For some bee species, cities can provide a more welcoming habitat than the countryside. In fact, cities are emerging as important players in bee conservation. That’s the message of an article I stumbled upon in the online magazine Yale Environment 360.
Not live chickens, metal chickens. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’re going back to another garden we visited during the Garden Bloggers Fling in the DC area.
Hope is in the air since this past Tuesday’s election results from New Jersey, Virginia, Maine, and elsewhere. Not only that, but there is some positive garden-related news as well.
So a few days ago there was an article in the New York Times about problems caused by the herbicide Dicamba.
And now for another of the gardens of the DC Fling, this one belonging to Ellen Ash and located in the suburbs of Northern Virginia. The aspect of this garden that has stayed with me most is its sense of humor.
Like you, I get a daily barrage of unwanted emails from, it seems, every website I have ever visited to make any kind of purchase. Approximately 99% of these missives get deleted unopened. Recently, I got an email newsletter from Angie’s List that was about to share the fate of all that had come before it until my eye caught the title: “5 Types of Trees to Avoid”.
Before we went to Japan this year, I decided I would try to be a more informed traveler and read some Japanese history. By far the most engrossing and entertaining history books I found were by the Japanese Manga artist, Shigeru Mizuki.
So another suburban DC garden we visited on the second day of the Fling was that of garden designer Debbie Friedman. I found this garden interesting in part because, like mine, hers is sunny in front and with a good deal of shade in the back.
When I think of a typical sloping suburban backyard, I see a patchy incline of unhappy lawn, maybe with the beginnings of an erosion gully. And that’s pretty much what greeted garden designer Barbara Katz the first time she saw what is now her back garden. Happily, she has transformed that barren patch into a remarkably ebullient garden.
gardeninacity 