Visiting Mt. Cuba

For those who participated in the Summer Twilight Tour at Mt. Cuba last Thursday evening, what did you see and what did you enjoy most about the tour? Please share your thoughts, and even your pictures (send to blog@habitatresourcenetwork.org) with those of us who were not able to share the adventure in person.

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While we wait for your feedback, take the time to read the article "A landscape ablaze: Colorful perennials herald the start of summer" featured in Nature's Landscape which is a monthly column presented by Mt. Cuba. This particular article was written by Rick J. Lewandowski, director of Mt. Cuba Center, and it's focus is on a few of the native flowers that are currently in full bloom right now! Enjoy the read:

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http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090625/LIFE/906250318/1005%26referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL
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ps - Thank you Peg for sharing the link above!

Paying Tribute

The link below will take you to the obituary for Craig Tufts, chief naturalist for NWF. His work over the years at NWF is a basis for the mission of our own local efforts, to create and preserve the native habitats in our backyards & communities.

Thank you Craig!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062403079.html

GreenSpace: Roll out the barrels to collect rain

Does it excite you, even in the slightest, to stumble across articles pertaining to environmental concerns? Thank you Bridgette for taking the time to forward the link to this article so that we could share it with other members!

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/sandy_bauers/20090504_GreenSpace__Roll_out_the_barrels_to_collect_rain.html?nlid=2377257

A reporter's quest: Saving the world, one backyard garden at a time

In case you missed it, the Daily Local News published the wonderful article below on Friday, March 20, written by Anne Pickering. Thank you to the Daily Local News and Anne for allowing us to share this with you.

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It's the first day of spring and while a young man's fancy may turn to love, an older woman reporter's fancy inevitably turns to spring planting and saving the world.

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What on earth does spring planting have to do with saving the world, you may ask. I'm getting to that.I'm actually a lousy gardener. My mother had the green thumb. Anything she planted would miraculously bloom and thrive. The only plant I have is a prayer plant that I keep on a windowsill. It appeals to me because I like to see the leaves close-up at night.

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I don't even have a garden, at least not in Chester County. I have a postage stamp-size backyard garden in New York City. I planted it two years ago and planted all the wrong things. I didn't know that at the time. It's doing well, everything blooms and nothing has died. But I'll be pulling some of the plants up and replacing them because I want to do my part to save the world — the natural world, that is.

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As a reporter, I cover my share of meetings and special events. Last October, I covered the Brandywine Valley Association's annual meeting and heard a talk by Douglas Tallamy, professor and chair of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware.

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Tallamy wrote a book called "Bringing Nature Home," about how native plants support the greatest quantity of native animals and insects. And although here in suburbia we have cut down the forests and built subdivisions on the meadows, if we fill those backyards with native trees and shrubs, we can attract many of the birds, insects and small mammals that were displaced.

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Research conducted by Tallamy and other scientists has revealed the close link between insects and the plants they eat. The two have evolved together. To increase the number of birds, you have to provide the food they eat. Most native plant eaters are not able to eat alien plants such as the ornamentals that come from Asia, Europe and the Northwest. Those plants reduce biodiversity while native species increase biodiversity.

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Some of the alien plants I planted in my garden are Norway spruce from Washington state, a pink blossom cherry tree and the butterfly bush. I found out they were aliens from Catherine Smith, the owner of Redbud Native Plant Nursery in Glen Mills.

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Smith only sells native species at her nursery and last year was her best year yet with the increased interest in native plants. "Many of my customers don't really know much about native plants. They come in and say I want to attract hummingbirds or butterflys," said Smith. She recommends coral honeysuckle or the cardinal flower.

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"Hummingbirds will fight over coral honeysuckle and it blooms the entire summer," she said. In terms of butterflies, "You plant a couple milkweed plants and then the monarchs will lay their eggs." The caterpillars turn into monarch butterflies.

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"People get jazzed and kids love it," said Smith. "There is a misconception that native plants are weedy, but that's not true. Everybody has a different style of garden. Aside from attracting birds and wildlife, native plants are very hardy," Smith said. On any day but Saturday, Smith works with homeowners, who frequently bring in a sketch or site plan and ask for her help in choosing plants.

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Another source for information on using native plants is Habitat Resource Network of Southeast Pennsylvania. The nonprofit offers classes in creating backyard habitat. More information can be found at www.habitatresourcenetwork.org.

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Plugs are great!

For all of you native plant people, especially those who are still trying to improve your habitats, you may already know how beneficial it is to have the ability to purchase large quantities of plant plugs at such a small cost! Being able to buy plugs via the HRN member group purchase every year is such a wonderful opportunity, not only to obtain large quantities of plants inexpensively, but also to try new plant selections that you don't already have in your garden.

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BUT, this is not really what today's post is all about! No. Instead, I am referring to PR plugs. Our mission is so focused on education, but people have to hear about our group and scheduled monthly activities in order to benefit from both the education and the plant plug purchase!

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Whenever possible, spread the word!

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http://www.paenvironmentdigest.com/newsletter/default.asp?NewsletterArticleID=11792

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The Future of Open Space

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend The Future of Open Space in Chester County forum in West Chester, PA, yesterday but was pleased to see this article today by Dan Kristie in the Daily Local News. If you were in attendance, we would love to hear your feedback.

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WEST CHESTER — The Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said Chester County has done an excellent job preserving open space and its land-preservation method should be a model to all other counties in the commonwealth.

