There Were No Fences

 Early landscape at my former Seminole home. Not everything has to be mulched My former backyard in Seminole. Using leafy mulches quickly changed the nature of this once-poor soil. Across this nation (and I suspect a great many others) there is an almost-religious obsession with using mulch throughout our garden plots. It is one that I've always had a difficult time understanding. In my opinion, mulch is too frequently used for the wrong reasons. It is true that there are real purposes to the use of commercial mulches. In a very formal setting, it has aesthetic value. It helps to define the planting bed - separating the "real" plants from the empty space between them. It also can help in weed control if applied deep enough and if kept up as the mulch layer decays. For gardeners that desire this "lack-of-plant" bare space between their plantings, it can save weeding time. That's just not my type of gardening. In a living landscape, the open space ...

My new home in southern Pasco County, Florida is largely devoid of butterflies, bees and other pollinators. There simply is no good reason for them to reside here. During my Wisconsin childhood in the 50's and 60's, all of my neighbors had flower and vegetable gardens in their landscape. Somewhere, between then and now, such things have largely disappeared and been replaced by turf and woody foundation plantings. What once sustained an entire ecology of insect life, has given way to a desert every bit as severe as the Namib.  As I grow familiar with my new neighborhood, I have found vestiges of life. The human-dug pond across the street has all kinds of activity. Though the sides are far too steep to support a truly functional littoral zone, a great diversity of wading bids find enough feeding habitat there to remain as residents. Osprey routinely dive into the open water as do the laughing gulls. In the trees around me, I can catch quick ...

I've spent most of my adult life working with creating wildlife habitat in developed landscapes; first as the State Wildlife Extension Specialist at the University of Kentucky, then as an Urban Wildlife Extension Specialist at the University of Florida, until today as an author/lecturer working also as an Adjunct Professor at St. Petersburg College, Baccalaureate Biology Program.  In 1992, I was fortunate to be given a house to live in within the 9,000-acre Brooker Creek Preserve as part of my job managing Pinellas County's Environmental Lands.  I was surrounded on all sides by Florida wilderness. Each year, white-tailed deer would bring their fawns into my yard, barred owls would nest there, and wildlife of all kinds would visit frequently. I had little to do to make my landscape wildlife friendly. My home came with this landscape. My three sons were raised here. They did not have video games to distract them from real life. Reality was just outside the front door and they ma...

I have been deeply involved in the native plant movement, here in Florida, for more than 30 years and my writings reflect my sincere commitment to incorporating them in developed landscapes. That said, I believe that we have missed the point. The concept that an "all native" yard will somehow magically suffice to restore the environmental damage that we've created using traditional landscape approaches is simply wrong. It will not. The real change will come when we select plants for the ecological attributes they will bring to our yards. The concept of creating a "living landscape", does not necessarily denigrate one group of plants over  another. It sees them only for the role they will play in achieving our landscape goals. Just as many non-natives are little more than plastic show pieces, some natives will also fall far short of achieving what we desire. In a "living landscape", each selection we make should have a positive role to play. It requir...

Over the years, I have written extensively about the connection between native plants and wildlife in an effort to make the landscapes where we live and work more "livable;" landscapes filled with life and not just designed for aesthetics.  My writing and my public speaking have been objectively focused. My goals have been to disseminate practical information about plants and wildlife in such a way as to allow others to create their own living landscapes.  All of this has been a rewarding part of my professional and personal life, but I have yearned for an opportunity to write more creatively from the subjective side of me. From this is born my new blog. In the years ahead, I'm going to take you with me as I transform my new, completely sod-covered, yard in south Pasco County, Florida into a landscape welcoming to wildlife - especially pollinators and birds. I'm going to do this through short stories of my progress, insights into my joys and frustrations, and my ver...