For additional information and to register, visit: https://masshort.org/upcoming-classes

Fruit trees pruning and care

When is the best time to prune apple trees? What can I apply to prevent peach leaf curl? Come ask these questions and learn so much more from Stockbridge School of Agriculture Director and Professor of Pomology Wes Autio. He will present a talk on pruning fruit trees in the home landscape and will discuss the physiology of fruiting trees, methods for dwarf-tree pruning, ways to enhance fruit production, and other interesting facts for creating and maintaining a home orchard.

The class will be held at Mass Horts Gardens at Elm Bank, 900 Washington St., Wellesley, on Thursday, March 19, from 7-8:30 p.m. Fee for member is $15, for nonmembers $20.

Fundamentals of landscape design

Have you ever looked at your yard, no matter how big or small, and wanted to create a self-made oasis, but you didnt know where to start? Heres your chance to learn how to create a space that is completely your own from beginning to end.

This six session course, led by Mark Ahronian of Ahronian Landscaping and Design, focuses on landscape design for the do-it-yourself home gardener. He will lead you through all the steps of designing your chosen space and class will include two Saturday morning field trips. One is a visit to Weston Nurseries, where youll learn how to make plant selections. The other visit will be to a home, where we will discuss and visualize design elements. Each participant will leave the class with a complete design of their own making.

Clasess will be held at Mass Horts Gardens at Elm Bank, 900 Washington St., Wellesley, on Tuesdays from March 24-April 14, from 6:30-8:30 p.m., and two Saturdays, April 4 and 11, 10 a.m.-noon. Fee for member is $340, for nonmembers $390.

For additional information and to register, visit https://masshort.org/upcoming-classes/

Continued here:
Mass. Hort in Wellesley offers programs - Fall River Herald News

Auburn Universitys campus is foremost a place of learning, but it is also a thriving community of 1,785 acres an area that takes a number of hands and offices to make the Loveliest Village on the Plains live up to its nickname.

Justin Sutton, director of landscape services, said there are about 50 landscapers at Auburn. For daily maintenance, they have six zones, each with a supervisor and five to six employees.

Those are mostly the people you see out and about every day, Sutton said. They maintain their area of responsibility, and that goes everything from mowing grass to trimming shrubs to applying fertilizers.

Sutton said along with maintenance, landscaping has projects they plan and execute. They also assist with capital projects that are installed by a contractor and once the projects are complete, they keep up the maintenance.

He said the cost of maintenance and materials average around $340,000 a year for landscape services. About half of that cost is for the materials used for projects.

Within that number, pine straw and mulch average about $78,000, fertilizer and pesticides $53,000 and soil $3,600 respectively.

This [soil] number is low due to a lot of our soil and amendment coming from our compost yard, and the soil that is milled off of Jordan-Hare Stadium, he said.

Sutton said most of the plants on campus are drought-tolerant. However, their annual colors, like the flowers, rotate frequently, he said.

We grow most of what we put on campus here at our facilities site and our greenhouse, he said.

Sutton said he gives credit to the staff who earn each landscaping award the University receives.

We got a lot of guys who are just dedicated to their job and are proud of what they do, Sutton said. They just keep campus going great no matter what time of year it is.

Morgan Beadles, the director of the Donald E. Davis Arboretum, said the arboretum helps with conservation.

Beadles said the upkeep takes a lot of specialized maintenance and hands-on work with pruning shrubs and fertilizing.

We have a collection to protect, so we cant have big machinery out here, she said. We cant have big, heavy equipment moving around because you have to protect the roots in the collection.

Beadles said the workload is always heavy, but the type of work changes with the seasons.

Theres a balance between it feeling natural and manicured and not overly manicured, but still safe, Beadles said.

Between student employees, repairs and materials, Beadles said they spend about $40,000 a year on maintenance.

She said they get a semi-truck load of pine straw, and this year, they got about 1,568 bales of pine straw.

Through this effort, Beadles said they have won the AU Spirit of Sustainability Award, the Eagle Award from the Auburn Chamber of Commerce and have been the American Public Garden Associations featured garden of the week twice.

Maintaining scenery isnt only about keeping campus visually appealing, but also about providing a learning space for certain majors to gain practical experience.

Some schools make use of Parkerson Mill Creek as a teaching tool for students, but because it runs through campus, it also requires annual cleanup.

All the trash thats on the streets that goes into the gutters ultimately ends up into the creek, and so we try to promote initiatives that keep the campus clean, said Tom McCauley, environmental program manager of Risk Management Services. We try to bring awareness to the fact that the creek is a resource. Its an attribute to campus, and we should try to preserve that as best we can.

Unlike other environmental affairs, the yearly creek cleanup is entirely a student and faculty effort. McCauley said its not financial funding but an investment of time and energy from the Auburn Family that allows the program to exist.

All of our efforts are volunteer efforts, McCauley said. We try to involve faculty and students as best as we can, [and] we try to partner with the City because we have a mutual interest.

Not only has the cleanup benefited major programs like hydrology, aquatic behaviors and ecosystems and engineering, it has additionally helped the University receive a designation for its sustainable water system.

The University was designated as a watershed of excellence, which means weve got the means to promote watershed conservation, McCauley said. Theres no better way to show it by example than creating a watershed here on campus thats a preserved specimen.

McCauley said cleanups usually occur in cooler months during late winter and early spring when volunteers might be more amenable to collect trash.

Several times a year well try to gather some momentum, get some involvement through some campus organizations, McCauley said.

Its latest events were on Feb. 23, in a partnership with Omega Phi Alpha, and on March 1, in association with Alternative Student Breaks. It has one other cleanup planned for the semester on April 4, with the Office of Sustainability in advance of Earth Week.

Waste Reduction and Recycling is the department that sees the rest of campus land and litter maintained each year. This is a significant responsibility for an institution of 30,000 students, and the office receives strong financial backing by the University to uphold its mission: to strive to make recycling accessible and convenient, said Joan Hicken, WRRs manager.

[Our] yearly budget is about $500,000, and the solid waste and recycling collection contract is about $600,000 annually, Hicken said. We want to encourage students, staff, faculty and visitors to incorporate recycling into their daily routine on campus.

A sizable portion of this funding goes into upkeep for WRRs containers and machinery. These include over 400 hand-pick trash bins, 130 front-end loaders for solid waste and 200 95-gallon recycling bins, among other utilities.

Altogether in 2019, the University recycled 371 tons of cardboard, 219 tons of paper, 50 tons of scrap metal, 41 tons of plastic, aluminum and steel and 3.5 tons of printer ink cartridges and toner.

Most notably, WRR collected 2,041 tons of construction and demolition debris from on-campus projects in the past year that included sidewalks and sheds that were destroyed. The removal of Allison Laboratory, while not factored into this count, also brought the department a lot of recycled and reclaimed material.

3,161 tons of concrete, 196 tons of asphalt, 129 tons of metal and 85 tons of wood were removed and recycled, Hicken said. In addition, 45,265 linear feet of lumber was reclaimed for future design use by the University.

All concrete, metal and wood that made up Allison Laboratory was fully recycled by the department, she said.

Football season is perhaps WRRs most important time of year; a plethora of people visiting campus for games means a wave of waste follows and is a high cost for the department.

They started the Gameday Recycling program to bring hundreds of recycling bins in and around Jordan-Hare Stadium to ensure fans put their trash in the proper receptacles.

Gameday Recycling is an opportunity for the University to demonstrate to the campus community that recycling and waste reduction activities are not limited to the home, Hicken said. To provide waste and recycling services for each home football game is on average $15,000 per game. Each home football game generates, on average, 52 tons of waste and recycling.

Hicken said WRR performs its functions in tandem with other offices such as Housing and Residence Life, Tiger Dining, Risk Management Services and Auburn Athletics to achieve the Universitys land-grant mission of improving the lives of Alabamians and people beyond.

The entire campus community plays a role in our progress to becoming a more sustainable campus, Hicken said. There is not an aspect of campus life that is not touched by waste and recycling.

Keeping campus beautiful isnt just a job for a single group. At Auburn, it takes a team of departments and organizations to maintain the campus landscape and promote a loveliness the University seeks to preserve.

Read the original here:
What it takes to maintain the Loveliest Village on the Plains - The Auburn Plainsman

My Brevard Yard(Photo: Submitted photo)

The end of winter is near, and the plants are still not actively growing. Therefore, this is a great time to learn how to care for your lawn, landscape or edible plants without harming the environment.

The health of the Indian River Lagoon is in bad shape, and improper fertilization and cultural practices can lead to nutrients leaching or being carried to the lagoon or the St. Johns Riverin stormwater runoff.

If you are new to Florida, having problems in your yard, or you would like to learn how to maintain your yard properly, a My Brevard Yard site visit could be just what you are looking for.

A trained UF/IFAS Extension Brevard County Master Gardener (or two) will come to your yard and help you with your lawn, ornamentalsand/or edibles, all for just $50.Prior to the site visit, a survey will need to be filled out to give us an idea of past fertilization and irrigation practices.

In addition to help with fertilization and irrigation, many homeowners are interested in receiving information on how to grow edible plants, set their irrigation timer, plant identification andsuggestions for problem areas.MBY site visit recipients can also choose which printed UF/IFAS material on the topics of:Helpful, Harmful, Harmless (insect bug guide); Disorders and Diseases of Palms; Landscaping for Floridas Wildlife or Propagating Fruit Plants in Florida.

All site visits include a soil test, which we collect and mail to the IFAS Soil Testing Laboratory in Gainesville.

For homeowners who have a lawn care company fertilizing their lawn, the soil test results will help the company apply the correct nutrients and avoidany that are already at a high level.

For homeowners who fertilizer their own lawns, we can teach you how to add the biology (in the form of the soil food web) back to the soil so it can supply your lawn, landscape and edible plants with the nutrients they require.If nutrients are needed at the beginning, until the soil food web is established, an organic fertilizer choice is provided.

Testing the soil is extremely important before fertilizing, for many reasons.Applying phosphorus to a soil that already has enough phosphorus can lead to the excess phosphorus leaching through the soilinto our groundwater.When phosphorus (and nitrogen) reach the groundwater, they become pollutants.

Soil tests that come back showing a low phosphorus level are perfect for inoculating the lawn with beneficial mycorrhizae.Mycorrhizae establish a symbiotic relationship with many plants, including grasses, and high levels of phosphorus inhibit this relationship from forming.

Research at the University of Florida has found that the mycorrhizae Glomus intraradices forms a symbiotic relationship with St. Augustinegrass.After the soil test results are received, a fertilizer recommendation is created for the resident.

In addition to soil testing, we also test irrigation water that comes from a well, pondor surface water.We test for conductivity to determine the salt content.The results of the water test are emailed as quickly as possible, as the test is done here in our office.

An irrigation zone is also calibrated to see if enough water is being applied. The catch-can method is used to check the irrigation output to see if the run time needs to be adjusted.

After the soil and water are collected for testing and an irrigation zone is calibrated, it is the homeowners turn to get answers to all their questions. The questions can range from plant identification, solutions for problem areas, what is wrong with this plant, etc.

Questions about trees and palms are also common during a site visit.

Now is a great time for a site visit, because there is plenty of time to get the soil test results back and provide a fertilizer recommendation in time for fertilizing in April or May, before the fertilizer ban goes into effect.

When the correct fertilizer is appliedat the right time, in the proper amountand watered in correctly, the soil and plants benefit, without harming the environment.If a plant is receiving the correct light conditions and water supply, and it is suffering from insects or disease, then nutritional deficiencies will be the most likely root cause of the pest problem. This is true for non-native and native plants.

There are two important components of a healthy soil that are lacking in most landscapes: organic matter and the presence of beneficial soil microbes that make up the soil food web.

If all the soils within the watershed of the IRL contained at least 5 percent organic matter and were supporting a thriving soil food web, the IRL would be much better off.

Organic matter increases both the nutrient and water-holding capacity of the soil.This would result in the nitrogen and phosphorus staying in the soil and not leaching into the groundwater.

Plus, with increased nutrient-holding capacity, less fertilizer is needed.

One of the many benefits of a healthy soil food web isnutrient cycling. This is how forests and natural areas grow without any help from humans. Organic matter also absorbs rainfall like a sponge, keeping it out of the groundwater and available for the plants to use later.

As it is now, the IRL must contend with both stormwater runoff from all the impervious surfaces throughout the county and the large amounts of rainfall that flows straight through our sandy soils.

If you are interested in a My Brevard Yard site visit, email me at sasc@ufl.edu.

Gardening is a fun and rewarding hobby, especially when the plants are growing well. Let us help you learn the gardening practices that can achieve the results you want.It is possible to grow healthy plants without harming the environment.

Sally Scalera is an urban horticulture agent and master gardener coordinator for the University of Floridas Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences. Email sasc@ufl.edu.

Supportlocaljournalism:Find offers for new subscribers at floridatoday.com/subscribe.

Read or Share this story: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/life/2020/03/06/having-problems-you-lawn-and-garden-my-brevard-yard-can-help/4976750002/

Follow this link:
Having problems with you lawn and garden? My Brevard Yard can help - Florida Today

Carol Cloud Bailey, Special to TCPalm Published 10:03 a.m. ET March 3, 2020 | Updated 1:57 p.m. ET March 9, 2020

Q: How can I get rid of the pink clover growing in my yard? The flowers are pretty enough when they are open, but they close in the afternoon and evening. The patch of clover seems to be getting bigger every year and taking over my lawn.

George

A:When the pink clover shows up in the lawn and landscape, the end of winter is here and spring not far behind. The plant most often seen growing in the lawn with three-part leaves and pink/purple flowers isnt a true clover but an Oxalis.

Pink wood sorrel is often found growing and blooming in Treasure Coast landscapes and lawns in the late winter and early spring. Is it a weed or a desirable flower? That determination is best made by the gardener.(Photo: CONTRIBUTED BY CAROL CLOUD BAILEY)

Oxalis plants are popular as novelties, they are often sold as shamrocks this time of year, and bedding plants for the landscape. There are approximately 30 of the 600 species of Oxalis used as ornamental plants in containers, gardens and landscapes. The leaf color varies from green to blue to silver or burgundy-purple and gold. The leaves and flowers of Oxalis fold up at night and reopen in the daylight. Flowers are small and may be white, pink, red, rose, purple, orange or yellow.

Oxalis debilis also known as pink wood sorrel is the most common plant which grows as a weedy cloverin lawns. It is not native to the U.S., but is indigenous to tropical America. It is well established here in Florida and the rest of the southeastern U.S. but is not considered an invasive plant by most authorities.

More:What can I plant for quick color and a sweet smell?

More: What's going on when mango tree doesn't yield any fruit?

In addition to being pretty, Oxalis can be a weed in turf grass and landscape beds. The plants spread by underground stems known as rhizomes and the seeds are often produced in large quantities. The seed pods help spread the plant around by splitting explosively and shooting the seeds all over the surrounding area.

Oxalis are more abundant in lawns during the cooler weather. It also tends to invade where there is space to grow such as in thinning turf.So, the best control in lawns is prevention by eliminating or reducing thinning turf.

Best lawn management practices for a thicker lawn include growing turf only in sunny areas, a minimum of 6-8 hours of sun, mow high, usually at 3.5 to 4 inches tall, use sharp mower blades, irrigate deeply and less often only when the turf needs it, keep up with fertility and use high quality fertilizer in combination with a soil test.

When turf begins rapidly growing with the return of warmer weather, it will sometimes crowd out Oxalis weeds, so control may not be necessary.However, it may be necessary to try other methods including hand-pulling or the spot application of herbicides to reduce the populations.

Once the weed numbers are reduced and maintenance practices corrected, if the turf is still thin and weeds tend to grow in that area, it is a good idea to plant something other than lawn grass. Granny Cloud was fond of planting only plants which thrive in a specific location, that way you dont have to work so hard, she said.

Carol Cloud Bailey is a landscape counselor and horticulturist. Send questions to carol@yard-doc.com or visit http://www.yard-doc.com for more information.

Read or Share this story: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/life/columnists/carol-cloud-bailey/2020/03/03/gardening-treasure-coast-getting-rid-pink-clover-growing-my-yard-vero-beach-stuart-port-st-lucie/4937658002/

Go here to see the original:
Gardening in Florida: How can I get rid of the pink clover growing in my yard? - TCPalm

Fitter and Faster Swim Camps is the proud sponsor of SwimSwams College Recruiting Channel and all commitment news. For many, swimming in college is a lifelong dream that is pursued with dedication and determination. Fitter and Faster is proud to honor these athletes and those who supported them on their journey.

Jordan Morgan, a junior at the US Performance Academy and a member of Irvine Novaquatics, has made her verbal commitment to swim for the University of Texas in the fall of 2021. Primarily a breaststroker, Morgan is .23 seconds away from an Olympic Trials cut in the 100 LCM breaststroke and 2.45 seconds away from the cut time in the 200 LCM breaststroke.

Im so excited to announce my verbal commitment to swim and study at the University of Texas! Im grateful to my family and coaches for supporting me through the years, and Im so happy to have the opportunity to swim for such an amazing program. Hook em

At the Speedo Champions Series in Carlsbad, Morgan took home a 7th place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:03.60). She also took 19th place in the 100-yard breaststroke at the Speedo Winter Junior Championship West meet (1:02.44). Her career-best time in the 100-yard breaststroke came from the USA Swimming Winter National Championships in 2017, where she took 14th.

Top Times in Yards:

With her career-best times, Morgan would have the second-fastest 100-yard breaststroke time, behind senior Kennedy Lohman, and the fastest 200 yard breaststroke time on the current Longhorns team. She is the sole breaststroker amongst the 2025 recruiting class for the Longhorns, made up of #15Olivia McMurray,Morgan Brophy,Ellie Andrew, andAva Collinge.

If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [emailprotected].

About the Fitter and Faster Swim Tour

Fitter & Faster Swim Camps feature the most innovative teaching platforms for competitive swimmers of all levels. Camps are produced year-round throughout the USA and Canada. All camps are led by elite swimmers and coaches. Visitfitterandfaster.comto find or request a swim camp near you.

FFT SOCIAL

Instagram @fitterandfasterswimtour

Facebook @fitterandfastertour

Twitter @fitterandfaster

FFT is a SwimSwam partner.

Continue reading here:
Texas Lands Verbal From Breaststroker Jordan Morgan For The Fall of 2021 - SwimSwam

Some of the photos in this story depict graphic scenes of hunting carnage. Reader discretion is advised.

__

(CN) The herd of bison fed quietly along the dirt roadside Saturday, just inside the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.

About 100 yards away, a group of about 50 Native Americans watched the bison intently. With rifles of all calibers slung over their shoulders, they waited for the big animals to cross the dirt road onto National Forest Land, where the bison could be shot.

Pickup trucks with license plates from around the country lined both sides of the narrow dirt road. Some of the men sat in pickup trucks, idling their engines to keep warm, while young boys sat on tailgates, sharpening knives. They knew the killing would start soon.

The bison, meanwhile, would step across the road, only to be herded back to the park by an unknowing passing motorist. The entire mood of the group of men shifted as the bison crossed back and forth.

After about six hours, the herd of 18 bison had crossed in singles and in pairs and was now making its way up a long, flat ridge where bison carcasses lay strewn about from previous days killings.

The men grouped together to listen to a tribal game officer from the Nez Perce tribe tell them how the hunt was going to take place. As there were only 18 bison, but about 50 men, the tribal members who had come from across the country decided how the bison would be distributed. One elderly man was given the chance to lead the pack of men up the ridge. He would shoot first.

The men moved in a group slowly up the ridge while the bison grazed nonchalantly just 40 yards away, oblivious to the dead carcasses dotted around the sagebrush and open grass. The tailgate-party atmosphere of a few minutes ago had now turned serious, sullen and quiet.

As soon as the bison had moved past fluorescent signs dictating where the shooting could take place, the elderly man raised his rifle and fired, dropping his buffalo. The other bison stood nearby, nonplussed.

The other shooters fired quickly and the bison dropped where they had stood. In less than 30 seconds it was over; the herd of bison lay dead in the snow, some still writhing from injuries while battle cries and shouts echoed across the still winter landscape.

The men took to their task immediately, skinning and butchering the enormous animals, while a few women shot photos with cellphones. The snow turned red, and a small creek running with snowmelt carried the bison blood down the hill.

One man who came from a tribe in Idaho cut out the eyeball of the bison bull he was butchering, out of respect, so the animal could not watch, the man said.

Saturdays bison killing by Native American tribal members was part of a management effort to reduce the animals numbers in Yellowstone National Park.

The culling of bison that wander outside of Yellowstone National Park started in the late 1990s, after the state of Montana sued the National Park Service over allowing bison to roam outside the park and possibly infect nearby domestic cattle with brucellosis.

The spread of disease has never happened, according to the park, but the shooting of bison outside the park has carried on ever since, mostly in late winter when the bison move out of the park to find better feed.

