Learning to See the Beauty of Nature in Our Gardens
I discovered that I miss lizards. The other day I was visiting the Top of Topanga Overlook, a park owned by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. This was my first step back in Topanga since I set out travelling the Central Coast of CA some 4 mos ago! I walked through the small native garden [...]
Garden cleanup can sometimes be a touchy subject. Some people just can’t tolerate any type of dead branches, leaves or signs of untidiness. But, if you are a neatnik, you are doing a disservice to much of our fauna. Please don’t roll your eyes at those of us who choose to leave this type of [...]
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” Thich Nhat Hanh I found this quote around the dawn of the new year, and was immediately taken with it. Do you ever read a quote and then are instantly inspired? Well this is one that has profoundly affected me to my very soul. It [...]
Yesterday I celebrated New Year’s Day at the Nature Preserve near my home. The experience was so right, so delicious, that I decided to again vote for myself today, and get out to another natural area nearby: the Wilton Wildlife Preserve in Saratoga Springs, NY, which contains sandy pine flats and lots of Blue Lupine [...]
Today is Christmas and it is beautiful in the Ponderosa Pine forest where I live. We were lucky enough to get a few inches of snow overnight to make it a truly White Christmas. I thought that it would only be right to share my wildlife garden christmas gifts with you.
Winter has been playing in my wildlife garden already. The sudden cold gales blow in off the SE end of Lake Ontario and drift quickly across the land turning the sky to a gunmetal gray with a blue tinge. We are swallowed whole by the swift snow as it piles onto every stem, seed head, [...]
Your wildlife garden can be the key to bird survival through the winter. You can create rest stops for migrating birds to provide them with everything they need to fuel their long journey. It’s easy to discover which birds migrate through your wildlife garden so that you can lay out the welcome mat for them. Birds in [...]
Soon it will be that time of year again when gardener types are looking through catalogs, dreaming about plants, maybe even sketching up a plan or talking to a garden designer. Web searches are made, books are read, and sometimes hands are wrung. For some people, the question comes up in their mind: “Should I be [...]
A warm early spring brought out the snakes around the pond in record numbers. I did some research and learned quite a bit about the Eastern garter snakes that were visiting. I expect to see them in spring and sometimes in the garden in summer, but we have never seen them in fall especially when the [...]
This article represents the start of my third year of blogging here at Beautiful Wildlife Garden. To me it doesn’t seem possible that 104 articles have passed, most highlighting new and different critters or native plants that I was unfamiliar with, but that occur naturally in the ecosystem that I call home. Native nature is [...]
This summer has been one of extremes – extreme house makeover, extreme heat and drought, extreme fires and extreme wildlife visitors to our yard. It’s been a summer that we like to hope does not happen on a regular basis. It’s also been a summer that has shown me just how interconnected our wildlife friends [...]
News from Team Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens
