Links that may or may not be related to gardens, food, travel, nature, or heterotopias and liminal spaces but probably are. Sources in parentheses.
field guide to April 2025 (Vermont Center for EcoStudies) American woodcock, April frog songs, Bumblebee Bingo, early moths, forest ephemerals.
essay with photos: The Latest & Best Practices for Spring Garden Cleanup (Shari @ Nuts for Natives). She gets into the nuances of spring clean-up (if you even need to do a clean-up in the spring) including waiting until after at least three days of temps over 50°F (but longer is better), the least invasive ways to move leaves, which native plants will come up fine from under leaves (most) and which won’t (tiarella/foamflower), that some insects overwinter near the base of perennials (e.g., pearl crescent butterfly caterpillars overwinter under the rosettes of smooth asters), so tread carefully, and that leaving about 12″ of hollow perennial stems that are 1/8 inch or wider maintains a home for bees who move in and grow there through the summer — and the stem stubble will naturally decay. Shari gleaned some of these tips from a webinar last week with Margaret Roach of A Way to Garden and (my fave) Rebecca McMackin, former Director of the Brooklyn Bridge Park.
photo essay: Winterthur and the Scott Arboretum in Early Spring (Jared Barnes/Meristem). Don’t miss the floating hellebore, Cornelian cherries, witch hazels, magnolias, and plantain sedge flowers!
tool: What Will Your Climate Feel Like in 60 Years? (Univ of Maryland Center for Environmental Science). Summers near where I live in NH will be like Ash Flat, Arkansas, or some towns in southeastern Missouri in 60 yrs at the current rate of emissions. Lancaster, PA will feel like Naples, TX, in the summer.
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