This week I discuss the 2021 Michigan Trails Week Challenge, running from September 19-26, and review some important ecological trail etiquette. I encourage everyone to enjoy the lovely September weather, explore some trails, and post your observations and favorite places...
This week I answer questions recently received from my customers about when best to pull down their hummingbird and oriole feeders in the fall. Learn how leaving your feeders up in the fall can help support migrants weeks after you...
This week I discuss the importance of host plants to our native insects. Learn about specialist and generalist feeders and why it's important to have native plant biodiversity and repetition of individual plants of a given species or lineage in...
This week I discuss the merits of planting natives towards the end of the growing season and describe best management practices for native plantings in the fall. Let's make a final push to support our pollinators! Get your landscapes ready...
This week my nephew and I share a fun summer surprise from a recent woodland walk. Learn all about wild leek, also known as wild ramps, a beautiful wildflower whose leaves carpet the forest floor in spring and whose flowers...
This week I share a lovely native wetland shrub with clusters of white flowers, meadowsweet. Look for this upright shrub in open, wet to moist soil sites and consider planting it in a rain garden, bioswale, or pond edge in...
This week I share a unique woodland orchid, downy rattlesnake plantain. Learn where you can find this beautiful plant and why collecting it from the wild is detrimental to population survival. Good luck finding this little gem on your next...
This week I discuss the life history of an invasive species threatening our forested lands, the European gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar). This spring has been particularly challenging with significant outbreaks, and I review both localized and landscape level control methods...
As promised, I continue to share the happenings of the monarch chrysalis reared in the store. It was a girl, and she was beautiful! I pick up where we left off with Monday with Martha #59, describing the amazing complexities...
