fall

Sumac: Not Poison

Posted by on Oct 23, 2016 in fall, leaves, Unmowed Blog | 0 comments

Sumac: Not Poison

Sumacs don’t seem to fit in a suburban backyard—they belong on a tropical island. So flamboyant a tree should have parrots and toucans perching in it instead of chickadees.

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Purple Coneflower: Pollinator Favorite

Posted by on Oct 17, 2016 in fall, pollinators, Unmowed Blog | 0 comments

Purple Coneflower: Pollinator Favorite

Purple coneflower is a native American plant, a blast of purple petals surrounding a spiky central cone. Echinacea comes from a Greek word meaning hedgehog.

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Linnaeus’s Garden

Posted by on Dec 4, 2015 in fall, Sweden, Unmowed Authors, Unmowed Blog | 0 comments

Linnaeus’s Garden

You could say he’s the father of all gardeners—all modern gardeners, anyway. Karl Linne (or Carolus Linnaeus, to use the Latin form of his name, which he preferred) had a garden with thousands of species of plants in it, each and every one named by himself.

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Seeing Brown: November Leaves

Posted by on Nov 29, 2015 in fall, leaves, Unmowed Blog | 0 comments

Seeing Brown: November Leaves

In November, the red and yellow leaves are gone, but there’s still a wealth of color. In nature, there are way more than fifty shades of brown.

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Red Oaks: On Fire

Posted by on Nov 8, 2015 in fall, insects, leaves, Unmowed Blog, wildlife | 0 comments

Red Oaks: On Fire

Red oak. Really lives up to its name in fall. Late in the season, the red oaks are on fire. The oaks are important trees for wildlife, of course. Everyone knows squirrels eat acorns, but acorns are high-protein food for an astonishing number of animal species: blue jays, wild turkeys, black bears, wood ducks, opossums, woodpeckers, red and gray foxes, rabbits, white-tailed deer, and many more. But a close look at oak leaves shows their other, more subtle, contribution–to the insects. All those thousands and thousands–millions!–of little bumps, nibbles, gnawings, holes....

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Embrace the Dark

Posted by on Oct 30, 2015 in fall, holiday, Unmowed Blog | 2 comments

Embrace the Dark

Darkness is supposed to come, to give us a rest from the light.

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