Landscape with native wild edibles
Humans get something to eat and attractive plants for their yard. Wildlife gets a share of the food, plus comfortable places to live and breed.
By Tom Atwell
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Native hickories are among the wild plants that work on two levels in your yard, both as fruit and landscape plant. guentermanaus/Shutterstock
People did a lot more landscaping of their properties last year than in an ordinary year. They also grew more food.
One option combines the two activities. Andy Brand, curator of living collections at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, outlined ways to landscape with wild edibles in an online lecture in late January.
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Landscape your lakefront house like the lake’s life depends on it. In fact, it does
When it rains, pesticides, fertilizers and other pollutants wash off the lawn directly into the lake. Employ these landscaping strategies to help keep the lake clear, clean and hospitable to fish.
By Tom Atwell
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No doubt this house was built to take advantage of a beautiful lake. Unfortunately, its gleaming waterfront lawn imperils that very feature: Rainfall washes serious pollutants directly into the lake, and the lawn offers no barriers to slow them down. But savvy lakefront homeowners can landscape in ways that help keep the water free from deadly algae blooms. Photo by Maria Dryfhout/Shutterstock
From rainscaping to houseplants, here are the 8 hot gardening trends of 2021
Updated Dec 31, 2020;
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Droves of stuck-at-home families started food gardens and carved relaxation areas out of their yards this year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gardening trend-watchers say those will carry over as the biggest two gardening trends on the 2021 horizon as well.
As we close the door on 2020, here’s the dirt on everything that trend-watchers see in their compost-stained crystal balls:
Another big vegetable year
Edible gardening surged in 2020 as shoppers saw dwindling grocery shelves and figured this pandemic year might be a good time to grow their own.
JOHOR BARU: Farmers in Sengkang Batu 18 near Bukit Gambir say vegetable production is expected to drop by 15% by the end of December if the weather remains as damp as November.
Tan Chee Kiong, secretary of a group of farmers there, said vegetable production in October was 170 tonnes and 160 tonnes in November.
“I expect it to see a further drop if the rainy season continues. The cost to produce vegetables remains the same as the price of fertilisers and soil has not increased.
“However, we are unable to sell some of our produce as it turned bad due to the weather,” he said.