January 2, 2025leslieBiodiversity The coyote has long been thought of as an animal of the American West. This was true during the pre-Columbian era when the coyote primarily roamed the Southwest and Great Plains of the United States. Today, however, its ever-expanding range stretches across all of the lower-48 states (and Alaska) and much of […]
November 18, 2024leslieFlower-Visiting Flies and Bugs Much of the attention given to insect pollinators focuses on bees and butterflies with a passing interest given to moths and perhaps wasps. Flies and beetles are sometimes depicted when a photo to promote bee conservation is mistakenly a syrphid, bee fly or, on the rare occasion, a flower […]
May 28, 2018leslieLawns, Organic, Soil, Water John Coatta, of Green Core Organic Lawn Care, explains how homeowners can have lush lawns that don’t rely on weed killers and synthetic fertilizers.Read More
February 19, 2024leslieBiodiversity, Sustainability You know this is lichen. You’ve seen it everywhere your entire life. That’s because there are over 14,000 species of lichen in the world. Yet, what do you know about lichen? Here’s a secret: it’s one of the most fascinating organisms on Earth. And you’ve barely noticed it.Read More
Ten years ago, Liz Stanley’s and her partner Lynn Gallagher’s suburban yard was a weedy, turf-grass expanse, complete with invasive buckthorn. With no backgrounds in gardening—and through trial and error—they have slowly transformed their half-acre yard in Bloomington, Minnesota (a suburb of the Twin Cities), into a lush native habitat for pollinators, birds, and other…Read […]
When the O’Connors bought an old dairy turned deer-hunting farm, they had visions of transforming it into a “perfect” prairie. “We envisioned prairies with beautiful flowers, all natives, and no weeds,” explains Marcie, who, with her husband Mike, has been restoring their 500-acre farm near Alma, Wisconsin, into prairie and savanna for the past 20…Read […]
April 18, 2024leslieGardening, Insects, Native Plants The Ephemeral Spring Wildflowers After a long winter, spring wildflower ephemerals herald a new growing season. The first blooms magically transform the woodland landscape. These early plants emerge in deciduous forests before the overhead trees fully leaf out.Read More
The Corcoran Pollinator Project is a grassroots neighborhood initiative in Minneapolis that aims to increase urban biodiversity via a crop mob model in which neighbors help each other install new pollinator gardens with plants donated by other neighbors. We work in collaboration with Corcoran GROWS, our neighborhood Transition Town organization. In 2017 we installed ten boulevard […]
November 24, 2018leslieSolar “My wife Julie and I feel strongly about taking care of our environment. We believe climate change will be a significant issue for future generations. We decided we couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer. We recycle more than we discard, we compost, we drive a plug-in electric hybrid car, and we […]
Next time you visit your favorite garden center, you may want to contemplate some of these purchases: When buying flowers: The more a plant is manipulated, the less attractive it becomes to wildlife. Manipulating a plant’s natural evolutionary traits that provide the necessary cues that entice wildlife to visit–such as color, size, shape, bloom time, […]
October 10, 2017leslieButterflies, Gardening, Insects, Pollinators It’s hard for many gardeners to resist “cleaning up” their gardens in the fall or spring. But many moths and butterflies overwinter as caterpillars, pupae, and even adults in the soil surface, leaf litter, dead plants, twigs, and other hiding places in the garden. Other insects such as native […]
December 24, 2022leslieFood Garden, Gardening, Organic, Vegetables “One evening I watched a documentary on Netflix called “Fed Up” and that was all it took to get the wheels spinning in my head about the foods we feed our children in school.Read More
When the O’Connors bought an old dairy turned deer-hunting farm, they had visions of transforming it into a “perfect” prairie. “We envisioned prairies with beautiful flowers, all natives, and no weeds,” explains Marcie, who, with her husband Mike, has been restoring their 500-acre farm near Alma, Wisconsin, into prairie and savanna for the past 20…Read […]
Willows are one of the last of our shrubs and trees to lose their leaves in autumn. They turn shades of yellow—anywhere from greenish-yellow to whitish-yellow. As earlier fall colors start to paint our landscapes, the willows offer a decidedly green contrast in a diversity of shades depending on the species.Read More