Wild Flora's Wild Gardening: More of My Favorite Bloggers' Favorite Blogs

More of My Favorite Bloggers' Favorite Blogs

The following is a continuation of yesterday's post about blogs recommended by my favorite bloggers. All the blogs I've chosen to list appear to be updated frequently, are more than 50% about nature or natural gardening, and appeal to me for one reason or another.

I HIT PAYDIRT AT POLLINATORS WELCOME. Gloria's thorough research turned up the following great nature and wildlife-gardening-related blogs:

Ramblings of a Naturalist features the photos and observations of Patrick Roper of Sedlescombe, East Sussex. Much to my delight, Patrick also has anoother blog about the wildlife that visit his windowbox and yet another blog about his observations of a single square meter in and around his garden. (These confirm my long-held belief that it is possible to be a wildlife-friendly gardener no matter how small your garden is.)
Sweet Pea Chronicle is about the efforts of "Firefly," a Maine gardener, to create a wildlife-friendly garden.
The Regent's Park Wildlife Garden is about a community-run wildlife garden in the famous London park.
Maryland's Windstar Wildlife Institute has a blog that seems to focus on wildlife-friendly gardening.
The Ojai Garden features a natural community garden in Ojai, California.
Green My Planet is by San Francisco enviromental consultant and landscape consultant Jennifer Berry.
Community of the Land is one of the places where professional writer and wildscaping consultant Susan J. Tweit blogs.
Natural Gardening is by "LKW" of upstate South Carolina.
Chicago Nature Lady paints watercolors and observes nature in and around you-know where.

Gloria also gives a nod to The Blog of Henry David Thoreau, Burning Silo (2 votes each so far), and Monarch's Nature Blog (up to 4!)

Meanwhile, over at Surburban Wildlife Garden, Dawn is the only one of my favorite bloggers who noticed that Don and Lillian Stokes, authors of the ubiquitous bird books, have a blog. Also, though it's not precisely a blog, I'm grateful to this tireless investigator for discovering that GardenWeb has a forum dedicated to wildlife-friendly gardening.

In Toronto, Native Plant Girl recommends the blog of Southern Ontario native-plant gardenener Garden Nerd. And though it's not a blog, I'm grateful to NPG for pointing out that the popular You Grow Girl website has a forum devoted to discussion of gardening with native plants.

And closer to home, Bloomingwriter Jodi DeLong recommends:

The blog for Blithewold, a 33-acre public garden-arboretum on Narragansett Bay in Bristol, RI. I like all the items about garden wildlife.
Ontario's Crafty Gardener, with hand-made items for birds.
Flatbush Gardener, "Adventures in Neo-Victorian, Wild, Shade, Organic and Native Plant Gardening, Garden Design, and Garden Restoration."
Greenbow, the blog of Lisa, a gardener and bird lover in Indiana.

Finally, sustainable gardening writer Susan Harris maintains a lightly annotated list of blogs at her website. One of these days I'll check them out, for but for now I'm going to content myself with getting to know the blogs already listed.

1 comment:

Gloria said...: Happy New year Wild Flora.

Isn't Patrick great? His blogs are full of the wonder of each place every day. He sees what most would miss without his guidance.

Thanks for several new sites to explore and for your own blog. It is a good read always.; January 1, 2008 at 4:06 PM

About this blog and its owner

I’ve lived and gardened in Chicago and the Seattle area, and now I live on 250 acres in eastern Canada. Most of my life has been spent as a journalist and editor, but after moving to Seattle I took a detour and ended up designing and installing wildlife-friendly gardens. For a long (sorry) but (I think) funny essay about this experience, please click here.

In this blog, I try to combine my gardening experiences with journalism-type research to come up with items that I hope will be useful to you, the gardener who wants to be kind to wildlife. The blog will probably be most useful to people living in areas where I have some practical experience, namely the band of states and provinces that are on either side of the United States-Canada border.

Being self-employed, I go through spells when I’m self-unemployed and am able to post frequently, and spells when I’m involved in a project and not able to post. This site is a labor of love and, alas, like so many labors of love it often has to take a back seat to labors of lucre.

If you like what you find here, please consider joining the site as a member or adding it to your “follow” list. The modules for this are below.

Q&A

Question: I have a neat old elm tree in the front yard which is sorely afflicted with mistletoe. I don't know quite what to do with it, as every windstorm drops branches, bark and other parts down on the yard below. I know the infected wood will have to go, at least that is what I'm told, but a considerable amount of tree must be removed in the process. It is a dear tree, and I don't want it to come to fatal harm. What should I do? From Mary

Answer: Dear Mary, old is not ugly, dying is not bad, and dead is part of the natural order. At least if you're a tree.

Old, diseased trees, and the dead trees they eventually turn into, play just as important a role in an ecosystem as the young, healthy ones do--even more important because, thanks to the misguided practices of the past, dead and dying trees have become so rare. Holes in dead and dying trees are vital nesting spots for many birds and small mammals. Dead branches and other litter (which is not necessarily a sign of disease--healthy trees drop litter too), if left to decompose naturally, are also important for ecosystem health.

When working with old trees it's important to get advice from an arborist who understands their value and won't be in too much of a hurry to make drastic changes. Before hiring an arborist, I'd ask him or her to explain the ecological value of dead and dying trees. Ideally I'd want to work with an arborist who could show me examples of dead or dying trees he/she has left standing (aka snags).

I don't know much about mistletoe because I've never lived anywhere that it grows, but I wasn't surprised to read in the Wikipedia that it is an ecologically important species. All too often, valuable native species are classified as pests just because they don't fit preconceived notions of attractiveness. To me it sounds like a pretty cool plant and one I would be happy to have in my garden.

All in all, as long as the tree doesn't pose a hazard to people or property (the advice of a professional could be helpful in making this decision), I would leave it alone to live out its life in dignity and peace. If the tree does pose a hazard, I would look for an arborist who is willing to do the least amount of work necessary to remove the hazard, making every effort to leave as much of the tree as possible and not destroy its appearance.

With any luck you will find someone who appreciates the aesthetics of old trees--who recognizes the beauty, as well as the ecological importance, of big holes, broken limbs, and gnarly wood. (With any luck, we will all find people like this as we get older--but that's another story!)

I like to answer questions! Send me a question at wildflora at gmail dot com and I'll try to answer it. If you provide an email address, I usually respond privately within a few days. (If I forget, please forgive me and send me a reminder.)

Looking for a question and answer that appeared here previously? I am archiving them at my new website. Currently you'll find one question and answer about how to get rid of a multiflora rose and another about how to move a bumblebee nest.

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