Nature Books for Children

As Digital Content Editor Christine Alexander explains, pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem and we should all be doing our part to support their populations:

After 20 years of having a lawn that took, I wanted a yard that contributed: to the planet, to local animals, to biodiversity, to my neighbors, to my mental health. With the sage (native plant pun intended) design work, counsel, and collaboration of David Godshall of Terremoto and David Newsom of Wild Yards Project—and a plant-friendly paint palette from color consultant Teresa Grow—another little garden that gives was born.

Ah, garden dreams. We all have them. You drive by someone’s front yard and gasp at how original, yet welcoming it is. Or you go to a friend’s garden party and get positively green with envy over their, well, greenery and the overall flow of the space. To achieve such greatness, you decide you need to hire a landscape designer. And then you realize you have no idea what to do next. 

It’s well known that the housing market is so competitive right now, but prospective home buyers aren’t the only ones hurting—renters are, too. According to personal finance website WalletHub, inflation has impacted rental prices, and 2022 saw the second-highest price growth in decades with a 6.2% year-over-year increase. 

For those who are looking to buy a home for the first time, the feat can seem like quite the hurdle. With housing prices and interest rates still high, and a competitive market, it’s tough out there! And the number of first-time home buyers are dropping, too, because of those high prices—according to personal finance site WalletHub, 26% off home purchases were made by first-time home buyers in 2022, down from 34% the previous year.

California is well known for its trees and this article shall provide a list of the most popular California’s Native Shade Plants. So let’s begin!

For less than £5 you can buy ‘Container Gardening’ by Alan Titchmarsh from Amazon. Just click on the picture above

If gardeners are exceptional people then buy them a copy of this book for Christmas. It contains 20 stories and profiles about encounters with gardeners and a day in their life to provide reading matter for dark garden-free evenings.

Some of the other varieties good for growing with kids include:

A stroll through a boutique garden store might lead you to believe that filling a garden with happy, healthy plants is only for the well-heeled. But those very plants that have soaring price tags in the store might be yours for free if you are willing to be a little creative. If you are wondering how to get free plants, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for five tried-and-true paths that lead you to free garden plants.

From trying cottage cheese ice cream to adding protein powder and bananas to morning coffee, the internet is ablaze with protein hacks lately—but Trader Joe’s just announced a bit of extra protein in its Unexpected Broccoli Cheddar Soup that you may not want to try.

Summer at the South Carolina Botanical Garden (SCBG) that is a fun time filled with summer camps and children laughing and learning. Below are some of the simple, low cost ideas we used in our Creativity Camp to get children outside, where they enjoyed nature, and tapped into their creativity.