Latest From The Blog

It’s that time of year again. Goldenrod is everywhere along the roads, in the fields, popping up in gardens. It is a great pollinator plant. Butterflies and bees use goldenrod as a source of late summer pollen so they can spend the winter with full stomachs. When I...

I have some blue cranesbill geraniums which spread aggressively in my garden and even in with the weeds. These are not the red double geraniums sold in all the flower stores. These are cranesbill geraniums (Geranium maculatum “Rosanne”). The native wild geraniums...

As we walk along we see little blobs of bubbly foam on a stem here and there. Often referred to as frog spit or snake spit, whose spit is this? It doesn’t come from either a frog or a snake. It is the house of a little bug nymph. And, yes, there really is a group of...

Two days ago I was walking with my golden doodle along a woodland trail we use every day, and much to my delight a little white fringed orchid (Platanthera lacera) had popped up. I was amazed that I had not seen it the day before. It was suddenly there next to my...

Now that we have had several days of hot summer weather, we are seeing the numbers and variety of butterflies increase. There are many little ones like this little Least Skipper (Ancyloxypha numitor). Which likes to lay its eggs on grasses. In the north it favors...

This week we have been planning to put up a new sign placed next to the slough in Herbster to tell people about this beautiful and unusual place. This slough is really also a bog. Leading into Lake Superior, it is a kind of backwater where small streams feed into...

You remember what Lepidoptera are, right? They’re the butterflies and moths that engage us in their beauty and feed most of the baby songbirds of the world with their caterpillars. A few months ago we talked about Spicebushes, Pawpaw trees and Bladder nut trees all...

A little black bear disappeared quickly into the forest next to the trail where I was walking to my garden. Goldilocks would have been distressed, as he wasn’t away from home long enough to visit the bears’ and taste his porridge. Besides, I think he was checking out...

One cold rainy morning recently in northern Wisconsin I was walking along a familiar road and found 2 wet butterflies on the ground. When I returned and identified them, I realized that they were both migrating-type butterflies. One of them, the Monarch, is easily...

When my dog, Poppy, and I started our walk this morning, there were 3 or 4 ravens squawking across the road. We went over to see what the commotion was about, and they flew away. Like a lot of birds, wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) lay their eggs on the ground....

We’re back to Paw paws and spicebushes. Since both trees are considered ”understory trees,” I think it is important to think about how important these plants are to our ecology. They are often overlooked. No one would select a 25 foot tree as the major shade tree in...

Along the creek where we often walk is a cluster of pawpaw trees (Asimina triloba) and spicebush trees (Lindera benzoin). They are not native in the far north, but do well here in West Virginia. These understory trees are about 7 feet tall and take most of the...

This morning as I was walking with my dog through the abandoned parking lot near our house, I found a white flower that had a bladder inflated behind it. I have always called this flower a “Bouncing Betsy.” The plant identifier on my cell phone called Picture...

I was walking around my favorite abandoned parking lot the other day looking for flowers that might have survived the assault of lawn mowers and mulching activity, when I spotted a beautiful yellow flower with five petals. It was similar to the buttercups I see in...

This past week I was walking along the edge of a woodland, when I spotted a beautiful branch of sassafras flowers. It was such a pretty sight with the new leaves in the center, that at first I thought the new leaves were the flower. But, no, it was a circle of flowers...

It’s the time of year when our early plants bloom. It is also the time of year when invasive plants can get a head start on native plants and “take over” areas of newly exposed soil or vulnerable native habitats. What plants are you seeing as you take your walks? Here...

There are many little flowers that bloom early in the spring. That is a good thing for the early pollinators. But the flowers don’t bloom to provide pollen for the bees. They bloom early in order to get sunlight. Look up! Are the leaves on the trees? Not yet here in...

The violets are blooming here in West Virginia, reminding me that they are important plants for all the Fritillary butterflies all over the world. Violets are easy to plant and usually grow low enough to flower beneath the lawn mowers that cut off the leaves of most...