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Spring is always an exciting month, but we have especially exciting events happening this April. 1) Richard Louv, author of
Vitamin N: The Essential Guide
to a Nature-Rich Life - 500 Ways to Enrich the Health and Happiness of Your Family and Community We're pleased to present a live video internet appearance with Richard Louv. In his New York Times bestseller Last Child in the Woods, Louv brought attention to the alienation of children from the natural world, coining the term "nature-deficit disorder" and outlining the benefits of a strong nature connection -- from boosting mental acuity and creativity to reducing obesity and depression, from promoting health and wellness to simply having fun. His next book, The Nature Principle, addressed the needs of adults. His brand-new book Vitamin N (published just this month) is a complete prescription for connecting with the power and joy of the natural world right now, with activities for children and adults, inspiring and thought-provoking essays, and other resources. He offers down-to-earth advice for how parents, teachers, grandparents, and friends can get today's wired generation, and themselves, outside.
AND we'll have his three books for sale at a great discount!
(Bring cash or checks.)
WHEN: Sunday, April 24, 2016 at 2:00 pm WHERE: Liverpool Public Library, 310 Tulip St., Liverpool, NY 13088. ( Directions) Our meetings are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
Seating is limited, so come early to be sure to get a seat!
2) Thomas Rainer, author of Planting in a Post-Wild World
HGCNY is again a co-sponsor of The Syracuse Men's Garden Club's spring seminar entitled Designing Your World. For more information and to register, download the seminar brochure. The event takes place Sat. April 30 9am - noon at Justin's Tuscan Grill.
3) FREE presentations on habitat gardening
I'll be giving a number of free presentation during the next few months. Here are the April presentations: Mon. April 18 - On the Wings of PollinatorsLiverpool Public Library at 7:00 pm ( Directions)
Sat. April 23 - Habitat Gardening for Life Part of the "Art and the Land" series ( For more information) Stone Quarry Hill Art Park at 2:00 pm 3883 Stone Quarry Road, Cazenovia ( Directions)
Mon. April 25 - Creating a Bird-friendly Yard
Liverpool Public Library at 7:00 pm (Directions)
4) Community Events
There's also a wealth of community events happening. Don't miss the Community Events section of the newsletter (after the articles below).
5) 2016 Native Plant Shopping Guide
Our fifth annual Native Plant Shopping Guide is available as a free download on our website homepage www.hgcny.org or download the entire Guide here.
~ Janet Allen, President, HGCNY Wild Ones Chapter
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Skaneateles BioBlitz
April 23-24 from 9-5
What's a BioBlitz?
"An intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area. Groups of scientists, naturalists and volunteers conduct an intensive field study over a continuous time period ..." ~ Wikipedia
Note that VOLUNTEERS are welcome; you don't have to be a scientist or naturalist! And you don't have to attend the entire time.
They especially need birders interested in day or night walks. If interested please email: esfbioblitz@gmail.com.
This is part of a SUNY-ESF project that is developing a management plan for the Skaneateles Conservation Area. For more info, visit the project Facebook page for "Skaneateles Conservation Area BioBlitz."
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Photo - Audubon - Library of Congress
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Bird hats as fashion
From "Hats off to Audubon" Dec. 2004 Audubon magazine: "In the 1880s trendy bonnets were piled high with feathers, birds, fruit, flowers, furs, even mice and small reptiles. Birds were by far the most popular accessory: Women sported egret plumes, owl heads, sparrow wings, and whole hummingbirds; a single hat could feature all that, plus four or five warblers. The booming feather trade was decimating the gull, tern, heron, and egret rookeries up and down the Atlantic Coast. In south Florida, plume hunters would nearly destroy the great and snowy egret populations in their quest for the birds' long, soft dorsal spring mating feathers." Fortunately, many people joined together and worked hard to change this fashion. The lawn as fashion
There are more than 30,000,000 acres of lawn, as estimated by NASA. It's the single largest irrigated crop in America! Is this the best use for all this land? And how can we change?From Laura Vanderkam, USA Today 8/16/10:
"While a field of green, closely cropped grass is the default landscape for a 'nice' neighborhood, there's no reason it has to be ... at least if we value the planet and our time... Lawns are incredibly inefficient, and not just from an environmental perspective. Maintenance requires time and money...The best approach is for all of us start thinking of lawns as a fashion--a fashion like wearing the feathers of rare birds in hats was once a fashion. Fashions can change when enough people decide they are ridiculous or wasteful."
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Native plant restoration of Cornell's Mundy Wildflower Garden Gabions Area
Based on excerpts from The Solidago, newsletter of the Finger Lakes Native Plant Society: Plans for the restoration began four years ago, when an infestation of crown vetch ( Coronilla varia), an invasive and aggressive weed, had to be eradicated. Native grasses and sedges are used throughout as the dominant species. They are planted in wide bands, following a serpentine pattern running with the creek. Other plantings include black-eyed susans ( Rudbeckia hirta, R. triloba, R. speciosa), false sunflower ( Heliopsis helianthoides), and tall, really tall, never toppling, giant hyssop ( Agastache nepetoides). Autumn could be the best time to appreciate the goldenrods, asters, and grasses. Gray and bi-colored goldenrods ( Solidago nemoralis and S. bicolor), singly arching and straight, their stems covered in tiny flowers, stand ever gracefully beside the rare, pungent mountain mint ( Pycnanthemum muticum) and the common calico aster ( Symphiotrichum lateriflorum).