The park service has a goal of about 3,000 bison for Yellowstone Park. In 2019, the agency counted about 4,900 bison.

The park service uses three strategies to keep the population figures within the 3,000-animal range: tribal and public hunts outside the park; sending bison to slaughter, with the meat and hides going to tribes and putting bison in quarantine to test them for disease, then shipping the bison to tribal lands. Ninety-three bison were sent to the Fort Peck Reservation of Montana in 2019.

A small neighborhood of about a dozen homes sits just 300 yards away from where the killing takes place each year near Beattie Gulch, just north of Gardiner, Montana. The killing field has led to one neighbor filing a lawsuit in October 2019 against the National Park Service over the handling of the hunt.

The lawsuits plaintiff, Neighbors Against Bison Slaughter, is seeking injunctive relief and a restraining order to stop the killings. In its answer to the complaint Feb. 20, the Department of Interior said the plaintiff had failed to exhaust administrative remedies over the hunts and that plaintiffs lack standing.

According to the lawsuit, federal agencies in 2013 began allowing four Native American tribes to shoot bison in Beattie Gulch near Yellowstone National Park. By 2019, the number of tribes had expanded to six.

Tribal members from the Nez Perce tribe, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation are allowed to shoot the bison. Tribal members represented last Saturday came from as far away as Wisconsin and Oregon.

Lee Whiteplume of Idaho harvested a big bison bull Saturday. He meticulously cared for his bison, wrapping the quarters in cotton game bags. He brought two other men with him to help with the arduous task of skinning and quartering the bison. Children walked among their elders, inspecting the bison animals that for centuries have fed and clothed Native Americans. Tribes that were once sworn enemies worked together from the shooting to the harvest.

This is good medicine, Whiteplume said while hunched over his big bison, helping skin the big animal. I think its only right that of all people on planet Earth we get to exercise our aboriginal rights by being able to harvest one of these animals.

Some of the neighbors, though, dont see it that way.

According to the lawsuit, The dramatically expanded and escalating tribal hunt has forced neighbors some only a few hundred yards away to bear the economic costs and physical risks of the slaughter; the hunt causes extreme noise; and, perhaps worst of all, the hunt leaves thousands of pounds of rotting, potentially disease-laden bison carcasses littered across this small geographic area.

The Neighbors lawsuit claims that the number of bison killed by native Americans and non-natives at Beattie Gulch has increased from 59 in 2007 to 389 in 2016-2017. Last year about 300 bison were killed there, according to Gregg Todd, a game warden with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, who was on the scene Saturday.

Todd said this years mild winter has led to far fewer bison coming out of Yellowstone National Park.

Kerry Gunther, who lives about 400 yards away, walked among the carcasses Sunday.

Gunther, who has applied for one of the non-tribal permits to shoot bison, said hes not against the culling of the herd, but he thinks the government agencies and tribes could do more to reduce the eyesore of the hundreds of bison carcasses left to rot in the sun long after the shooters are gone.

Im not against hunting and Im not against culling bison, Gunther said, but the shooting line forms right here and the bison die right here.

Gunther said the eagles and birds that feed on the carrion often land in the big cottonwood trees at his home and drop pieces of meat into his yard.

Its amazing how big a chunk of meat an eagle can carry, he said. Its not fun having bison udders in your yard.

The gut piles from the shootings are concentrated in a 20- to 30-acre area on a bench overlooking the Yellowstone River and in plain view of a county road, where tourists drive by, hoping to catch a glimpse of wildlife. Gunther recommends the shooting be moved at least a few hundred yards farther up the hill and away from public view.

Gunther works as a bear biologist for Yellowstone National Park, and said the park takes extreme care to remove roadkill so that grizzly bears are not attracted to it. This area of bison remains often attracts grizzlies, which will soon be coming out of hibernation, he said.

For years, the federal agencies have ignored the local residents plight and the extreme dangers of the hunt because they seem to think they have no alternatives to this gruesome, unsanitary, and dangerous hunt, the lawsuit claims.

While one neighbor has taken the lawsuit approach to stopping the hunt, Gunther, meanwhile, said he has approached the agencies that oversee the killing including Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service to try to find a solution to the carrion problem.

When it deals with treaty rights, they claim there is no jurisdiction, Gunther said.

According to the National Park Service, Yellowstones bison population has grown steadily over the last 50 years, from 500 animals in 1970 to about 4,900 today. The bison population increases 10% to 17% per year and predation by bears and wolves has had little effect in reducing the bison numbers, according to the park service.

In winter 2018-19, 460 bison were killed in the hunt or captured and taken to slaughter. This winter, wildlife officials decided to remove 600 to 900 animals through shooting outside the park, capture and shipment to slaughter at the parks Stephens Creek facility, and placement in quarantine for transport to native American tribal lands.

Last Saturday, bright sunny weather changed to a wintertime blizzard by evening, as trucks and trailers hauled off the bison meat and hides. Lee Whiteplumes truck and small trailer rattled down the dirt road, loaded with several hundred pounds of clean bison meat.

Once back home, the bounty of the harvest will be shared with his family. The entire family will get involved with the tanning of the enormous bison hide, using the brains as an emulsifier on the hide. This will take weeks of strenuous work, he said, weeks and weeks, and hours upon hours of work.

A member of another tribe approached Whiteplume to borrow his portable electric saw, while Whiteplume took a brief rest on his tailgate. Whiteplume looked down at the massive bison bull sprawled below him.

He was not festive or jovial, and no sense of bloodlust was displayed. He appeared at the same time somber but grateful. Snow began to spit out of the ashen gray sky and Whiteplume resumed his work on the bison.

This represents our life and our livelihood, Whiteplume said. This is our connection to this landscape.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Like Loading...

Read more:
'This Is Good Medicine': Tribes Work Together in Annual Bison Hunt - Courthouse News Service

An unfamiliar smudge suddenly appears against the forest fragment I'm birding. Voice shrill, hands waving high, I charge across the field toward it. The inky smudge vanishes into the woods. It's a cat. It has been over a year since the last cats were lurking around my yard, so the appearance of this new cat has me on edge. The previous stable tenants, next door, left a litter of kittens behind when their lease was over. I went to great lengths to trap the litter, prevent them from being eaten by the local fox, and then to rehome the three that survived. Sure, we could have left them to starve, to be attacked by wild animals, and let nature sort it all out, but cats are not a part of nature, they are a domesticated species, and when they impose upon the natural landscape they are pests; therefore, it was my responsibility to act in their best interest and in the interest of the environment.

Each year over 100 different species of bird pass through my yard, which is along a main artery of the Potomac River, and sandwiched between a mountain and extensive farmland. Many species stay to breed, nest, and raise young, so when I saw that inky smudge stalking the property, I did what any true bird-lover would do: I took down my feeders and stopped attracting birds to my yard. It was an aggravating time because I wanted to be visited by my resident winged beauties, but I also felt a sense of duty to protect them from the cat, so in addition to taking my feeders down, I began cat-watching. Aside from the injury to wildlife and birds, which inevitably took place over the course of the year that little smudge stalked my yard, my main worry was that a feral cat colony might form nearby.

