Growing Degree Days I will start including Growing Degree Days (GDD) as part of the monthly vistas post. This is a good reference point for tracking plant and insect development. “Growing Degree Days are a measurement of the growth and development of plants and insects during the growing season. Development does not occur at this…
Tag: winter
February Vistas
This year I am trying to follow through on a suggestion Terri made to document the backyard in photos and videos once a month. My intent is to do this on the same day of the month and from roughly the same locations. I will post the videos each month and occasionally a small number…
Starting Seeds in Winter Using Totes and Seedling Flats
Winter Sowing in milk jugs has been enjoyable and successful here for the past several years. Having a seed-starting project in January is akin to browsing the seed catalogs – an opportunity to plan for, and dream about, the next growing season, with the added benefit of actually working with seeds and planting mix. While…
A Photo Summary of Winter Sowing
An overview was given in a November blogpost which stated my intention to do winter sowing at the end of December or very early January. But here it is, the end of January. It’s possible that some of the seeds will not get the full length of cold they require because I got started so…
The Desert Will Bloom
Many denominations within the Christian religious tradition observe the season of Advent. It includes the four Sundays and weekdays leading up to Christmas day. Hope, peace, love, and joy are central topics of reflection. The timing of Advent overlaps with Hanukkah (the festival of lights) in Judaism and the winter solstice (the shortest day of…
Winter Appreciation and Assessment
Now that the leaves are down from most trees and shrubs, it is a good time to get into the landscape for a bit of appreciation and assessment. Without foliage and the colors of the growing season, beauty emerges from the form, flow, texture, and earth tones present in the landscape. You can see the…
Appreciate Wasps!
Wasps are beneficial insects!! Yes, they are creatures we want in our landscapes. Certainly, there are good reasons to be careful about being stung by wasps and hornets. As in our appreciation of bees, we need to move past our fears and understand wasp behavior and their contributions. Wasps are pollinators and help control other…
Helping Pollinators Overwinter (Part II)
In Part I of Helping Pollinators Overwinter, I concluded by saying the dormancy of pollinators varies a lot. They are dormant in different ways and in different stages. The location of nests and shelters are also varied. This means as we garden in fall and winter that we need to give care to ground disturbances,…
Helping Pollinators Overwinter (Part I)
Ensuring our landscapes have host plants, nectar, and other aspects of native habitat during growing seasons is very important for biodiversity. The increased awareness of this is making a positive impact on how people garden. Unfortunately, this progress can be undermined if we do not also help insects and other creatures survive fall and winter….
Catchfly Commons 