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But now is not the time to sit back and enjoy the view, said Michael DiBerardinis. Rather, he said, the land preservation battle will be lost if those interested in saving open space don't develop new strategies.

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"If we stay with our traditional tools, it won't be enough," he said. "The world of conservation is changing before us."

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Standing before a crowd of more than 100 at a Saturday afternoon seminar on the future of Chester County's open space, DiBerardinis said that activists should begin to emphasize what connects open space preservation to the economy and the social life of a community.

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"We need to struggle for those alignments," he said. "That's the future." For example, he said, activists should point to the presence of trees on an urban street that raise the value of properties on that street and that properties in areas that have healthy streams and parks are worth more than properties in areas without these features.

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And he said activists should focus on conveying the message that there is money to be made from selling locally grown food and fitting buildings with features that will make them LEED certified. He also said woodsy walking paths can actually have a democratizing effect — anyone can use a free walking path, and while they are on it, their socioeconomic status melts away as they become simply another traveler.

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On the less theoretical end, he said open-space preservationists have to find better ways to deploy easements, the legal agreements that restrict uses allowed on particular plots of land regardless of the land's zoning. Many places in Chester County should be preserved through easements, he said.

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He said open-space activists must be deeply involved in combating global warming, a phenomenon that he said has already affected vegetation and weather patterns in the state forests that his agency oversees. DiBrardinis delivered the keynote address at the The Future of Open Space in Chester County seminar at the Chester County Historical Society headquarters. The seminar's purpose was to promote a new open space exhibit at the headquarters.

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The forum was sponsored by the Daily Local News and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and was planned through a collaboration of the historical society, the Natural Lands Trust, the Children's Country Week Association and West Chester University.

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DiBerardinis was a particularly appropriate speaker because he grew up in Downingtown during the 1950s when the area was far more rural than it is today. He said his childhood experiences playing in the woods inspired him to pursue a career in natural resources and the environment. He recalled playing in Downingtown's streams and fields as a child, and he told the crowd that his mother, after hanging the laundry in the morning, often had to chase an apparel-obsessed cow from the neighboring dairy pasture away from her clotheslines.

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The event also featured a panel discussion led by Daily Local News reporter Anne Pickering. It featured Pamela Brown, conservation director of the French and Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust; Joe Duckworth, president of Arcadia Land Co.; William Gladden of the Chester County Planning Commission; Robert Lonsdorf, senior planner at the Brandywine Conservancy; and Molly Morrison, president and CEO of the Natural Lands Trust.

Experts fret over loss of biodiversity

In case you missed it, the Daily Local News published the wonderful article below on Friday, February 13, written by Anne Pickering. Thank you to Daily Local News and Anne for allowing us to share this with you.

MEDIA — Across suburban landscapes a new movement is growing, one possibly as revolutionary as the first cry to save open space that went up at the end of the last century when land planners recognized the danger of urban sprawl.

Across the country and particularly in heavily suburban landscapes like Chester County, a new danger has been identified: It is the loss of biodiversity, the huge variety of animal life that is disappearing from the planet."If you walk down the street and ask somebody what is the major problem of the world, they will not say an extinction crisis," said Douglas Tallamy, professor and chairman of the entomology and wildlife ecology department at the University of Delaware, who addresseda crowd of 150 people at Penn State's Brandywine campus Sunday.

"It's not on their horizon. People don't believe it. They think nature is happy someplace else. It doesn't matter what we do to our local plants, there is always a bit of nature someplace else," Tallamy said.But increasingly that bit of nature someplace else is in as big a trouble as the nature closer to home.

Tallamy, the featured speaker at a lecture hosted by the Chester-Ridley-Crum Watershed Association and the Habitat Resource Network of Southeast Pennsylvania, is at the forefront of the movement to save local biodiversity. He urges residents to turn their backyards into wildlife sanctuaries chiefly through the vehicle of planting native species.

Research conducted by Tallamy and others reveal the close link between insects and plants they eat, he said. Because the two evolved together, to increase the number of birds, you have to give them something to eat and somewhere to live — both functions of native plant life.The problem is the proliferation of ornamental plants from Asia, Europe and even the Pacific Northwest. "Most of our native plant-eaters are not able to eat alien plants," Tallamy says in his book, "Bringing Nature Home."

"And we are replacing native plants with alien species at an alarming rate, especially in the suburban gardens on which our wildlife increasingly depends."But the good news is the trend can be reversed and is relatively easy to do by replacing alien plants with native plants.There are organizations available to help homeowners and municipalities such as Habitat Resource Network that train people to be habitat stewards.

Tallamy urged homeowner associations to plant native species on open-space land, in stormwater swales and around ponds that serve as detention basins. He advocated for planting native trees such as an oak tree that 517 different species of caterpillars can eat. The caterpillars will attract birds and other insect-loving species. He recommended that the size of lawns be reduced and allow areas to revert to meadow.

The ideas were interesting to Terry Woodman, East Whiteland township manager, who attended the event. Part of the township is in the Chester-Ridley-Crum watershed.The township mandates landscaping in connection with new land development projects.Woodman said she would look at the list of tree species that the township recommends to see if they are native species. Letting lawns revert back to a meadow is a concept that is a little problematic in East Whiteland because most lots are only a half-acre. Residents worry about what effect a house that doesn't mow its lawn would have on property values, she said."I can see it working in a township such as Willistown with much larger lot sizes," said Woodman.

To contact staff writer Anne Pickering,
send an e-mail to apickering@dailylocal.com.