How to Protect Your Yard With DIY Tick Tubes

Specimen tree sheltered by High Hedge

There is no reason why you should settle down for an empty, boring backyard when there is so much that can inspire you. Check out our post on how Your Backyard Can Be the Best Hang Out Place with these DIYs!

Did you ever rearrange your bedroom as a kid, just for the fun of it? It’s truly amazing how rearranging some furniture and decor can make a space feel brand new. Little did you know that childhood-you was giving your bedroom a primpover—reimagining the space by using furniture and decor that you already own in new configurations.

Butterflies have this unexplainable allure that seems to appeal to people of all ages. The key to enticing these winged beauties to your yard, is utilizing adult nectar sources and larval (caterpillar) host plants in your plant palette.

When designing the perfect landscape, plants often take center stage. However, the “hardscaped” areas of our yard are where we often relax and enjoy the fruits of our botanical labor. Rather than simply installing concrete patios and walkways, consider using permeable materials to create the perfect conversation areas to augment your gardens, landscaped beds, and lawn.

These days, my phone keeps ringing about ponds clogged with aquatic weeds and algae. If your pond’s surface is more than 20% covered with weeds or algae, you should work with a pond management company to tackle the issue. An additional step toward the prevention of this issue is tracking down the cause. Aquatic weed growth and algal blooms are usually caused by excess nutrients in the water. These nutrients come from many different sources, but common sources are sedimentation from shoreline erosion and the transport of excess nutrients from fertilizers through stormwater runoff.

Water is like gasoline: you don’t miss it until it’s gone. Benjamin Franklin succinctly stated it this way: “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” So, while you may not be contemplating a hot, dry, sun-baked summer now, it’s important that you create and maintain a landscape that can stand up to whatever’s in store for us this summer.

Are these gloomy winter days getting you down? One way to brighten up your home is the addition of tropical houseplants. Some of my favorite flowering ones are moth orchids (Phalaenopsis species), amaryllis (Hippeastrum species), cyclamens (Cyclamen persicum), kalanchoes (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana), and African violets (Saintpaulia ionantha). I also like adding interesting foliage plants such as bird’s nest (Asplenium nidus) and rabbit foot ferns (Davallia fejeensis), pothos (Epipremnum aureum), heartleaf philodendrons (Philodendron hederaceum), and snake plants (Dracaena trifasciata). An indoor garden, especially during the winter, helps satisfy my need to be surrounded by plants. My husband claims he’s living in an indoor jungle but secretly enjoys being surrounded by plants.

“How do I attract wildlife to my backyard? Or “I want to see more animals in my yard.” I often hear this question/statement from wildlife-loving homeowners. It is important to note that you do not have to have large acreages to attract wildlife. You just need to meet their basic needs. All living things require four things: Food, Shelter (Cover), Water, and Space.

The backstory: When I heard the title of a lecture being given nearby by a visiting North Carolina State University zoologist, I had to know more. The talk wasn’t titled “Woodchuck-Proof Your Backyard,” or “Rabbits Be Gone,” which would have attracted me, too, but for more obvious reasons. It sounded far more dramatic:“The Return of Predators to Urban America.”The speaker was Kays, a North Carolina State University zoologist and expert in using new technologies to study free-ranging animals, including the ones that may very well live in your neighborhood and garden. He leads the project called eMammal—a citizen-science animal-counting collaboration with the Smithsonian—and directs the Biodiversity Lab in the Nature Research Center of North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. I invited him to my public-radio pro

While I can name my local mammals, birds, amphibians and reptile species, I admit to using the word “bee” a little, shall we say, generically, not even sure I know exactly what a bee is—and isn’t.Dr. Olivia Carril has that covered, and then some. She is a PhD plant biologist who has been studying bees and the flowers they visit for nearly 20 years. Olivia is also co-author with Utah State biology professor Joseph Wilson of “The Bees in Your Backyard,” the new book that

We’ll encourage you to feed your curiosity and indulge in snooping for easily overlooked garden plants and animals during a joyful ramble through the “classroom” of Margaret’s garden and the natural areas at its perimeter, with both formally landscaped patches (featuring mostly exotic “collector” plants) and wilder areas managed for natives.See Margaret’s various experiments with making a mini-meadow, creating “snags” or wildlife trees and “unmowing” some new areas to discover what happens–and we’ll get Conrad and Claudia’s insights on how to fine-tune and enhance them with a more expert eye.Led by what