The number of birds that outdoor cats kill per year has been estimated to be between 1.3 and 4 billion. That's a wide range, but even on the lower end, 1.3 billion is a problem. These numbers only represent birds (not reptiles or small mammals), which make up 20 percent of feral cats' prey.

People are the solution to the feral cat problem in our nation, but people are also part of the problem. A feral cat simply does not apparate in the wilderness, it is put there, sometimes intentionally. For example, an indoor cat is a protected companion animal that is, for the most part, supervised and supported. A free-ranging, or outdoor, cat is exposed, unsupervised, and unprotected. The free-ranging cats that escape domestication are not wild like bobcats or ocelots, they are feral and invasive. Invasive species are described as a non-native organism that causes ecological harm to an ecosystem, including extinction of species, competition with species, and altering habitats. Feral cats are the poster-species of this description. For additional reference, another species that fits this definition is the Burmese Python populations which plague the Florida Everglades. Neither have a place on our natural landscape.

During the times that my unwanted visitor was absent from my yard, I worried about it. I wondered how it was keeping warm on cold nights, if it got eaten by an eagle, a coyote, or a fox. Sometimes I just wanted to know that it was OK. I worried about the inky smudge because I believe in protecting all animals, including cats, and promoting their welfare. I like them. Norwegian Forest cats and Maine Coons are my favorite. Their voluptuous shape, sophisticated coats, and affectionate demeanor are irresistible. Even though I am severely allergic, I can't resist tickling a furry ear, or lending my legs to a head butt. Experiencing the joy and tenderness of an indoor cat is worth the doses of Benadryl, Zyrtec, and puffs of Albuterol that I need to breathe around them. So, yeah. I like cats. Yet, I am able to recognize the serious problems that feral cat colonies pose.

Supporting feral cat colonies prolongs their inevitable suffering. Trap, Neuter, and Release programs, in which the cats are trapped, neutered/spayed, then returned to the environment, do not address the issues of population control, human health hazards (rabies and toxoplasmosis), ecological hazards, nor do they address the animal's safety. Feral cat colonies are not contained spaces, therefore, it isn't possible to trap spay/neuter every single cat or provide health care for all of them. Feral cats are nearly impossible to rehome, are unprotected, neglected, and sickly. Subsidizing colonies only drags out feral cats' suffering.

Meanwhile, 33 bird species have been confirmed extinct due to feral cats. These species were confined to islands, but consider my yard, the acres of rural homesteads that are spread thin across America, and the suburban neighborhoods which those cats fallen from domestication prowl: They are islands unto themselves and free-ranging cats reduce bird populations at a minimum rate of 1.3 billion per annum. Why isn't this invasive species controlled like other pests? We control wolves and coyotes to protect livestock and wildlife, why not control feral cats to protect wildlife and human health? In Australia, nearly 80 percent of the naturescape is overrun by feral cats. The government has acknowledged the problem and has committed to culling 2 million feral cats by 2020 in order to protect the native wildlife and ecosystems. Why not humanely manage feral cat populations in the United States?

On a gloomy February afternoon, my friend Tom and I are scouting for a suitable place to build a Barn Owl nesting box at the stables. We meet the current stable tenant who becomes interested in our plans. Amid the horses, miniature ponies, and the domestic ducks quacking about, we tell her about our plans for the owls. The conversation steers toward our love of birds, animals, horses, and then the jingling of a bell interrupts us. The ducks scatter. From behind the barn, I see it. The smudge. The tenant reads the look of surprise on my face and says, "That's Panther." She explains Panther's circumstances to us and shares with us his random arrival to the stables.

"He just showed up one day, about a year ago."

That's about how long he has been stalking my yard.

She informs us about how sickly he was when they met and how she and her daughter nursed him back to health. She confesses that he has been killing the shorebirds that hatch in the back paddock. Underneath her words, I sense embarrassment over his actions. I don't blame her. She inherited an unwanted cat and acted in his best interest.

Panther, who is sporting a purple collar with his name engraved across a purple metal tag, slinks toward us. He is plump, fluffy, and missing half of his tail hardly the look of the killer that has been leaving mutilated cardinals, wrens, garter snakes, and voles around my home. Without hesitation, even though I've been chasing him from my yard regularly, he gets close to my legs and helps himself to multiple head butts. My instinct is to reach down and stroke his back, but there's nowhere to wash my hands, so I simply say, "hi, cutie." I'm both annoyed and relieved by this encounter with Panther. I'm annoyed because there's no way an owl box can be built with a known killer on the prowl and because I'm not sure how to manage the spring broods of shorebird. However, I'm relieved. It's just one cat and not a colony. Panther is fortunate. He found safety with people who care about his welfare. Feral cats, even with the help of cat activists, aren't so lucky. Panther's guardians eventually moved on to different pastures and they took him with them. When the new tenants moved in, I put in a request to the stable manager: no cats. So far, my yard has been cat-free and my bird feeders are up again.

Want more essential commentary and analysis like this delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for The Week's "Today's best articles" newsletter here.

Read more from the original source:
The case for controlling the cat population - The Week

ALAMEDA, Calif. A few years ago, Thushan and Megan Amarasiriwardena considered buying a home in Alamo Square, their neighborhood in San Francisco, but found that even one-bedroom condos were way too expensive. Then they looked at Alameda, a place that Bay Area residents often forget.

One of the best things about Alameda is the most obvious: Its an island in the San Francisco Bay (another part is attached to Oakland) with spectacular water and city views. It also exudes character and charm barbershops display old-fashioned barber poles on nearly every downtown block, and politely aggressive Girl Scouts sell Thin Mints. The speed limit is mostly 25 miles an hour. The city evokes a Norman Rockwell vision of America, but with more diversity.

In the spring of 2017, the couple went with some friends to Alamedas Art Deco movie theater, where before the film began, they watched Alamedas Got Talent, with local kids playing piano and an older guy performing magic tricks. This town is too good to be real, said Ms. Amarasiriwardena, 36, a landscape architect.

By August, they had become Alamedans.

They could afford to buy because in 2015, Mr. Amarasiriwardena, 38, sold his start-up, Launchpad Toys, which created apps for children, to Google, where he also works developing the companys robot personality. We could finally buy a place, he said.

Their search was analytical. Theres speed, quality and cost, Mr. Amarasiriwardena said. They were not in a hurry, so they focused on quality and cost.

Their spreadsheet listed local asking prices and sale prices. We just waited, said Ms. Amarasiriwardena, 36. Three times they bid over the asking price; they lost all three.

Then something different came on the market: a five-bedroom Victorian between two small apartment buildings, with a towering turret built in 1894, on a main street. At $1.4 million, it was too big and expensive, but when the owner reduced the price to $1.3 million, they attended an open house. What struck us was how loved the house was, Mr. Amarasiriwardena said, although it needed a new foundation, which could cost $200,000.

The couple wrote a letter to the owner about how theyd fallen in love across San Franciscos fire escapes and wanted their children to grow up in Alameda. They bought the house for $1.152 million. Theirs was the only bid. (They now have a toddler and another on the way.) We feel like were caretakers in the long life of this house, Mr. Amarasiriwardena said.

