There Were No Fences

Symphyotrichum sericeum Symphyotrichum undulatus Symphyotrichum pilosa I came to asters fairly recently. I'll admit that. In my earlier days, I saw them as mostly mundane. They seemed common and not at all that showy. I fell in love much earlier with other members of the aster family - blazing stars ( Liatris spp.), rosinweeds ( Silphium spp.) and the like. Where and when I changed my mind is still a mystery for me, but I did and since then I've been slowly accumulating as many of the Symphyotrichum species I can lay my hands on.  Asters in the genus Symphyotrichum seemingly have not been the target of most of the native plant nurseries here in Florida either. That's not true in other parts of the country. If you go online and look at what's offered in the Northeast, Midwest and West, you'll find a good selection of native species, but here in Florida, the vast majority of our 28 native species have never been offered or, if so, are propagated by ...

Weeds Emerging in My Newly Opened Soil Florida is the worst place I've ever lived for weeds, but they occur everywhere. One characteristic of a "weed", native or not, is their tenacity to survive for long periods of time in the soil waiting to be released. Newly tilled soil is awash in weed seeds and they will be the first to germinate once you've removed the ground cover of turf grass - or anything else that once covered them. It is not possible to scrape off the surface vegetation or "solarize" the vegetation and simply plant into it without having to cope with the weeds that will emerge - first and with a vengence. As I expand my backyard woodland to create an open sunny area to the south of my woody plants, I have had to remove the lawn first. As I always try to avoid the initial use of herbicides, I used my shovel to dig up the turf and its associated lawn weeds and this has exposed the soil now to sun and moisture.  I knew what was going to happen...

We are intrinsically connected to nature. Our very molecules have passed through millions of other creatures since being released from the rock that composed the original earth. We know that from knowing the First Law of Thermodynamics - that matter is neither created nor destroyed. It just gets passed around a lot. I believe that our deep-seated need to reconnect to nature comes from the fact that we are all made of the same materials and we've all been part of every other life form sometime in the earth's history. As Joni Mitchell wrote in her song, Woodstock , 'We are stardust, we are golden and we want to get back to the garden."  We find our way back to where we truly belong when we connect to the natural world, and for me that often is a garden. In these times of "social distancing", I find even more connection to my place in this great web of life through my landscape. I'm an introvert by nature, so having "distance" is not so overwhelm...

With all of the social distancing now in effect, it gives me more time than normal to reflect on things I should be too busy to reflect on......... What comes to my mind more and more lately is a question; not an an answer. It is a question regarding how we comprehend our position in this vast sea of life that we've all been dropped into. As I work in my landscape or simply sit and watch the life that is now around me I wonder why we so often see ourselves as a species looking into nature instead of one that is part of the overall fabric. Most of us, seem to accept the "fact" that nature is all around us and that by creating our landscapes we are now somehow able to get a peak inside, under the tent; like the living world is our aquarium and we are its keeper. When ecologists talk about the great web of life, they speak about how each thread in that web is connected. That if we tug on one end, we are really pulling on them all. We might do better in these troubled time...

SE blueberry bee on my non-native morning glory Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow - A non-native shrub On social media pages devoted to the use of native plants in landscapes, I often see the wrong questions asked - especially from folks asking for an identity of a plant that has "appeared" in their landscapes. It often is: "Is this a Native"?, followed by "Should I pull it out"?  Rarely is the first question: "What is the value of this plant"? Followed by "Should I encourage it, limit its presence, or pull it out aggressively"? I have been intimately entwined in the native plant movement for most of my adult career - and in some ways, my entire life. I've written extensively over the years about native plants and wildlife, I've founded a program that certified landscapes as wildlife habitat, and I speak throughout Florida on the concept of creating living landscapes. I'm largely on board with the native plant purists...

Cloudless sulfur recently emerged  I do my best thinking in my garden, with an adult beverage or not. I once was married to a woman who didn't understand this - at least she didn't appreciate it. With my hand on the door knob, she'd ask me if I was going to "go out and stare at my garden" once again. Of course I was. Nearly everything I have learned in life has come from immersing myself in nature. I owe a great debt to those teachers who have shared their knowledge with me, but it has been time alone that has meant the most. Life is often so hectic that we can't really take in all that is occurring around us. Time to contemplate is precious and there is no better place to do that than in nature. In my case, that often means in my garden. I pity those who don't spend time in their landscapes. For many, there is really no reason to do so, but for those of us that have reduced our sod and replaced it with a living landscape of native plants, there is a...

Leaf mulch in my backyard woodland In my newest book, The Nature of Plants , I write about the importance of soil and how it affects plants. Too often, I find that we only consider the inorganic and organic parts of our soils as if that is what is most important to the health of our plants. While particle size and the amount of organic matter affects a great many things such as drainage, those elements are just a small part of what makes our soil healthy or not. The nutrients in these elements certainly affects fertility as well, but it's the living part of a soil that may influence things most. Soils are complex organisms that include a great many living components. Soil bacteria and nematodes, for example, are extremely important in how plants respond. While many of my earliest gardening advice would say things to the contrary, the vast majority are crucial to a plant's well being. Nematodes and soil bacteria are largely beneficial. In fact, the vast majority are necessa...

Looking north into my woodland Looking east Today, with college Spring Break beginning, I finally tackled yet another project I've been planning for a great many months. I removed a strip of sod from the south edge of my developing woodland and created more space for wildflowers that I won't be able to add to my front yard wildflower meadow. The area in the front is simply full. I will likely even have to thin a few of the seedlings out that have sprouted from my established plants in the months ahead. I've added what I planned to, but I've always realized that this space would not be big enough for everything I want to do in my overall landscape. Today was a planned expansion. When I planted this small woodland, it too was by design and included this ability for the kind of expansion I knew I would need. The trees are on the north end and as they develop over the years, the shade they produce will still allow for the kinds of wildflowers I will add to my new ...

An untended yard behind me Several years before I moved into my new rental home, a large Chinaberry tree ( Melia azedarach ) split along its double-trunked length and destroyed the home to my immediate southeast. The rubble from the home was removed, but nothing was done to the yard. It has returned "to nature."  The problem is that the nature it has returned to is one of a neglected lawn. It doesn't resemble any kind of native community and that shouldn't be surprising. Lawns harbor a great many weeds within the grass blades and a huge seed bank of their seeds in the upper layers of the soil. They await disturbance in the anticipation of being freed from the competition of the lawn grass and they are what forms the ground cover in situations like my former neighbor's. Each day, the County assesses fines on this former lawn and, of course, he will never pay them. There is a lien now on the property that makes purchasing it completely insane. The entity now re...