Pollinators – Edgings Garden Research and Design

Monarch Butterfly Duo

Finally, a monarch! And not just one caterpillar, but two, with others, I hope, hidden among the late-season foliage.

Mt. Cuba Center: Beautiful and Comprehensible Native Plant Design

I don’t recall the first time I heard of Mt. Cuba Center, but for the last few years this native plant garden in the Brandywine Valley area of Delaware has been on my bucket list of Mid-Atlantic gardens to visit. In October, I was fortunate to spend part of a day roaming the site, soaking up its inspiration for native plant design.

So What Exactly Is a Native Plant? The Pollinator-Friendly Plant Labeling Act May Have an Answer

When talking about gardening, it doesn’t take long before native plants become part of the conversation. One question comes up repeatedly in these conversations, a fundamental question with an elusive answer: “What exactly is a native plant?”

Learning from Nature, Gathering Data – Citizen Science in the Garden

On the day the International Union for the Conservation of Nature announced that migratory monarch butterflies had been added to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, I found a monarch caterpillar chewing on milkweed in my garden. An internationally recognized endangered species was reproducing in my suburban garden. Could restoring the environment really be this easy?

Leave the Leaves, But Why? Look to the Research

Leave the leaves! It’s an exhortation to gardeners to stop raking and blowing tree, shrub, and perennial leaves that drop in autumn, keeping the leaves in the garden as a natural mulch. If you think about how a forest functions, leaving the leaves makes sense. But does leaving the leaves in a residential garden really help?

The Butterfly Effect of a Wildlife Garden

A wildlife garden is designed intentionally to attract birds and butterflies and other pollinators, not just because they’re enjoyable to watch, but because they need help to survive.

The Wildlife Garden

No matter how simple or complex, designed or haphazard, a garden is an ecosystem, a community of plants and animals interacting with the environment of a space — the sun, wind, rain, and soil.