Front Yard Update: Welcome to Crazy Town

...ardoons are technically invasive plants and one of the bêtes noires of the native plant folks. I doubt we’ll ever be on a native plant garden tour with this monster crowning our so-called native landscape, but Erik loves, loves, loves this plant for inexplicable reasons, so I can’t take it out. The cardoon’s huge leaves are perpetually reaching out to overshade my natives, so I keep hacking them back (more make-work activity). However, I learned t...

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Looking for the Union Label

...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

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What does the loving landscape look like?

...ely native landscape, a good place to start researching is with your local native plant society or in the native section of your local botanical gardens and local nature preserves. Using resources like this, you can get a feel for the vocabulary of your landscape. You may also want to research the history of your area. What kind of landscape was there before there were houses? Was it farm? Grazing land? And what was it before it was farm or pastur...

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Saturday Linkages: Bitters, Dogs and Native Plants

...lth.com/2013/12/04/how-to-eat-more-plant-based-meals-handout-now-available/ …. Eagle Rock backyard yields fresh fruit and food for the hungry http://www.theeastsiderla.com/2013/12/eagle-rock-backyard-yields-fresh-fruit-and-food-for-the-hungry/ … Native plants: restoring an idea–http://www.patternliteracy.com/116-native-plants-restoring-to-an-idea … In the U.S., recycling is often pigeonholed as… – Unconsumption http://disq.us/8gf2so For these link...

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Picture Sundays: A Native Bee Hotel

...Don’t know much about this native bee house other than that it’s near Paris. For more info on native bee habitats, see our post from earlier this year. Update: reader Drew left a comment to say that this habitat is in the Jardin des Plantas in Paris which is attached to the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle (http://www.mnhn.fr/le-museum/). Thanks to David Dalzel for the tip....

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