Visit The Gabions area and the new planting as it matures, to make discoveries for your gardens, remembering these plants need few inputs like water, fertilizer, and pesticides, yet provide so much for the larger community of animals, insects, and people.
This area is also a place to make natural history discoveries. On any day it could be a large snapping turtle in the sun on a boulder in the middle of the creek, a mink rock-hopping while looking for crayfish, a belted kingfisher calling as it dives for fish in mid-stream, a great blue heron standing and waiting patiently for fish, a young turtle, crayfish, or insects. Read the whole story "New at the Mundy Wildflower Garden: Native Plant Restoration of The Gabions Area" by Krissy Boys in the Dec. 2015 Solidago newsletter. Read more about the Mundy Wildflower Garden.
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Two opportunities to get
native plants!
1) Earth Day / Arbor Day Tree Sale Fundraiser to promote local urban forestry projects and the use of native plants. A nice variety of natives! Native tree: $28; Native shrub $20 Mon-Fri April 22-May 5 anytime between 9am and 4pm at 658 W. Onondaga St. Syracuse Atlantic States Legal Foundation See http://www.aslf.org/trees/ for details and order form (at bottom of page) 2) Plant Swap and Sale - Natives and Edible Perennials Alchemical Nursery and Bread and Roses Collective 405 Westcott St. Syracuse Shrubs, rain garden plants, ferns, and perennial vegetables
Sunday May 1: Swap at 10 am (pre-register); Sale at 11:30 am - 2 pm See http://alchemicalnursery.org/blog/perennial-plant-swap-sale/ for details. |
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Garlic mustard and more!
Baltimore Woods
April 30 10am - 12pm
Join us in our ongoing invasive plant control efforts and help our gardeners get the gardens in shape after winter's rest.
Garlic mustard, wintercress, and dandelions are beckoning - pesto? a saute of mixed spring greens. Take home the makings for a REAL pasta primavera!
Free; No registration required!
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Storybook Adventures
April Break Camp at Baltimore Woods
WHEN: April 25-29 from 9am-4pm
Spend a day, or five, exploring the wonders of Baltimore Woods. Each day enter fabulous worlds of classic storybooks, playing games and finding adventure at every turn. $45/child/day. Before and after care are available.
To register and for more information...
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American Lady butterfly
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Spring Break Nature Academy
for children in grades K-4
When: April 26-29 10am - 4pm Where: Great Swamp Conservancy Discover the 4Bs that live at the Great Swamp: birds, bats, beavers and butterflies through exploration, games and crafts. GSC is located at 8375 North Main Street in Canastota NY. For registration information, contact Julie at 315-697-2950 or email greatswampconservancy@gmail.com
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Can you spot a bloodroot flower on your spring walks?
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NY Wildflower Monitoring Project
We enjoyed having a tour of Guppy Falls (near Skaneateles) last year, led by Geoff Griffiths and Greg McGee of SUNY-ESF. We learned that they're studying this area since it's one of many forests growing on abandoned farms. But these forests lack the diversity of wildflowers growing in the pre-agricultural forests that existed previously.
The New York Wildflower Monitoring Project will increase understanding of the woodland wildflower ecology to inform wildflower restoration in these post-agricultural forests.
It's easy to participate! Sign up for an account with iNaturalist.org and then join the New York Wildflower Monitoring Project. Then simply take pictures of the plants from the woodland wildflower list and upload them to iNaturalist. Include the date and location you observed the flowers. If you observe an unusual wildflower or plant that needs identification, upload that too.
These observations will be incorporated with more rigorous scientific data collection to inform restoration efforts being conducted as part of Geoff's dissertation research at SUNY-ESF.
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Join Wild Ones
We welcome everyone to our meetings, but we encourage you to become an official member. Since HGCNY is a chapter of the national organization Wild Ones, when you become a member of Wild Ones, you're automatically a member of HGCNY, too. And since Wild Ones is an official not-for-profit organization, your membership is tax-deductible. It's easy to become a member, receive the bimonthly Wild Ones Journal, and support our mission. Just go to the Wild Ones website or call toll-free (877) 394-9453. |
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Join us on Facebook
As more of us participate on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/hgcny, this will become a useful resource for asking (and answering!) local HGCNYers' questions about habitat gardening.
Join the NATIONAL Wild Ones Facebook group
Wild Ones has created a Facebook group for dues-paying members to share information about articles, photographs, videos, and so forth.
Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/wildonesnativeplants/ and once you there, click "Join Group" in the upper-right corner. |
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Learn more: Habitat gardening
This is an example of a local habitat garden. It also includes links to more information and inspiration to get started on your own habitat garden. |
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Learn more: Edible gardening
This is an example of a local edible garden. It also includes links to more information and inspiration to get started on your own edible garden. |
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