The first weekend they went to a pizza parlor and found a family crowd, something we didnt realize we didnt have in the city, Ms. Amarasiriwardena said. I felt we were home.

The couples enthusiasm has now led to a chain migration: Mr. Amarasiriwardena coaxed two high school friends from his hometown of Amherst, Mass., to settle in Alameda.

After Jason Hill, a Washington D.C., health care lobbyist, took a job with the California-based managed health care consortium Kaiser Permanente, he and his wife, Ann Rhodes, a community organizer, looked for a friendly community with a short commute, good schools for their young daughters, and diversity.

Guided by a relocation specialist, Mr. Hill spent a day looking for a town to call home. He considered Oakland, Berkeley and Point Richmond before he saw Alameda. It seemed family-friendly and felt like a quaint small town. It met a lot of our criteria, he said.

It wasnt perfect. The family was coming from a neighborhood in Washington that was about 80 percent African-American. Mr. Hill, 47, is African-American, and Ms. Rhodes, 40, is white. And while Alameda prides itself on its diversity, Mr. Hill observed that, compared with their previous experience, there werent many black residents. The town is 50 percent white, 31 percent Asian, 11 percent Latino and 6 percent African-American, according to U.S. census figures.

In 2018, they rented a house in Alameda and began their hunt. They looked at about 10 houses, settling on a beautiful, refurbished four-bedroom Craftsman from 1920 with a yard on a quiet street, close to Oakland. They paid $1.4 million. Neighbors brought cookies and welcoming cards.

When their oldest daughter attended an Alameda public school, she was the only black child in her class. That was problematic for us, Mr. Hill said. She now attends a Montessori charter school in Oakland, where there are many more children who look like her.

Mr. Hill and Ms. Rhodes sold their individual condos in Washington, for $410,000 and $290,000. That was the only way we could do it, Mr. Hill said. The couple kept the condo they had bought together in Washington and now rent it out.

Alameda, home to almost 80,000 residents, is a jigsaw puzzle of a city comprising two main sections Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, which isnt an island but a peninsula attached to Oakland.

There are resort-like townhouses and newer houses in planned communities on Bay Farm Island, with kitchens that have islands of their own. On Alameda Island youll find renovated Craftsman, Tudor, colonial-style and Mediterranean houses, small apartment buildings and regal Victorians. Some houses come without a garage, but street parking in residential areas is abundant.

A drive into town from the mainland quickly reduces stress. Children ride bikes with no helicopter parents in sight. Half the town watches the blowout Fourth of July parade; the other half is in it. On warm days, parents take small children to the beach. Windsurfers scrape the sky and there are spectacular views of San Francisco and the Bay. Neighborhoods have block parties, and book clubs are not exclusive.

At Alameda Point, on the western end of the island, where the Alameda Naval Air Station once stood, tumbledown buildings look like Hollywood stage sets, which they sometimes are. With 900 acres of city-owned land on the Point, new neighborhoods are being built.

Spirits Alley, a cluster of distilleries along Monarch Street at Alameda Point, offers wine, spirits and craft-beer tasting rooms in old hangars. Elsewhere, local industry includes pharmaceutical firms, Peets Coffee roasting plant and Saildrone, which makes wind-powered ocean drones used for scientific research.

Before the Naval base closed in 1997, Alameda was a middle-class community with housing for military families. Today, its tough for a teacher or a ferry worker to find affordable housing in the city. A townhouse built in the 1960s may sell for $800,000, while a 19th-century Victorian can go for $2 million.

In 2017, 493 single-family homes sold for a median price of $980,000. Prices rose in 2018, with 502 houses selling for a median price of $1.02 million, and again in 2019, with 469 houses selling for a median of $1.11 million, according to Patrick Carlisle, the Bay Areas chief market analyst for Compass, the real estate company.

Still, said Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, Alamedas mayor, Were working to house people at all levels of income.

At Alameda Point, old military housing is used to house formerly disabled, homeless resident. In the next decade, 1,425 new housing units are planned, with 75 percent designated as market-rate housing and the remainder as affordable housing.

The city has about 230 homeless residents, Ms. Ashcraft said, and is establishing an emergency fund, because the most effective way to address homelessness is not to let it happen.

Families that move to Alameda often stay. Joey Pucci, owner of JP Seafood Co., is a second-generation Alamedan. Kate McCaffrey, a Compass agent, is a fifth-generation resident. Her great-grandmothers wedding dress is at the Alameda Museum.

On the main commercial block there are two toy stores, a local ice cream shop whose motto is Life Is Uncertain, Eat Dessert First, a bookstore, a high-end watch repair shop and a newspaper store (which also sells mobile phones).

Beautifully maintained parks are scattered throughout town, luring young parents with strollers. Much of Alameda is flat, making biking easy for all ages. And residents are, mostly, nice. People thank the bus driver when the get off the bus, Ms. Ashcraft said.

The Alameda Unified School District operates nine elementary schools, including the Maya Lin School, an arts institute named for the artist best known for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

During the 2018-19 school year, 68 percent of third-graders met or exceeded standards on English and language arts (ELA) on Californias Smarter Balanced Assessment test, compared with 49 percent statewide. In math, 72 percent met or exceeded standards, compared with 50 percent statewide.

There are four middle schools and four high schools, including the neoclassical, blocklong Alameda High. Of the students who took the SAT exam during the 2017-18 school year, 85 percent met or exceeded benchmarks for English, compared with 71 percent statewide; 89 percent met or exceeded the benchmarks for math, compared with 51 percent statewide.

Gail Payne, Alamedas senior transportation coordinator, said that most residents drive to work. An average of 18,000 ride the bus every day; fares are $3.50 one way or $86.40 for a monthly pass. On a typical workday, 5,200 people take the passenger ferry to the San Francisco Ferry Building, which costs between $3.60 and $7.20 one way. Alameda has two ferry terminals one on Main Street, where there are 20 daily trips, and another on Bay Farm Island, which makes eight daily trips. A third terminal is set to open this summer at the Seaplane Lagoon, and will become the main terminal for trips to San Francisco.

Others drive to a nearby BART station and pay $4.20 for a 16-minute ride to San Francisco. Tech buses from Silicon Valley pick up and drop off employees in Alameda. During commuting hours, the drive to Silicon Valley can take one to two hours.

Alamedans are very mindful of climate change, Ms. Ashcraft said. The city has 47 miles of bike lanes and paths, and is building a bike and hikers trail east to west leading to the new ferry terminal. Part of our mind-set is that weve got to get out of our cars, she said.

The Ohlone Indians lived in what is now Alameda, eating acorns and oysters until the Spanish arrived in the 1700s and forced them to relinquish their culture. In 1853, a city was established. In 1869, Alameda served as the terminus for the Transcontinental Railroad. San Franciscans started moving to Alameda following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, Mayor Ashcraft said. In the mid-1940s, Alameda became a Navy town, where during World War II, three shifts of workers were employed.

