Ecological Gardening

Chicago Gardens: The Early History

2012-02-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

The Story of the Transformation of a Landscape OK, the snowdrops were up a month early; the butterfly bush did not die back to the ground (something that helps it avoid the "invasive" label and thus avoid banishment); the chickadees are akkk-akkk-akk-ing all around. On Saturday, one sat three feet above me on a branch telling me what for as I pulled out the poor, tired, remnant chard. Who

Creeping Charlie Love

2012-01-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

I wrote this post in November, just before I got my new sustainability coordinator position. Then I was swamped, doing two jobs for a bit. Now work is a little more under control, so I hope to start posting regularly again. I've missed writing and interacting with my online friends! * * * Creeping Charlie (Glechoma hederacea) Late fall (and early

The Last Tomatoes

2011-11-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

Though we've had a slow, warm, La Nina fall, this weekend I finally pulled up the tomato vines. After a couple of nights of below freezing temperatures one must accept there really will be be no more tomatoes this year. Everything went into the compost heap: withered stalks, green tomatoes and all. Green tomatoes that have frozen develop an odd translucency and squishy texture when they thaw.

Samhain, Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saints/Souls Days

2011-11-01T14:47:00.000-07:00

What a lot of names there are for this time between the autumn equinox and winter solstice. It is the time in the northern hemisphere when we gather in the harvest, say goodby to growth and prepare for winter's rest, the time when the barriers between the worlds of the living and dead become momentarily thinner, and we remember friends and relatives no longer with us. It is a time of bittersweet

An Absence of Some Months

2011-11-01T13:56:00.000-07:00

The past few months I've been involved in helping develop a sustainability center at Triton College. The process is not yet complete. More news to come regarding this exciting development.

A Small Prairie Garden

2011-09-16T09:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a piece I wrote for a Triton College email newsletter for faculty and staff: Triton College Prairie Garden in Bloom Triton College is known for its neat, manicured landscape featuring acres of carefully tended lawns, trim bushes, and bright annuals and perennials. However, something a little wilder is going on in an area in back of the science building, where Triton’s Greening the Campus

On Summer Break, Back Soon

2011-08-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

During the month of August I'll be on a blogging break; I plan to be back the first week of September. Until then, dear reader, happy gardening to you.

All Kinds of Nightshade

2011-07-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

"Deadly nightshade:" a name that makes me glad for Latin nomenclature Purple flower Easy post, I thought. Just write about the deadly nightshade. I happened to be thinking about the perennial, semi-woody, weedy vine that lurks along my property boundaries, and climbs up through the links of the fence. It can grow to six feet and the leaves have distinctive “ears” at the base. Its purple

Guest Post at Beautiful Wildlife Garden

2011-07-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

Carole Brown, at Beautiful Wildlife Garden, has put up a guest post I wrote about giving away native plants to unsuspecting gardeners. You can find "Stealth Native Plant Gardening" here. Previous Guest Post at BWG: Reconciliation Ecology and the Beautiful Wildlife Garden

Problematic Pokeweed

2011-07-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

I was of three minds Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds --Wallace Stevens Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) is one of those plants about which it is possible to be of two or three or maybe even four or five minds. On the one hand, it is native, kind of pretty, and birds love the berries. On the other, as a food, it is so famous that songs have been written about it, and some

Beware the Dreadful Bindweed

2011-07-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just don’t show off! Over the July 4th weekend, I had some of the extended family over for a cookout, in the best Midwestern tradition. One of my family-centered pleasures is cooking with my brother while my resolutely non-cooking sister kibitzes. I am a vegetarian, my brother is not. He brought some homebrew and manned the grill, I made fresh salsa, salad and desert. Between us, we put out a

A Date with Some Turtles

2011-06-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Engraving by Karl Bodmer, 1865 On Saturday it dawned sunny and not raining, for once, in a season in which rain has been a major feature of life. In mid-afternoon, right in the middle of weekend chores, I realized I had an appointment with some turtles in Thatcher Woods, so biked the two and a half miles, locked up at Trailside Nature Museum and walked down to the pond. The pond is on

Ecological Reality Is Not What You Hypothesize

2011-06-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

A Review of The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered Today, the main content of politics is economics, and the main content of economics is technology. If politics cannot be left to the experts, neither can economics and technology. --E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful It’s important to get out of doors In the early 2000’s, English plant biologist Nicholas Harberd, who had

