The Living Landscape Journal: “Hot Fun”
During April, May, and June, we were busy with spring cleanup, transplanting and planting.The vegetable garden is in and everything seems to be growing exceptionally well this year. We have had...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: “All Natural”
July was warm and dry for the first three weeks with much needed rain the last week of the month. Many local farmers will tell you it started to rain just as fruits and vegetables were beginning to...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Now and Then
Did you ever give any thought to what our backyard may have looked like 500 years ago? I have, and I’ve done some research on what theNew Yorkmetropolitan area was like when it was wilderness....
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: Habitat Island Sanctuaries
If we take a good hard look at most residential landscapes today, we will find in most cases a sterile plant environment: a cultivated landscape filled with exotic plant species from other parts of...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Who’s Giving the Bird
On Saturday, October 13th, our growing season came to an abrupt end. Our first killing frost arrived as temperatures dropped into the mid-twenties. Not only did all the herbaceous material curl-up...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Meadowlands Guide
Native meadows, wild flower prairies, and extensive grasslands are what early American settlers viewed when they crossed west of the Appalachian Mountains. The early pioneers wrote about millions of...
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: “Spring Up” March 2013
March is mud season. It’s the time of year when early heavy spring rain washes away the snow. The frost comes out of the ground which softens the driveway, dirt roads, and lawns. Please stay off of...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Organics
We finally had an average winter into spring where temperatures, rain and snow were normal. This year’s growing season has begun. The goal this spring should be to garden organically. Let’s try to...
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: Preferred Natives
May is a planting month. May is when the vegetable garden goes in. May is when the fruit trees are flowering and the bees are hard at work exchanging pollen to help set this years fruits and...
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: Preferred Native Shrubs
June is the month where the vegetables are flowering and the bees are busy pollinating to set the season’s harvest. June is when the sun is highest in the sky and many of us are participating in BBQ’s...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal
April was an extremely dry month for early spring. I thought it was an indication on what the trend might be for this growing season, but in May it started to rain and rain and then it rained some...
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: The Ripening
To recap this growing season’s weather, April was extremely dry, May and June were extremely wet, and July was the eighth warmest July on record. We had an eight-day stretch in mid July that was...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: September, A Time to Remember
July and August switched roles from a weather standpoint this summer. July was very hot and muggy, while August was comfortable during the day and extremely cool at night. Some nights got down into...
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: Colony Collapse
September was mostly sunny with a few days of rain. There were no hurricanes to speak of and a few thunderstorms came barreling through. Basically, it was an average weather month that finished with...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Dry, Nutty, Ants
For the first three weeks of October the weather was perfect. We saw sunny, warm days and cool nights. The last week of October the temperature cooled down with daytime highs in the fifties and...
View ArticleLiving Landscape Journal: Sticky Plants, Ticky Woods
November was a cooler than average month with a few days of rain. Poughkeepsie set a cold temperature record the week before Thanksgiving. The thermometer bottomed out at 12 degrees twice along the...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Accurate Winter Temperatures
Decembers weather started out warmer than normal. By the second week of the month the cold weather settled in and it began to snow. We got three snow storms in December and ice also became an...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Sweet Spring Nectar
Spring time brings longer sunny days, warmer weather, bursting leaf buds and quaint spring ephemerals. Tree sap begins to thaw and moves up majestic maple trunks with new invited nutrients. Leaf buds...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Early Sprint Jaunts
On the last day of March, we went “out like a lion” with an ice storm. The calendar told us spring began the afternoon of March 20th, but we had to wait until April Fool’s to experience the first...
View ArticleThe Living Landscape Journal: Patience this Spring
April was another below average temperature month and sure enough, we had a snow storm on April 15th. The high for the month was around 70ºF, and the low dropped into the mid-teens. Here at the...
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