More:
Alameda, Calif.: On San Francisco Bay, With Great Views and Rising Prices - The New York Times

These stingless male digger bees are clustered on the bloom of a Verbena. Ive also found them on lavender blossoms, rosemary, Texas ranger, and other low-water plants. The females are in the undisturbed, unmulched bare soil nearby. Courtesy photo

Once again, I see a tuft of a tail disappear around the corner of a shrubbery, so swiftly and gracefully that even my sharp-eyed cattle dog doesnt notice it.

I always check which way the tail is, up or down. I am told that a coyote runs with its tail down, while a fox runs with its tail straight out. Foxes are fine. If its a coyote, the dog needs to stay closer.

Foxes have been living on my property for a couple of decades now, enriching the night sounds with their strange yelps and doing these funny vanishing acts when we walk nearby.

Their dens are amazingly well hidden, but invariably are somewhere deep inside an overgrown thicket of prickly plants. Right now, its a hedge of grevilleas and callistemon, but in the past theyve inhabited a mlange of berry canes and suckering wild roses, or a pile of prunings from the thorny trifoliate orange that I intended to move months prior. Our interactions, mostly at dusk or dawn, are very casual, fleeting and mutually respectful.

Its an open question whether these are the native Sacramento Valley red fox, or the introduced red foxes, escaped from 19th century fur farms, that predominate in other parts of the Valley. It seems our property is right on the borderline where those populations meet. They might even be hybrids. All I know is, if theyre eating voles and pocket gophers and ground squirrels, theyre fine with me.

The way to get red foxes on your property, if you happen to live out in the country, is to have some thickets. Those are also great habitat for ground birds such as our native quail. And for skunks and opossums. On the plus side, skunks eat snails.

Its surprisingly easy to create a thicket. Ive done it several times by accident, usually involving roses and berries, but also bamboo, junipers, compact xylosma, prickly pear, and fruit tree rootstock suckers. Apparently, the spinier, pricklier and denser, the better. Good rule of thumb: if you wouldnt want to crawl in there, the foxes will be happy.

I am not proposing that you plant thickets in your back yard, just allow a little more wildness in the interest of better ecology. Planting or allowing wild areas encourages natural pest management. You provide habitat, nesting sites, food and water sources, and protective cover to promote higher-order members of the food chain.

On a rural property, it can be a hedgerow. In your yard, it can just be a corner where you let things grow naturally, perhaps with a water feature, and make some strategic plant choices for beneficial insects and wildlife.

You can:

* Encourage native, overwintering, reproducing populations of ladybugs (convergent ladybird beetle), which eat aphids.

* Increase populations of leatherwing beetles, which eat aphids.

* Encourage native, ground-dwelling bees for pollination, and help conserve the species.

* Provide habitat for songbirds, some of which feed on garden pests.

* Provide food sources and habitat for the gregarious birds, the scrub jays and mockingbirds, which eat larger insects as part of their diets.

* Provide resting and larval habitat for dragonflies, which eat whiteflies.

Its pretty simple. Birds like a safe place where they can rest, hidden. They like berries and insects to eat, preferably near dense shrubbery. Ladybird beetles benefit from winter moisture on grasses. Ground dwelling bees need open soil, without mulch. Dragonflies like water for their larvae, and the adults like sticks to sit on.

How it works

The leaf-footed bug is an increasing pest in our area. Twenty years ago, Id see a couple of samples in the summer, whereas now they are brought to me every week from spring through fall. They are in the category of large bugs known as stinkbugs. Squash one and youll understand the name.

Stinkbugs mostly have broad host ranges (i.e., they attack a lot of kinds of plants). The leaf-footed bug has a powerful proboscis that it pokes into soft fruit such as tomatoes and peaches, as well as soft green almonds and even pomegranates. Pomegranate trees are one of the places youre likeliest to find them. They are a congregating insect, meaning that they gather in groups, especially as the weather cools.

Most of the damage to soft fruit, occurring when the tomatoes and peaches are nearly ripe, is barely noticeable. You may see a slight blemish at the point of the poke. If there are large numbers of them attacking green fruit, the fruit can be unsightly or fail to develop.

With pomegranates, they like to suck the juices out of a few of the little red arils inside, and sometimes introduce spoilage organisms into the fruit such that you find the pomegranate rotten inside when you cut it open. Usually the yield of good fruit far exceeds the number of damaged ones.

In a garden with lots of birds, you rarely have a significant problem with these pests. Mockingbirds and scrub jays eat bugs in the summer, in their mixed diets of small fruits and seeds and insects. So, if you have a lot of leaf-footed bugs, try to encourage these larger birds. My small mulberry trees draw the birds to the garden, and then I watch as they move from the mulberries to the nearby tomato vines, ducking in and out as they search for bugs.

Grevilleas are Australian native shrubs with great drought tolerance, very well adapted to our climate. Some such as Pink Pearl, shown here, get quite large and have prickly needle-like leaves. Foxes have taken up residence deep in my unpruned hedge of this variety. I stopped watering them a couple of decades ago. The flowers in winter and spring attract hummingbirds. There are smaller and less prickly varieties suitable to smaller yards. Don Shor/Courtesy photo

What birds want

The key is to provide food sources, such as the mulberries, for the birds, along with some shrubs that are dense enough to provide them with cover. Examples of shrubs that produce berries eaten by birds are mahonias and barberries, native and ornamental currants (Ribes), native wild lilacs (Ceanothus), even common landscape shrubs such as Viburnum tinus. As a bonus, each of these has flowers that attract beneficial insects as well as hummingbirds in some cases.

You also need to be willing to tolerate their slight predation on your fruit, though the blackberries and mulberries the birds prefer are generally so abundant thats not an issue. A fresh water source is helpful. A nearby drip line can be modified to fill a bird bath or small, shallow pond. Sprinklers are very popular with many types of birds and also attract dragonflies.

Mulching with leaves

The website of Pacific Horticulture magazine has an outstanding resourcefor gardeners wishing to encourage native and beneficial insects. They provide insight as to how to encourage the leatherwing beetles, which are voracious aphid eaters:

Encouraging a resident population of soldier beetles is easy in gardens. Choose suitable flowers to bloom over a long season. Any habitat garden must include a water source; soldier beetles are particularly known to frequent moist habitats. It is important to the life cycle of soldier beetles (and many other beneficial organisms) that they have undisturbed, mulched soil in which to pupate, so include permanent perennial plantings in gardens. A fragile and important community thrives at the interface between soil and organic matter. In permanent plantings, avoid raking and add organic material to the surface of the beds as needed to keep the soil in good fertility.

I have always lived with very large shade trees, and we just rake up the leaves in fall and spread them around perennials and shrubs nearby to decompose through the rainy season. This provides for an abundance of leatherwing beetles and eliminates aphids.

The larvae live one to three years, so having some undisturbed areas where leaves and compost are breaking down steadily and continuously is crucial to their lifecycle. This requires some water. In xeric landscapes with underground drip irrigation, provide some areas watered by above-ground micro-sprinklers for sufficient moisture.

Not mulching some areas

Much has been made of the problems faced by European honeybees. But less attention has been paid to our native pollinator species, including bees that live in the ground.

