Half of my two story Chickasaw plum tree (Prunus angustifolia) died almost two years ago yet the rest is still hanging in there. This past winter I planted a handful of Chickasaw plum seedlings around my rewilded yard to cover my bases if the other half dies - including in my right-of-way strip where I’m working to replace non-native Kousa dogwoods. My daughter kindly dug the holes for me to add more Chickasaw plums to my rewilded yard! Chickasaw plums are a fabulous keyston

Now that we’re finally getting consistent rain, I’ve been trying to plant out my larger native seedlings in between the showers so nature can do the heavy lifting of watering them for me. Yesterday I was on a mission to plant a mixture of common evening primrose seedlings (Oenothera biennis) I winter sowed in January 2025 and forgot about so they never left the container and ones I winter sowed in January. I replanted all of them in a protected community garden bed in April

A big challenge for folks doing the right thing by nature in their outside space is there’s a defensive insistence that the landscape be visually acceptable to the folks who have toxic, unnatural landscapes. Cues to care is a phrase often used in native gardening circles to caution against making natural landscapes too natural. In a webinar Benjamin Vogt suggested this native landscape doesn't look intentional enough to please folks with lawns because it doesn't have flowers

What we do in our yard matters to wildlife. Brown thrashers are the Georgia State Bird yet have declined 40% in the last 50 years . They need dense shrubs for cover, shelter, and to build their nests which are rarely higher than 7 feet off the ground . Every year brown thrasher babies are born in my neighbor’s shrub border that runs the length of my driveway just feet from the property line. The row is a mix of non-native shrubs that don't support the native insects that are