Garden Nature Studies
The Great Sunflower Project"By watching and recording the bees at sunflowers in your garden, you can help us understand the challenges that bees are facing." Excerpt from The Great Sunflower Project. Join this worthwhile project today! |
Signs Of SpringWatch for these favorite signs of spring.
Report Your Observations! Visit Signs Of Spring to register and view live maps and information. |
Journey NorthAnnenberg Media presents... A Global Study of Wildlife Migration and Seasonal Change Share your own field observations with others across North America. Tracking the coming of Spring through the migration patterns of the following...
Visit Journey North to register and get more information. |
Plant It ForwardEach of us can help save trees! Visit Abundant Forests to learn ways we can renew, reuse and respect our forests, and Plant It Forward. |
Urban Habitats"Urban Habitats is a peer-reviewed, open-access electronic journal on the biology of urban areas. Articles are welcomed from scientists, scholars, and practitioners in urban habitat restoration, conservation biology, urban botany, landscape architecture and design, and other fields concerning urban ecology." Visit Urban Habitats to register and for more information. |
Article Highlights
A Garden To Attract Hummingbirds
By: John Sanderson
“Mommy, come see! There are fairies in the garden!”
And so they might have been to the eyes of a five year old who grew up on tales of pixies, elves and fairies. The magical visitor this time, though, was a ruby-throated hummingbird. Hummingbirds have a unique ability to hover in one place by rapidly fluttering their tiny wings which may truly have made them the ‘fairies’ that many people saw hovering around brightly colored flowers.
It’s not difficult to create a garden that will attract hummingbirds, but if you’d like to build a habitat in which they will happily nest and live throughout the northern summer, you need to provide them with more than a sugar-water feeder and a plant or two. An active hummingbird garden doesn’t need to be large, but it will have all of the following key ingredients to attract and keep the attention of nature’s fairies.
Choose nectar producing plants that bloom at different times throughout the spring, summer and autumn.
Flowers are, of course, the key ingredient in attracting hummingbirds to your garden. The tiny birds feed on nectar that is produced by flowers, and seem particularly attracted to plants with trumpet or tubular bright red and orange flowers. Among their particular favorites, though, are rhododendrons, azaleas and rose of Sharon bushes, so the red trumpet isn’t a hard and fast rule. For northern gardens that attract the ruby-throated hummingbird, choose from the list of plants below, making sure that you choose plants that flower at different times during the blooming season to provide food for them throughout the spring, summer and fall.
Read more here.
A Gardener's Diary
By: Rachel Paxton
Have you ever thought about keeping a gardener's diary to record what you plant and where you plant it? Keeping a diary will help you plan next year's garden by recording which plants grew well and which ones didn't. You can also note which colors do or don't look good together, or which plants overwhelm one another. Keep a record of how long the sun shines in different areas of your yard so you can find plants that require the appropriate amount of sunlight. In our yard, the soil is not the same everywhere. We have made do by planting different kinds of plants in different types of soil.
We have a big patch of very sandy soil that turned out to be adequate to grow a good crop of zucchini and pumpkins last year, as long as we kept it well watered. Our tulips did really well last year. We have them scattered here and there throughout the yard, but their favorite place is in a very sandy shady spot next to the front porch. Those tulips were twice as big as the ones that got more sunshine. This year, however, we got a little warm weather in early spring and then a cold spell. The poor tulips never recovered from the cold and didn't bloom at all! One plant that doesn't seem to care where it is planted is our rhubarb. It has been moved from house to house several times, it has grown in different types of soil, and it has been watered inconsistently. I then cut it all off and it grows right back again! This plant seems impossible to harm.
Read more here.
Herb Gardening
By Joey Reynolds
Herb gardening is an enjoyable and useful way to garden. We will start with choosing herbs. You should decide what uses you want the herbs for, before you purchase them. You can purchase herbs at garden centers, catalogs, trading with friends, or divide herbs that are already growing in your garden. When choosing herbs you shoud do some research before you buy. Alot of nurseries will sell tender perennials as perennials (to be able to sell them at a higher price).
Herbs are not picky about their soil. Other than heavy clay or extremely rocky soils (which some herbs will grow in), herbs can be grown in poor soil. You plant them as you would flowers; digging a hole, putting the plant into it, filling the hole with the excavated soil, and tapping the soil around the plant. Herbs require an inch of water each week. They can also be fertilized, which will encourage bushy foliage; but fertilization isn't essential. Herbs should be mulched to maintain soil moisture and discourage weeds. Most herbs like full sun, but some can be grown in shade. Variegated herbs always need full sun, as their leaves do not contain as much chlorophyll as completely green leaves.
Read more here.
