to help balance the climate...but they don’t all have to be trees. Grasses, and other perennials with large root systems, do count.

Do grasses store carbon like trees?
Many people have heard that trees can sequester or store carbon but did you know that grasses also serve this important role? In fact, although trees can store more carbon, the storage in grass may be more stable since much of it is below ground. This makes it less likely to be lost to the atmosphere during fires, droughts or floods. Trees store more carbon aboveground in trunks, branches and leaves while grasses store more carbon belowground in their roots. Click to read more! https://bit.ly/2YThxQ7

The Prairie Project

06/19/2020

If you have odd native plants come up in your yard, things you didn’t plant that like the sun, guess what? Your yard used to be part of the grasslands that once covered the Southeast. Sure, if nothing intervenes, the MidAtlantic region would be covered in trees...but that’s not how Nature works. Lightning sets fires. Fires burn large swathes, which come up in grass and flowers and set the seed that, once the trees take over again in 10-20 years, will form the seedbank from which they’ll do it all over again later. Grazers—deer, bison, elk—help keep things in check, because they need that grass, too. Indigenous people use fire, too, to keep the canopy open so crops can be grown. The MidAtlantic may be great at growing trees, but it grows great prairies, too. And so can you!

06/06/2020

"Homegrown National Park" - yes, we can do this. Begin by reducing or eliminating your lawn and planting native plants. (Need help? Call me.)

Read this book to your kids, then turn your yard, your neighborhood into a project... "Homegrown National Park" (Doug Tallamy). The timing could not be more perfect.

06/05/2020

Please, please plant native plants. Our world depends on it, and that is not an exaggeration.

Evidence is growing that insects are in decline, but each of us can take steps to help. Our future depends on it.

05/22/2020

Bees are everywhere at this time of year. If you’ve wondered which kind of bee you’re looking at, you are in luck—here’s one resource for identifying bumble bees. https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/documents/BumbleBeeGuideEast2011.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1IqJy2NJUgWhW4pMWmAzmmCGXLGfWbm1DgX-d8eE-7VDp0Ex9Uvcv6aYA