While I advocate for mulching to improve the soil, shade roots, and retain soil moisture, some of these ground-dwelling native bee species require open soil areas. Leaving part of your landscape un-mulched can be vital to retaining their habitat.

California or wild lilac, the Ceanothus species, are popular natives, but they often succumb to root and crown rot. Water carefully. Some varieties, such as Yankee Point, have proven more adaptable. The blooms attract bees of all kinds. The shrubs are dense and provide cover for songbirds, and the late summer berries, barely noticeable to us, attract larger birds. Don Shor/Courtesy photo

California natives

Having some California native plants in your landscape can encourage specialized pollinators. Many can be touchy about our heavy soil and high summer temperatures. The following California native plant choices are adaptable, can be left unattended, have reasonable drought tolerance, and host insects and birds.

Yankee Point wild lilac (Ceanothus griseus horizontalis Yankee Point). One of the most adaptable of the California wild lilacs. Most flounder in our dense soils and hot climate, but this one has proven successful in a wide range of habitats. Spreads several feet, spring blooms attract bees of all kinds, and the small fruit attracts songbirds.

Toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia). Native to the oak woodlands of California, the flowers attract pollinators and beneficials and the berries attract larger birds. One of the most adaptable of our native shrubs.

Matilija poppy (Romneya coulteri). Southern California native that thrives here. The big fried-egg flowers float atop a vigorous plant which spreads by rhizomes. Scads of pollen, easily accessible, attracts bees of all types.

Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana). A great big plant with tropical-looking leaves. Lush when watered, but tolerates drought. Flowers attract beneficials, berries are eaten by all kinds of wildlife and people.

Catalina perfume (Ribes viburnifolium). A native low spreader for shade. The tiny flowers attract hummingbirds. Pretty much indestructible.

Sages (Salvia clevelandii, S. sonomensis, and hybrids). The sages draw large bees and hummingbirds. Our native species mostly bloom in spring, while the southwestern species bloom in summer and fall. I often find all stages of ladybird beetles on my native sages. The California natives need room to spread. Very tolerant of drought and heat.

Willows are great for beneficial insects, as they provide pollen on blooms that come very early. But most of the native species are too big and breakable for a typical yard. Non-native types are more attractive and manageable garden plants. Salix caprea, a large shrub commonly called pussy willow, is used in flower arrangements for the interesting fuzzy buds. It grows quite easily. Willows can take poor, wet soils, as well as some drought once established.

Don Shor and his family have owned the Redwood Barn Nursery since 1981. He can be reached at [emailprotected] Archived articles are available on The Enterprise website, and they are always available (all the way back to 1999) on itsbusiness website, http://www.redwoodbarn.com.

Related

Go here to see the original:
Getting a little wild in the garden - Davis Enterprise

PARKER STEWART has lived in Savannah for nine years.

In that time, hes lived on 35th and Barnard, then 38th and Barnard, now 40th and Barnardmoving south, says the SCAD alum.

Hes seen Starland grow and change, but a constant has been the beauty he finds in his neighborhood.

Stewarts solo photography exhibition, Love Thy Neighborhood, opens March 6 at Starland Yard and is a collection of photos hes taken on his walks around the neighborhood. The Cold Beer sign on the corner of Bull and 40th, one of the defining features of the Starland neighborhood, also happens to be the epicenter for the photographs that Stewart has taken.

This body of work is a culmination of things Ive been seeing over the past eight years that Ive lived in this neighborhood, shares Stewart. It started as this idea of over time, there were things that I would drive by, walk by, bike by every single day of the week and observe them, see them, think about the time of day and the background. And I knew that I wanted to go back and photograph it someday, whether it was later that day or later in the week or years later. Just something about the way the light was hitting this building, or the way Ive always noticed this person sitting in the same spot.

On his walks, Stewart always brought his camera along to document the scenes of his neighborhood. That, of course, led to a massive body of work with hundreds of photographs to choose from. The result is an exhibition of about 25 photos printed on archival vinyl and mounted to the inside walls at Starland Yard, as well as three large photographs in the window that faces Whitaker and 40th.

While paring down the work to fit in the exhibition, Stewart chose photos that presented a story of the neighborhood. Its not necessarily a narrative, but the photos show more of the nuance of Savannah, particularly this area.

The work is macro and micro; it pulls in and out, says Stewart. Id say its very romantic also. The idea of the body of work is poetic because its subtle. Its as simple as the way you turn a corner and see a scene and keep walking, but you recognize that spot, that time of day, and you just thought to yourself, This is the neighborhood. This is what this place is.

What this place is, though, is currently up for definition. Theres a seemingly endless debate between people who want to preserve Starland and people who want to see it grow. In the middle of that debate, of course, is the Starland Yard. So, of course, its a smidge ironic that Stewarts exhibition commenting on the beauty of Starland is in the bastion of its development.

I love controversial places like that, he says with a laugh. Whats fun about the work compared to the situation is Im not commenting on problems with change. I think that change is great. Ive been here for eight or nine years and Ive always known this change was going to happen. For the first six years here, every year it seemed like next year is going to be the year, then next year is going to be the year.

Stewart remembers that 2018 is when things really started to happen, and when the development for Starland Yard began with tree removal in the area.

They took the trees down and everybody thought, Oh, boy, here goes the neighborhood, he says. I agree with the sentiment of immediate changeyou see a big beautiful tree go down and thats a big sigh. But it was always exciting for what was to come, especially as young creatives living and thriving in Savannah. We all need this stuff to happen. If one person in the neighborhood is successful, it means anybody else can be, too. Every amount of traffic or additional people who are coming to spend time in the neighborhood is better for us as a whole.

Yes, that means tourists. As Starland grows, its gaining attention and becoming an alternate destination for the downtown crowd.

While, yeah, I dont want Lone Wolf and Moodrights filled up with a bunch of yahoos from Ohio, but Im still rooting for the success of all my friends businesses, says Stewart.

The yahoos from Ohio that fill up Moodrights are inevitable, as long as this writer goes there, but one thing is certain: if you build it, they will come.

Stuffs going to keep popping up constantly. I think whats important about these photographs is the record of where it is at this present moment, says Stewart, because we know in three to five years, theres going to be massive condos built on Bull Street, the Save-A-Lot is going to be something else, and eventually the [Old Savannah City] Mission will be gone. Its going to really, really change soon. So in the past year, thinking about this project as a whole and digging through the archives, it makes me very happy that I started shooting all of this when I did.

The body of work in Love Thy Neighborhood is indicative of Stewarts approach to social landscape work.

I definitely consider myself a fine art landscape photographer, but that kind of borders on the social landscape, he muses. The Savannah work and this neighborhood work specifically, its just kind of how I keep my eye trained. Its something that started as I like to walk around and make pictures and post them on Instagram and to a collection of work that needs to be seen.

The title of the exhibition is a nod to a photo series from a few years back that Stewart posted on Instagram and captioned, Love thy neighborhood. The sentiment stuck for him, largely because Stewart really, truly does love his neighborhood.

The work is an homage to this place that I love so deeply, says Stewart. Its somewhere that deserves to be seen in all its glory and really appreciated.

CS

Read this article:
Showing love to Starland - Connect Savannah.com