Now is the time to clean and fill the feeders to help birds make a living when other food sources are scarce. It’s also time to think about providing next year’s winter bird food by planting more native plants, including native grasses, wildflowers, and woody plants, such as shrubs, vines and trees, that provide sustenance all winter long.

One hallmark of autumn is the appearance of goldenrods along roadsides and in wild spaces; however, until recently, goldenrods have rarely been used deliberately in gardens.

Fall is coming and gardeners’ thoughts may turn to collecting seeds for planting next spring.

Do you want more butterflies around your home? Consider creating a butterfly habitat that will attract not just adult butterflies passing through but will support butterflies throughout their life cycles.

Pollinators are important to our daily lives. Without insects, around 80 percent of flowering plants would not be pollinated.

Have you taken steps to create bird habitat in your yard? Now is your chance to see the fruits (or rather, birds) of your labor by observing how many species visit your yard in a single day.

A recent presentation highlighted how conventional mosquito spraying is jeopardizing efforts to create thriving wildlife habitats and offered effective alternatives that protect both people and pollinators.

If you followed the advice to forgo an annual autumn garden cleanup and instead left fallen leaves and dead plant stems in place to provide winter habitat for wildlife, your yard helped lots of local bugs and birds survive the winter and prepare for spring. 

When it’s a snowy, icy and cold winter, there’s little gardening you can or want to do in the yard. But there are a few steps you can take to supplement the work you have already done by providing natural food sources and shelter.

Chickadees need a yard full of native plants. How can that be? Chickadees eat seeds, so why do they need native plants?

We know now that migration on earth accounts for the disappearance and reappearance of birds. But what about other creatures? 

Fall-fruiting native shrubs and trees not only provide nutritious, fatty berries for birds, but also display beautiful fall color. That’s not for our benefit: what’s called foliar fruit flagging is the way the plants signal to birds that fruits are ripe and ready for plucking—just in time for migration.

There are many good reasons for leaving the leaves. By keeping fallen leaves on our properties rather than having them hauled away by landscapers or local governments, we can reduce our production of greenhouse gases and more.

There are several ways to “harvest” the rain that falls on our property and stretch out its usefulness.

Is there a more magical sight than fireflies flashing on a June evening?