Links that may or may not be related to gardens, food, travel, nature, or heterotopias and liminal spaces but probably are. Sources in parentheses.
list: Native Plants for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects: Northeast Region (Xerces Society). 2-page PDF. Xerces is a western U.S.-based organisation and has many more guide sheets for specific western regions than it does for northern, southern, or eastern regions. The Northeast Region guide includes New England from Connecticut north and a sliver of eastern New York eastward. Here are a few others; if your region isn’t here, find it at this link. Native Plants for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects: Mid-Atlantic Region ; Native Plants for Pollinators and Beneficial Insects: Florida. There’s also a 4-page PDF for Monarch Nectar Plants: Northeast, and monarch nectar plants lists for other regions on their site.
images: art delivery: Birds (The Jealous Curator). The whimsical work of Canadian artist Francine Martin.
article: Chelsea Flower Show: Main Show Gardens 2023 (Gardens Illustrated). In case you want to look back on the 12 main gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show held in late May. Also: Rebecca McMackin’s latest Grow Like Wild newsletter commenting on the show, in which she writes: “[I]t all felt like people trying to rationalize a fundamentally excessive event with a cause to make it meaningful.” Zing! More links: Gap garden: mini-garden: a cube of concrete with wildflowers bursting out of it ; at Scoop Gardening, The Savills Garden: set within the grounds of a country hotel, with an intimate walled seasonal potager (includes 36-plant list); also at Scoop, the Nurture Landscapes Garden and A Letter From A Million Years Past (with 82-plants list).
15-sec video: When You Leave Your Dog Alone for a Minute (Buitengebieden/Twitter).
article: Talking Back to Nativism (Conservation Sense and Nonsense). A panel rebuttal by “just three of many skeptics of invasion biology” to excerpts from Dana Milbank’s opinion piece (linked) in the Washington Post in April, which was titled “I’m no genius with genuses, but your garden is killing the Earth.” Some of the panel’s major points: Insects are not dependent on native plants; many non-native plants are beneficial; all plants convert carbon dioxide to oxygen and store carbon; and many non-native plants are better adapted to climate change and disturbed ecosystems. Interesting reading even for those of us who these days are planting more plants that have been growing in our region for hundreds of years.
