I have a special interest in the removal of the Klamath River dams: my grandfather helped build them. Now I celebratethe freedom of the river and the Salmon Kingdom that it’s part of.
The Klamath River dams: reweaving a river Read More »
What we do with our land, however small an area, matters not just to us, but to the life of our planet. Landscaping isn’t a static, visual element but an active participant in the world we create. It can foster healthy soil and air or drench it with chemicals. Clean water as it filters through healthy soil or send it laden with toxic compounds to underground aquifers or nearby waters.
Most importantly, it can help save birds, butterflies, and other living beings from extinction.
Gardening as if life depends on it Read More »
North American history is beaver history. Before the European fur trade took hold in the 1600s, the entire continent was one mesh of wetlands after another thanks to at least 7.3 million years of landscape management by hundreds of millions of beavers.
Earth’s consummate water engineers, beavers had it all figured out. And we are now enlisting them to figure it out for us.
Beavers: nature’s brilliant water engineers Read More »
The wildly abundant, even overwhelming rain that has been falling on California this season has turned my neighborhood into a world of emerald fluff. In the woods, I walk through a green so pervasive that it’s palpable, almost breathable, both delicious and disorienting.
The emerald kingdom: the magic of moss Read More »
When I started my landscape design business in the 1980s, the staff at plant nurseries nicknamed me ‘the weed lady’. I kept asking for plants that most people were removing. As much as I could, I wanted to plant the grasses and wildflowers, trees and shrubs native to the glacial moraine known as Long Island,
When you look at the mountain above, your reaction is likely to be colored by what is most important to you. Skiers may think of the thrill of the trip down, climbers of the trek up. Mining executives of the coal or metals to be found there. Road engineers of the challenge of finding a
Rights of Nature: a breakthrough in imagining Earth Read More »
As a landscape designer, I specialized in native plants. When I first started my business in the 1980s, the workers at a local wholesale nursery called me ‘the weed lady.’ I was always asking for plants that everyone else was pulling out. Even clients attracted by my natural landscaping approach would propose that first ‘we
Retaining paradise: gardening with native plants Read More »
I’ve been a walker all my life. From grade school through college, I walked to school. As teenagers in a small town with nowhere to go, we would take walks to hang out together. I walked to my first job after college. There were a couple of years, after moving to New York City, when
Smoky Valley Ranch was the place I didn’t go to see. I went to Oakley, Kansas to see Monument Rocks and Lake Scott State Park, both recommended by a man named Mike Haddock, who runs a wonderful Kansas wildflower website. Oakley is not a destination site, but there are some interesting things to see there,
Smoky Valley Ranch: preserving a prairie Read More »
The Pawnee National Grasslands were born out of grief. After years of drought, farmers of northeastern Colorado, already suffering through the Great Depression, watched as their soil literally blew away. Clouds of dirt rose 20,000 feet in the air and blew so far east that they eventually settled on boats crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Left
Parcels of prairie: the Pawnee National Grasslands Read More »