All the Dirt on Gardening

I have 4 tickets to Doug Tallamy's talk and I can't use them. Anyone who can use all 4 tickets should email me mollyday1@gmail.com. The tickets will be mailed to the first person I hear from. Here's the scoop Bringing Nature Home; How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants Thursday, August 19th Tulsa Garden Center NATIVE PLANTS will be available for sale from Clear Creek Farms & Pine Ridge Nursery The doors open at 6:15 There will be a raffle for door prizes. Dr. Tallamy's book, Bringing Nature Home; How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants will be for sale and he will autograph copies at the event. Dr. Tallamy's presentation will begin at 7:00.Plan to arrive at 6:30. Admission is $5.00 Reservations may be made in person at the Tulsa Garden Center or by calling them at (918) 746-5125 during business hours. As a child, Dr. Doug Tallamy spent his summer days exploring the wild places that surrounded him, discovering a small pond filled with pollywogs,...

Outside the kitchen window we feed butterflies and watch them. Bruised and over ripe fruit plus Gatorade are on the menu. A cement leaf is glued to a 4 by 4 post tall enough to make the action visible from inside the kitchen. The Gatorade is a healthy, hydrating, snack for the butterflies in this heat. We tried ripe bananas but they brought too many flies.

by Dr. Vera Krischik, Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota Native plants used in restoration for wildlife and food plants from apples to zucchini require pollinators. Bees and other beneficial insects offer valuable ecosystem services in both natural and managed agriculture ecosystems, so it is essential to protect them. Pollinators and beneficial insects are experiencing serious decline due to insecticide use, lack of nutritionally rich native plants for pollen and nectar, and lack of habitat. Continued loss of pollinators will have an impact on the natural resources and the economy. This issue has been addressed by the Xerces Society, National Research Council Report, the Congressional Research Report, testimony by the National Academy of Sciences to the US Congress, and the media in newspapers and television programs. Cornell Univ : Admire, Condifor, Gaucho, Premier, Premise, Provado, and Marathon contain Imidacloprid.) ( Pesticide Action Network UK - Imidacloprid is ...

As a one time offer, the magazine of the American Horticultural Society is online free of charge. Click here to see this beautiful publication, click through its pages and consider joining AHS in order to receive free admission into gardens around the country as well as The American Gardener. A tip of the trowel to The Transatlantic Plantsman for sending out the information. Graham Rice's blog is excellent so if you can take one more email subscription, consider taking his.

The Texas Discovery Garden, Butterfly House and Insectarium in Dallas is dedicated to informing and educating children and adults on the natural world. Check it out at http://www.texasdiscoverygardens.org Have you seen the Science Tracer Bullets from the Library of Congress Science Research Services? It's at http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/tracer-bullets/ The American Society of Landscape Architects reports "George Hargreaves, FASLA, a leading U.S. landscape architect, is working with British landscape architecture firm LDA Design to create a $200 million, 2.5 square kilometer site for the 2012 Olympic games in London. One key goal of the project is to ensure the park will serve the community well once the games are over: Out of the 2.5 square kilometer site, one square kilometer will be transformed into permanent parkland." Read all about it at this link . Jim Conrad's Naturalist Newsletter from Hacienda Chichén beside the Maya ruin of Chichén Itzá in the central Yucat...

Providing plants for butterflies to raise their young is a good hobby for those of us with asthma who can't have furry pets around all the time. The Giant Swallowtail butterfly lays one egg on any plant in the Rue family, including citrus trees and Devil's Walkingstick . Her caterpillars are considered pests in citrus groves . But here in zone 7 Oklahoma, they are welcome to eat the Rue plants we grow specifically for them. We planted a Prickly Ash, Toothache Tree or Zanthoxylum americanum, also, but the leaves are 8 feet high and we can't see caterpillar activity up there. Oklahoma Biosurvey provides information on everything flora and fauna in our state. Their butterfly link has selected links to larger, informative sites. The rue plants came from a gentleman in Oklahoma City who gave me two starts that I have been babying for two years. This year they are large enough to attract a single egg and the resulting Orange Dog caterpillar in these photos. Common Rue, Ruta gra...

Annual flowers that re-seed themselves are a treat for hard working gardeners. We depend on our annuals and tender perennials such as Four O'Clocks to come up on their own. Marigolds, zinnia, euphorbia, salvia, daisies, nicotiana or flowering tobacco and many more plants go through their annual cycle, dropping mature seeds on the ground at the end of the season. The seeds lie there, dormant, until conditions suit their nature and they sprout. Some plants re-seed generously. Euphorbia marginata (Snow on the Mountain) and morning glory pop up all over the place while flowering tobacco tends to come up only where it was grown the year before. The more plants you raise from seed, the more likely it is that you will recognize them the following year. I planted larkspur seeds three years in a row before any lived long enough to bloom. Larkspur seeds are sprinkled in the garden between August and November. When they emerged the following February, I pulled them all out, mistaking them for...