MAKE 2023 A SUSTAINABLE YEAR With These New Years Resolutions - Chances are, you have never thought of your garden – indeed, of all of the space on your land – as a wildlife preserve that represents the last chance we have for sustaining plants and animals that were once common throughout the United States.
July can be full of a diverse range of colors, hues and textures and your garden beds can flourish with minimal maintenance if you just use native plant species. Here’s six (6) varieties of native perennials that bloom during July, many of them lasting into August.
Now is the time to start thinking about fall planting in your yard or garden! Many birds such as cardinals, chickadees, bluebirds, robins, cedar waxwings and mockingbirds are year-round residents or migrate south to your area in winter. By planting native berry producing shrubs or trees you will attract these birds and ensure they have food throughout the winter.
A highly popular native groundcover; Wild Ginger's large heart-shaped leaves can be 6" in diameter, and its sturdy rootstocks create a dense network that creeps to cover woodland slopes. Excellent plant for full or deep shade and serves as host plant for swallowtail butterfly larval.
The flowerheads of purple headed sneezewood offer nectar and pollen as floral rewards to a wide range of insect visitors, including long-tongued bees, short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and skippers. Various insects feed on the leaves, pith of the stems, and other parts of Helenium spp. (Sneezeweeds).
You may not always be able to observe pollinators in your garden but they are constantly there, and are working to your advantage. Not only are pollinators, such as bees, wasps, flies, beetles, butterflies, moths, bats, and hummingbirds an important part of the natural environment, but they also benefit us by their services to plants.
The New Jersey Landscape Contractors Association (NJLCA) is a proven resource to the landscape contractor, green industry service provider and supplier as well as the consumer. The following excerpt article is taken from the recently published SPRING 2018 edition of their magazine.