Hey GPODers!
26.06.2024 - 09:29 / finegardening.com / GPOD Contributor
Hey GPODers! No preamble from me today, Stephanie included a beautiful description with her submission so we’re jumping right in:
Hello! I’m Stephanie and I live in an adorable brick 1955 home in Exeter, NH. My husband and I have been restoring the property for the last five years of ownership, after years of overgrowth and sick hemlock trees. We had to remove the bulk of hemlocks in the backyard due to damage from wooly adelgid, but it created an open space that encouraged eastern bluebirds to nest, broad-winged hawks to hunt, pileated woodpeckers to forage in, and a slew of other birds such as Carolina wrens, house wrens, downy and hairy woodpeckers, yellow-bellied woodpeckers, black-throated blue grey warblers, blue-grey gnatcatchers, and many others. We also have bobcat, fox, opossum, skunk, bunny, deer, turkey, racoon, and a variety of amphibians and invertebrates. We even saw a black bear walk through the backyard last year!
It’s important to us to serve the wildlife around us, and we do that a variety of ways. One is by planting native plants in amongst other cultured favorites. Cold stratifying plants in the winter is my favorite–I get to garden in my kitchen in January, get my hands dirty and smell rich soil, and then put the seed trays out into the snow where nature does the rest. We rent mason and leaf-cutter bees from Rent Mason Bees to add more native species to our property. We also support the other native species we’ve identified, such as the green sweat bee, with wild patches of grass and flora all over the property. We don’t discourage critters from eating the garden–a nibbled garden proves a diverse and healthy habitat. We also leave lots of leaves around and in the gardens, leave the plant stems in
ANN VANDERWIEL WILDE
Happy Monday GPODers!
Not new to the garden, that is, but new this year, like ‘carpet rose’ ‘Magic Carpet’ above, which has come into flower just in the last week or so at the end of the shrub border. On this raised bank, it is perhaps the ideal type of rose to loll about here, but it does seem to start flowering several weeks later than all the other roses and probably even later this year. Campanula ‘Loddon Anna’, shown below with white Sweet William and a pink flowered Stachys officianalis, possibly ‘Cotton Candy’, is certainly later as she is normally in bloom along with alliums in May/June.
As of last summer, the island nation of New Zealand was home to 6.3 million head of dairy cattle, up 82 percent over the last two decades. The country also holds 3.8 million beef cattle, 800,000 deer and a whopping 26.8 million head of sheep. That’s a lot of livestock for a country of about five million people.
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans had harsh words for the Canadian federal government. At a meeting this week in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the committee presented its new report, which looked at the implementation of Indigenous rights-based fisheries. Its findings suggest that, despite more than two decades since key precedents were set, the fisheries have not been fully implemented. This has led, the committee stated, to confusion, tension and violence.
Angelika Heine / Getty Images
Hi GPODers! While most gardens could certainly be described as “special” this space gives that adjective even more meaning. Today we’re looking at the memorial garden that John Svinos created for his late father in New Jersey:
A new report from a federal watchdog calls the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into question over its 2018 decision to register three dicamba herbicides.
Since 2003, the US has lost about half of its licensed dairy farms. However, the number of cows producing milk has stayed relatively steady. Take Wisconsin, for example. In 2004, the state was home to less than 16,000 dairy farms. In 2021, that number dropped in half, to less than 7,000 farms. But the number of cows in the state? That didn’t change. There are still about 1.2 million cows in Wisconsin. They’re just part of much bigger herds these days. That means that smaller farms are getting squeezed out in favor of industrial farming and Confined Animal Feeding Operations, commonly referred to as CAFOs, in which large numbers of animals are raised, generally in confinement, and feed is brought to them, rather than letting them graze.
Hi GPODers! Today we’re visiting Dan, who didn’t let a yard with a small footprint stop him from creating a magical garden that has become the perfect space to create special memories with his young family:
On the banks of the Hudson River in Troy, NY, there’s an unassuming forest-green building, tucked between a used-car lot and towing business. This refurbished auto-body shop fits right into the neighborhood of commercial buildings. There are no open fields or garden beds thick with produce. But step inside and everything changes. You’ve found Collar City Mushrooms.