In case you haven’t heard, life on earth is in trouble. This is why I am asking you to get on the Homegrown National Park® MAP. Each and every one of us has the power to regenerate biodiversity and we don’t have the luxury of time to do it.
Biodiversity Day – 22 May Read More »
Thank you Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection! RLEP’s efforts generously empower us to offer everyone the share-worthy, downloadable & customizable brochure about the biodiversity crisis, HNP and what each of us can do to “get started” and get ON THE MAP!
RLEP Lights Us Up! Read More »
Helping Nature Take Its Course
The natural world we encounter today is not the same world we would have encountered 500 years ago, 100 years ago, or even 20 years ago.
When I was a boy (60 yrs ago), I could count on finding a box turtle, a spotted turtle, and several species of salamanders any summer day on a walk through a nearby woodlot. I would have kicked up scores of grasshoppers in the meadow I crossed before I reached that woodlot, and I never worried about picking up a deer tick because I didn’t know what a deer tick was; I had explored those fields and woods for years without ever encountering one. If I saw a white-tailed deer, it would have been a very special day, for they were rare in north central New Jersey where I grew up. I didn’t know much about plants, but nearly all of the species I walked by in those days were native to North Jersey.
Helping Nature Take Its Course / September 21, 2021 Read More »
The Newport News Extension Master Gardeners “influencers” are showing off their signs and encouraging others to GET ON THE HOMEGROWN NATIONAL PARK® MAP through their Garden for Nature Program. They have registered 13 sites from their city on the MAP, bought HNP yards signs in bulk to provide free of charge to members who get “on the MAP.” WOW!!!!
We think planting native is a luxury partially because we can take action without asking permission or needing legislation. Sometimes MAGIC happens when permission is sought and a public official, a volunteer conservation organization and landscape architect get together – and that is just what happened in Hastings-on-Hudson.
When politicians are facilitators in regenerating biodiversity Read More »
Landscape architects are in a powerful position to influence the use of native plants in public and private places. One such design firm used their talents to inspire a community based collaborative project in San Francisco. That lights us up!
When Landscape Architects take the lead! Read More »
CALIFORNIA MIGHTY OAKS – by Mary Sanichas
A fun, easy-to-read summary of the many ways oak trees hold ecosystems together — with over a dozen links and resource about how we can support them. Perfect for introducing students, neighbors, friends and family to the importance of native oak trees.
Long Live Our Mighty Oaks! Read More »
The Muscatine Pollinator Project took over acres of old unused farm land that had gone to weed to create a 55 acre Pollinator Park inside the City limits of Muscatine.
Small changes Big Impacts. Prairie strips provide a win-win scenario for farmers and wildlife. Research shows that by converting 10% of a crop-field to diverse, native perennial vegetation, farmers and landowners can reduce sediment movement off their field by 95 percent and total phosphorous and nitrogen lost through runoff by 90 and 85 percent, respectively.
In a recent NY Times article, Zoë Schlanger describes a policy shift in managing our national parks, from protecting all species within our parks to picking a choosing which ones we have the resources to save. Climate change is blamed as the culprit that has pushed park managers and budgets beyond their capacity, although most of the actual problems described in the article are caused by invasive species we have brought to this country and would be problematic even without climate change. Climate change is indeed serious management issue, though not the only issue, and it has shown us the limitations of restricting conservation to parks and preserves. Parks are fixed in location, but a changing climate demands flexible responses on the part of plants and animals they are designed to protect. When confined to a fixed space, they lose that flexibility.
Beyond Parks and Preserves / June 23, 2021 Read More »