How Gardening Is Not Writing

2011-06-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

Monarda bradburiana You know how it is in June, if you have a couple of days off work. You look out the window during breakfast and the sun is shining and you can't help yourself, you take your coffee and walk out of doors into the garden and you watch the birds and notice that the peonies will definitely open this day; you don't intend to do much, just a brief look about before heading in to

Matteo and His Fig Tree

2011-05-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Sustainability Is Where You Find It Stringing Tomatoes When you teach classes at a community college that sits in the midst of a multicultural patchwork of neighborhoods at the edge of a great metropolis, you never know who will show up. Evening classes, which I often teach, are particularly diverse. Matteo showed up one semester and sat in the front row, a stocky, round-faced, round-headed

Spring Dispatches from the Backyard

2011-05-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

Gardener, 18th-cent. American Strawberries In the evening after work, at dusk, I squat near the fence on the south side of my yard, putting in bare root strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) around the chokeberries (Aronia melanocarpa). My neighbor, mother of the bff toddler (now 3 1/2), comes out. "Doing a little night-time gardening?" Interested, as she often is, in what my puttering might

April is Poetry Month

2011-04-30T08:26:00.000-07:00

This is poetry month and it shouldn't go by without ackowledgement, since it is the poets who from earliest times have most celebrated our deep connection with the natural world. Here is a poem by Mexican poet Francisco Segovia that I like. First in English, Every Tree in Its Shadow Every tree in its shadow shelters a different god. In its uplifted solitude it rocks him, whispers to him,

The Earth Day Reading Project: A Blog Meme

2011-04-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Earth Day is all about taking time to consider what is our place in the biotic community and how to improve our relationship with the living earth. This year, as part of a month of activities on and off line, I am taking part in the Earth Day Reading Project, a meme begun by The Sage Butterfly in which the blogger is to "list at least three books that inspired you to perform any sustainable

We Need More Native Plants in Our Parks

2011-04-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

As I've taken walks in nearby parks this spring I've gotten so aggravated on behalf of the birds and pollinators that I've sent an opinion piece to a local paper. Trees and grass alone may be great for humans, but don't suffice for non-human members of the biotic community. Such public spaces are what I call "faux green." You can read the piece here at the Wednesday Journal. Planting native

In Praise of Native Shrubs

2011-04-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

Prairie rose (Rosa setigera) One of the best things any gardener can do is plant a shrub—or two or three or four. From a design point of view, as woody plants, shrubs help form the structure of a garden, and are an essential component of the layered garden—the middle layer between trees and shorter plants. There’s nothing like a mixed shrub border to screen unsightly views, provide color, and

It's Time for Your Lawn to Make Peace with the Earth!

2011-03-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

That's the title of a short, informal presentation about the polyculture lawn I'll be giving on Sunday. I'll have samples of compost, a compost screen and clover seed with me. Too bad I can't bring along some birds, butterflies and bees! Details are posted on the "Talks" page tabbed above.

Attracting Native Pollinators

2011-03-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

The Xerces Society Guide The Xerces Society's Must-Have Handbook Since 1971, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has been working to educate about and advocate for conservation of invertebrates, not just bees and butterflies, but other species such as mussels, starfish and crabs. For some years the website has been a necessary resource for anyone interested, as I am, in helping

One Year on the Blog

2011-03-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

A year ago, after my comments on others' blogs got longer and longer, I realized I could start my own. So I did. Since then, I've learned a great deal--about blogging, about writing, about whatever it is I'm writing about. Writing this blog has become essential to me. What was intended to be a blog about gardening has become a blog about living in the biotic community from the point of view of a

Sandhill Cranes and Spring Resolutions

2011-03-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

When we hear [the crane's] call, we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past, of that incredible sweep of millennia which underlies and conditions the daily affairs of birds and men. --Aldo Leopold Photo: International Crane Foundation Wednesday night and yesterday the sandhill cranes have been flying north to Wisconsin.

An Historical Precedent for the Polyculture Lawn

2011-03-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

So there a friend and I were, at the Art Institute, viewing the new show of very precious works from the French Renaissance. Which I wouldn't mention in a gardening blog, except I was amusing myself by seeing how many flowers I could identify in the tapestries, illuminated books, and paintings. How those people loved flowers and gardens! Columbines and daisies, pinks and lilies, roses and irises