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Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
April 4, 2004, Issue 106

Another rite of spring is choosing your new bush. ”Give back” by adding one new, permanent source of wildlife habitat and food to your property. Last year, my mother added viburnum and blue berries (Issue 56). This year, I’m rooting elderberry cuttings for her.

picture: American Holly, Hoyt Street Apartments, Stamford CT March 2004

The ideal new plant for you is care-free: it self-prunes, is not chemically-addicted (i.e. can live without pesticides and concentrated fertilizers), and will thrive in the exact conditions of your yard. For your birds and furry neighbors, make sure that you have something that’s warm in winter and that contributes food during late winter and early spring, the leanest times for those without Stop & Shop. Keep in mind that what the birds eat, they spread; so if you want to be part of the solution, choose only native plants to feed the birds.

Consider the American Holly, Ilex opaca (Holly family). I had always connected hollies to playing “Green Sleeves” on a lute in “Merry Old England” and didn’t realize that, in addition to the English holly (Ilex aquifolium), many of the hollies I see in local landscaping are “Great Americans”.

The Monday Garden, December 19, 2004, Issue 143
Eco-gardening at its best

The Winter Solstice is coming up this week. It’s a good time to look out the window and honestly evaluative whether your garden looks as good now as it did in June and whether it’s as supportive to your non-human neighbors as it was in June. There’s no reason why it can’t be.

Whether you live in up north in frosty Zone 3 or down south in toasty Zone 9, winterberry (Ilex verticillata ), one of our native, deciduous hollies, can fill your winter garden with bright red berries and winter birds. It’ll look great the rest of the time, too.

picture: Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) in early fall. The berries are not yet red-ripe but the foliage is beginning to yellow. The swamp walk at the Bartlett Arboretum 2004.

This “Great American” is easy care if you have the right location for it; if not, pick something else because there’s nothing sadder than a great plant struggling to survive in the wrong place. Here’s the tricks:
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