Accent on Natural Landscaping

Donna VanBuecken

Warranted but Precluded

Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced that the Endangered Species Act Listing for the monarch butterfly was "warranted, but precluded" by work on higher-priority listing actions. With this decision, the monarch becomes a candidate for listing, and its status will be … [Read more...]

Western Monarchs Closer to Extinction

Today is a sad day. Across 261 overwintering sites, volunteers counted only 1,914 monarch butterflies for the Western monarch population of California. How does this year compare to previous years? When the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count was started in 1997, over 1.2 million monarchs were … [Read more...]

A Small Native Plant Garden

Ken Sikora wrote this in an e-mail the other day: "Thanks for the Winter Seeding of a Prairie, Donna! Just last Thursday I did broadcast seeds in an existing prairie, trying to improve the wildflower diversity and fill in some thin spots. I did it knowing it was going to rain Friday, which would … [Read more...]

What’s Happening to Land Use?

The first formal study of erosion took place under the Soil Conservation Act of 1935. Through the years, it has been updated by many Acts. The Rural Development of Act of 1972 implemented a land inventory and monitoring program, which generally follows a complex sampling of five-year increments. For … [Read more...]

American Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana)

While visiting Mandy Ploch's cabin recently, I noticed the American Witchhazel was blossomed out two weeks ahead of time. I looked again the following weekend, and the plant was just about blooming. A couple of days to go, just when it was supposed be. Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana) One of the … [Read more...]