the optimism of new england wild flower society’s dr. elizabeth farnsworth

The North of England Horticultural Society (NEHS) is over 106 year old and has been the premier gardening and horticultural charity supporting the north of England through out that time. It is independent of the RHS! The NEHS is not to be confused with Northern Horticultural society 1963-1988 or The Northern Horticultural society 1988 – 2009 which were subsumed along with Harlow Carr gardens by the RHS. Their magazine ‘Northern Gardener’ was replace by RHS publication The Garden.

In the cold wet winter it is a good time to plan where to visit as the year improves. The South West is the obvious place to start your visiting tour of gardens containing exotic plants.

The bindweed family comprises of several varieties seen as wild flowers in the UK together with some other species including convolvulus and polygonum. They can be a nuisance in the garden with brittle roots that make them hard to eliminate.

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) is the latest non-native species to take hold in the U.S. This planthopper is large (about a half-inch long) and originally from several countries in the Far East. It was first found in Pennsylvania in 2014, and active infestations are now established in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and as of just last week, North Carolina. SLF has not been detected in South Carolina, but it is an insect for which we need to be on the lookout.

WHEN I AM PASSIONATE ABOUT SOMETHING, it’s hard to shut me up. I love plants, and frogs, so I blog about gardening; I love being a sister (well, most days I do), so I blog about that, too.

I PROMISED I WOULDN’T ADD EVEN AN EXTRA TRIP TO THE CURB WITH THE TRASH to my schedule, with all the mowing I have to do, but (big surprise) I layered on a couple of events, and I want to make sure you know about them, in case you are in the Hudson Valley/Berkshires vicinity this summer. Another container-gardening class, a 365-day garden lecture with an extra focus on water gardening and the frogboys, and a tour here in August (that last one you already might know about). Details, details:Sunday July 12, Containing Exuberance, container-gardening workshop, with Bob Hyland at Loomis Creek Nursery, near Hudson, New York, 11 AM to 1 PM, $5.

THIS SUBJECT ALWAYS RATTLES ME A BIT: When to move flower bulbs that you want to relocate, or divide? There are proponents of the “in the green” tactic, meaning to move them when they have their foliage on, and others who say no, no, never–do it once they ripen, or even in fall.

So I can invite guest experts to join me as well as share the program with other public-radio stations, we’re pre-taping “A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach” to stand alone, instead of airing live as part of my local station’s morning show, which it has been since March 2010.You can listen in to the first such standalone show here, right now. This week’s topic: When to sow what seeds, with guest Dave Whitinger of All Things Plants in Texas. Next time (February 4), the topic is why I’m going to grow calendul

These non-native “ladybugs,” introduced by the Department of Agriculture to help combat certain agricultural pests, have made themselves right at home in America—and in my house, too. In fall, the south-facing side of the exterior can be teeming with patches of them, as they look for places to tuck into and overwinter. The USDA imported lady beetles from Japan as early as 1916 as a beneficial insect, to gobble up unwanted pests on forest and orchard trees, but it was probably later releases, in the late 1970s and early 80s in the Southeast, that took hold. Today, multicolored Asian lady beetles have made themselves completely at home around the United States, easily adapting to regions as diverse as Louisiana, Oregon, and mine in New York State.

This history of beelining, the other way to connect to honey bees besides keeping hives, is the subject of the book called “Following the Wild Bees: The Craft and Science of Bee Hunting,” by Cornell University biologist Thomas Seeley, just released in paperback edition. Tom, Horace White Professor in Biology in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell, has been passionately interested in honey bees since high school, eventually doing his doctoral thesis on them, and his ongoing scientific work has primarily focused on understanding the phenomenon of swarm intelligence with the help of these incredible animals.Learn about how a hive works, with its female-dominated order, about how and why Tom beelines to locate wild hives. And maybe most astonishingly listen about what he calls our “shared uniqueness” with the honey bees–what characteristic we share with

Anyone who has hosted a meal in recent years—whether a big holiday gathering for extended family or a casual summer supper al fresco for friends—has faced the moment of reckoning, or even panic, when various guests reveal their dietary restrictions or philosophies. One’s a vegan. Another has food allergies. Another doesn’t consider it dinner without a major piece of meat in the center of the plate.No problem, if you stop planning around these negatives and look for common ground, Anna Thomas explains. Anna is author of the 1973 million-seller cookbook “The Vegetarian Epicure,” and also of “Love Soup” in 2009—one of my most-used cookbooks ever, and which won a James Beard Award, so I’m not

I’ve started to compile the 2013 events calendar…and it includes lots of book-related events, too (no walking involved in those!). Lots more workshops and details to be added, but it’s a start…more events, and more walks, to come.To places like Bash Bish Falls, technically in Massachusetts, but a very short way up the road from my house (below), andRoeliff-Jansen Park on the Hillsdale-Copake, New York, border (above). I’ll take my real camera along sometime–these were taken impromptu by me and my friend Jay with our phones.CategoriesNature