Standing on the sidewalk, looking up a steep slope towards the home of Landscape Architect Keith Geller, you know you’re about to enter a special landscape. Over the past 30 years, Geller has transformed a bare, grassy slope into an forested urban haven. His yard has been featured in magazines, books and newspapers stories and [...]
This new video from the ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architecture) is “an animation that explains how to transform your property into a real wildlife habitat. Learn how native plants and designed structures provide what nature needs.” It’s great to see the Landscape Architecture profession starting to raise awareness on urban habitat design. They have also [...]
This short video mixes photographs and short video clips which demonstrate the beauty of a suburban wildlife garden. It also offers a stark comparison to a house with the more commonly seen lawn front yard. This garden is certified at National Wildlife Federation Backyard Habitat and also includes a Pollinator Habitat sign from the Xerces [...]
News Bringing natural life into buildings:: Eco-architect Dr Ken Yeang’s attempts to introduce more nature into architecture are highlighted in this article. “Many buildings have been ‘de-natured’. Human beings have simplified and fragmented nature.” Loft ambitions: why green roofs are the future of urban gardening:: This article from The Ecologist discusses the many benefits of green [...]
Last year when I wrote about the Northwest Flower and Garden Show I talked a lot about how the gardens didn’t feature wildlife habitat, but could have easily done so and I featured specific examples. I also expressed hope that a nature organization would partner on a display garden. This year, my hope was realized [...]
There are over 3 million gardens in Greater London which offer an ‘untapped potential’ to make the city more resilient to climate change and better for wildlife, according to the London Wildlife Trust. How do we begin to exploit this potential? According to LWT’s expert gardener Elaine Hughes, gardeners should be a ‘bit less tidy’. This [...]
News Unleashing the Scientist in the Student:: A fantastic citizen science project enlists seventh grade students to help study salamanders in New York City. WA prison inmates raise imperiled butterflies:: This is an interesting story about local inmates trained with raising butterflies in a prison greenhouse to be released. This is a great program to help prevent [...]
News London’s a real hoot after dark, say twitchers:: This article discusses another aspect of London nightlife, the owls. Owl Prowl, taking place in August is run by the the London Wildlife Trust and aims to survey urban owls to raise awareness of the city’s owl population. Troops called in to scare storks with eye [...]
The 2nd annual backyard habitat tour in Shoreline, an area just north of Seattle, was dubbed ‘Where Our Wild Things Are‘ and presented six, certified yards. Shoreline is a Certified Community Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. The gardens ranged from just begun to established and featured highlights such as urban farming, accessibility and integrated family [...]
Last February I visited the Woodland Park Zoo to view the green roof on the Zoomazium building. At that point, in 2010, the roof was about four years old already so I didn’t expect dramatic changes when I revisited recently. However, the roof looked completely different. What was simply low-growing grasses and small shrubs had transformed [...]
The 11th annual Tukwila Backyard Wildlife Festival took place last weekend in Tukwila, Washington. Tukwila has the distinction of being the first community in the state of Washington, and only the fourth in the nation, to become certified by the National Wildlife Federation as Community Wildlife Habitat. In addition to yards, all of Tukwila’s schools were [...]
Last weekend was the large Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. Running for four days, the show’s theme this year was Once Upon A Time…spectacular gardens with stories to tell. The show consisted of a large show garden area with over 20 individual gardens, a container garden display with over a dozen displays and [...]