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Native Plant Rescue and the Return of Fire Pink
A year ago, I was on a native plant rescue along a greenway trail. We were tasked with digging up desirable plants from an area where the trail was being rerouted farther away from the unstable stream banks. The site was thick with Christmas ferns, mosses, trout lilies, and sedges. The rescued plants could be replanted in our own gardens or donated to public and private native gardens accepting contributions, but the goal was to save plants that would otherwise…
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Ultimate Guide to Keeping Frogs in a Koi Pond
As we dreamed of building a larger pond for the koi that rapidly outgrew their little stock tank pond, we wanted it to support the larger community of insects and animals native to our area. Specifically, I really wanted frogs. When we installed our first pond, the stock tank pond, we also added a few bullfrog tadpoles and tree frog tadpoles, which grew into adults.
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The Big Dig – Building Our Backyard Pond
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Growing for Good: Native Plant Gardening
Whether we grew up in farming households, helped in the suburban yard, or lived in a concrete jungle, many of us started gardening as adults with a simple approach. We grabbed a few landscape plants from a big box store. Later, we found ourselves immersed in native plant sales at our local arboretum or botanical garden. Our mindset shifted from merely sprucing up the yard to designing a space that maximizes support of local biodiversity and habitat. We shifted in…
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The Big Dig – Building Our Backyard Pond
"I dig deep thoughts and appropriately sized holes", my current Instagram tagline, makes me giggle. I didn't anticipate digging such an insanely big hole this spring, but I'd been worrying about how large the koi were growing and pointing out spots in the yard to Joe where a pond would fit.
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All the Crispy Plants
I just sat down to share pictures of the fall fire-pit garden and heard a loud buzzing coming from behind my head. I took off my sweater and then shook out my hair, and an angry bee flew out and into the overhead light. I turned off all the lights, opened the backdoor and eventually guided it to freedom. Most days I would have to agree with her that my hair looks like a bee’s nest. I can’t blame her…
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Pi Alpha Xi Plant Sale Spring 2018
My oldest and I went to the NC State Pi Alpha Xi plant sale at the NC Museum of Art Saturday morning. The plant list was shared earlier in the week, and I looked up all the native plants and boxed the ones I hoped to pick up. Without going to a specialty nursery, it can be difficult to find native plants, so this sale is a goldmine in that there are plenty plants clearly marked as native (and many…
