Goldenrod: Fill Up the Feeders
So where’s the seed already? The birds are waiting… (Thanks to Wells Horton for this lovely photo of an impatient customer.) http://wells-horton.smugmug.com/) Personally, I don’t do bird feeders. My resident birder does, but not me. I’m just too darn lazy to get out there on a cold morning and lug pounds of sunflower seed and do battle with the squirrels. I prefer to let someone else do the work. Like the goldenrod plants. At the edge of my yard is a meadow full of birdseed. Goldenrod, no longer golden but brown and crisp. A few asters are in there, too, and grasses...
Read MoreAsters: The Options Are Narrowing
Any flowers left around here? I like to have a few flowers in a jar, sitting on my desk or on the kitchen table. Zinnias, clovers, roses, thistles, doesn’t matter what. On afternoon strolls I pick a few blossoms to stick into water when I get home. But now, in mid-November, the options are narrowing. Hardly a flower left. Green leaves, yes, still quite a lot of photosynthesis going on. But the flowers’ work is done. The honeybees have packed it in for the year. The hummingbirds have split. The flowers have pretty much called it a day. A few exceptions, though. Red clover is very frost hardy....
Read MoreWhite Pine: Wake Up and Breathe
Native Americans and European settlers used White Pine as one of their most common remedies, for coughs, head colds, throat infections and consumption—all sorts of breathing types of ailments. Pine resin has strong antibacterial and antifungal properties.
Read MoreNew York City: A Study in Green
New York City. Where the buildings scrape the sky. Solid Cement. All brick and blacktop. Nothing green in the Big Apple, that’s for sure. Except, of course, there is. There’s a wealth of plants in all sorts of unexpected places. (Not to even mention Central Park, one of the most glorious greenspaces ever.) NYC is the greenest city I’ve ever seen. Parks, rooftop gardens, tree-lined streets, window boxes. And then there’s the unplanned greenery. Lurking under the pavement are uncountable billions of roots, spores, dormant seeds. Any little...
Read MoreWind Coming. Hold On.
All prepared for the storm. It’s not hard, really, when you live on top of a hill, miles from rivers and angry ocean waves. A few flashlights, batteries, candles, canned chili, lots of good books. Everything safely brought inside–the lawn chairs, the porch plants, the garden tools, the cat. No problem. We’re ready. I just wish I could bring the trees indoors. You really get to know trees, when you greet them in your yard every morning for thirty years. The pear twins that hold the hammock. The basswood at the foot of the driveway, with the big red oak just across. The group of...
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