A New Year inspires new resolutions. I have two for 2020.
First, I hope to publish many more blogs on In the Garden with Laura in 2020 than I did in 2019! Second, I plan to expand the scope of the website. In addition to native plants, the site will feature information about native wildlife and climate change.
Why the change? Wildlife (whether birds, mammals, or insects) and native plants are different sides of the same coin. We often grow plants for their beauty, yet they would not exist without wildlife. How can you talk about butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, without talking about monarch butterflies?
Climate change will also be given more attention here. It’s long overdue. Climate change is destroying native plants and wildlife. The impact will only increase as climate change continues. The planet cannot sustain these changes.
One stunning statistic from 2019: 3 billion, or one in four, birds in North America have disappeared in the last 50 years, according to research published online in the journal Science in September 2019. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology focused their 2019 annual report Living Bird (vol.8, issue 4) on these findings.
“The research portrays massive losses among hundreds of species of birds from coast to coast,” states Living Bird. The article serves as a frightening wake-up call for everyone.
Many of the other features of In the Garden will continue in 2020, such as reviews of new books and sources of information as well as notices of events.
I recently discovered one such online resource–Piedmont Native Plants: A Guide for Landscapes and Gardens. An in-dept, well-designed booklet, it was created by the Piedmont Natives Partnership. It includes 120 photos of plants from Virginia’s Piedmont region. (A quick search on an online search engine such as Google should show you whether a plant is native to Maryland.) Here is a link to their web address Piedmont Native Plants – Squarespace.
If you have any ideas for a blog or questions about native plants and wildlife, please send me a note on the home page and I will respond as quickly as possible.
Happy New Year!
Laura