As I think about the landscapes that I have idealized from an early age, they are green and full of life all year long.  But I grew up in an area that did not have four seasons and at a time when droughts and water management were not something that we worried about.  So the expectation of having some sort of green ground cover 365 days a year was not difficult to achieve.  Now after living in the Northern half of the US for 40 some years I have come to realize that having four seasons means that there is a good chunk of time when the plants in the landscape take a break and res ..read more

For the past few months I have been preparing a talk for the Lovettsville Historical Society in Loudoun County, Virginia.  This talk focuses on the importance of native plants to the functioning of the ecosystem, how native plant populations have changed overtime, and their relationships with humans.  It also looks at important species for the indigenous peoples in the Northern Piedmont of Virginia and many of the native species that are hiding in plain sight. Here's a link to the video Zoom presentation.  It does run a bit more than an hour.  There were just so many ..read more

 2022 was a particularly bad year  for me in the vegetable garden.  Conversely it was a great year for our local ground hog and rabbits.  The chicken wire fencing that I had sunk in around the perimeter had sufficiently rusted away to allow too many access points to control.  So may first garden job this year is to  rebuild the subsurface groundhog fence.  I've adopted a design I found on the Massachusetts Audubon site.  The key feature is that it extends the fencing horizontally outward from the fence.  This is supposed to make it more frustrating ..read more

This is a pretty typical scene when English ivy gets established in a tree.  This ivy is robbing light from the tree and also weighing  it down, leading to limb breakage.  Cutting a section of each vine around the base of this tree will kill all the vine above the cut in a month or so. Wintercreeper grows up trees with the aid of sticky rootlets.  Its evergreen foliage shades the host trees as well as the surrounding area.  In areas with plentiful deer the bottom 4'  are often stripped of foliage.  The same can be seen with English iv ..read more

When we first moved to this relatively spacious property in Maryland just over 10 years ago I knew that I wanted to grow more native plants that could provide food, primarily for wildlife, but also food that I might enjoy.  One of those target species was wild or common persimmon, Diospyros virginiana.  I’ll admit that going into this I did not have any firsthand knowledge of how to grow persimmons or really just what they tested like. An 10 year old persimmon tree, about 25' tall.  It has a nice upright form angular branching.  Fall color is yellow for my trees ..read more

I write a lot about dealing with Japanese stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum.  I do really feel like I am making progress, but the  work is very tedious and the rewards are often delayed.  One way that I've been getting more immediate gratification is to watch for new plants discovered under the (hopefully decreasing) cover of stiltgrass.  Sometimes I'm finding new plants, but also finding increasing numbers of desirable species is a huge boost.   Two new species for me this year are downy agrimony, Agrimonia pubescens, and whitegrass, Leersia virginica.  The ..read more

 Yes Pull!  Now is the time to pull out Japanese stiltgrass, Microstegium vimineum.  This invasive species is rampant in the eastern U.S. from Georgia to Massachusetts and west to the Mississippi River.  It affects home landscapes and natural area alike.  Here in the Mid-Atlantic region the grass is putting on a growth spurt prior to going into bloom.  So the plant is expending a lot energy now to grow taller and produce flowers.  It also means that it is a lot easier to pull out without getting on you knees.  Since this grass in an annual, keeping it f ..read more

 Smooth hydrangea, Hydrangea arboescens, is a North American native shrub with a native range is from New York and Massachusetts, south to Florida and west to Oklahoma and Kansas.  In the wild it is found in dry to moist woods and hillsides.  I thought that the name Hydrangea referred to it growing in, or preferring wet areas.  In fact, the name refers to the shape of its seed capsule which resembles that of a water vessel, a hydriai, in Greek. Here's an example of wild type of smooth hydrangea growing along the Potomac River near Sharps ..read more

Mulching garden beds has been a consistent ‘must-do’ for many gardeners.  Mulching reduces moisture evaporation, suppresses weeds, adds nutrients to the soil, reduces erosion and in many cases improves moisture absorption. Wood and bark chips are the most common materials employed.  Recently I have seen and read more about the negative effects of wood chip mulches. In particular when these mulches are over applied and allowed to compact, they can actually retard rain water absorption.  Thickly applied mulch can retard the growth and expansion perennials.   In his book ..read more

This is pretty typical of an 'invaded' tree with Japanese honeysuckle and oriental bittersweet  twining among its branches. We’ve been on our central Maryland property for about 9 years now.  From day one we have been battling a slew of invasive species that were covering the ground and trees through the woodland landscape.  While we still have a ways to go I feel that we have made some good progress.  As I am getting ready to start another season managing the landscape I thought I would organize my plan around actions and timing, rather than looking at one specie ..read more