Fifteen minutes from the Atlantic, a Florida garden jungle has had two lives.

In 1929, two developers, Waldo E. Sexton and Arthur McKee,  purchased 80 acres. Located along the Indian River in Vero Beach, they intended to plant a citrus grove.

The area included Southern live oaks (Quercus virginiana), cabbage palms (Sabal palmetto) and pines (Pinus). They thought it was so beautiful that they decided to create a garden instead.

Called the McKee Jungle Garden, it was a collaboration. Waldo E. Sexton designed and constructed the whimsical buildings. Arthur McKee collected the plants. They hired William Lyman Phillips, a renown Florida landscape architect, to design the ponds, waterfalls and vistas. Continue reading McKee, Vero Beach’s Jungle →

Residents in Carroll Co.,  are invited to a workshop about the Backyard Buffer program. It will be held Sat., April 8 from 9 a.m. to noon in the Carroll Co. Extension Office, 700 Agricultural Dr., Westminster, MD.

The workshop costs $5. Tree shelters are not included. Seedling will be handed out and shelters will be sold from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Continue reading Carroll Residents Invited to Backyard Buffer Workshop →

Two new websites are now available for those working to plant and protect trees throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The Chesapeake Riparian Forest Buffer Network and Chesapeake Tree Canopy Network were launched to help communities working on forest and tree canopy goals, said Anne Gilbert, director of Tree-Mendous Maryland, MD Department of Natural Resources, Forest Service. Continue reading Websites Focus on Bay’s Forest Buffers, Canopy →