Register Your Garden as a Wildlife Habitat — Like Serendipity Gardens!

Jo Ellen Roe April 22, 2014 0 Comments

Habitat sign

May — coming soon — is Garden for Wildlife Month. It is a great month to register your garden as a Wildlife Habitat. For that month only this year, the National Wildlife Federation will plant a tree for each new certification.

It’s a double whammy, benefiting both you and the environment. Read this list to see what additional benefits will accrue to you.

It’s an easy process, too.  All you do is follow these steps:

  • Visit the National Wildlife Federation page (click here or on the icon on the lower right side of the Serendipity Gardens home page)
  • Complete the forms to ascertain that you have certain items in your garden.
  • Submit with a small fee of $20, which goes to support the Federation’s work

In a few weeks, you’ll receive a sign like this one (or you can specify and pay more for a more elegant-looking sign) that identifies your garden as a wildlife haven to those who visit. No one will come to check your garden. ... Read More

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Make Maple Magic, Like in Serendipity Gardens

Jo Ellen Roe April 14, 2014 0 Comments

If you want to plant a tree that attracts and supports wildlife, improves the environment in your yard and pleases people as well, a red maple might be a good choice. The red maple, or acer rubrum, is native to the United States.

The Maples in Serendipity Gardens

Seven maple trees grow in Serendipity Gardens, ranging in size from 5 to 50 feet. We planted only three of the six, and each of those has its story:

  • We purchased a red Japanese maple several years ago that had been pruned to arch out to one side. We planted it at the back of our pond, with the idea that it would arch up and over the pond. It does that, but its growth is so slow that the look we had in mind is hard to see. If I were buying a tree for that spot today, it would not be a Japanese maple, lovely though it is.
  • I purchased a membership to the Arbor Day Foundation and got ten trees of my choice plus a free red maple (an offer you can take advantage of today). That one seems to be growing well. It began its life in Serendipity Gardens as a stick. Today it is about five feet tall.
  • The third maple we planted was a gift from one of our sons-in-law. It is a silver maple, planted in honor of our dog Gina that died. We put her ashes in the planting hole. The tree has grown very quickly and is now about 15 to 20 feet tall. We call it the “Gina tree.”

Of the remaining four maples, one planted itself beside the driveway, and we let it stay. The other three, of at least two different types, were all here as big trees when we came. ... Read More

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Fab Four: “How-To” Books from Serendipity Gardens

Jo Ellen Roe April 7, 2014 2 Comments

Roth

In last week’s post, I shared some books about the philosophy of gardening. The books below are more practical books about the how of gardening. They tell readers what to plant to attract wildlife, including birds, bees, and bugs; when and where to plant most any plant; and how to care for all the plants you’ve added to your garden.

Gardening for the Birds

Bird-by-Bird Gardening, by Sally Roth. I like this book for novice birders because it makes its suggestions based on bird families. “The big clues to bird families are eating habits and behavior,” says the author. She also explains what the phrase “Birds of a feather flock together” really means — it turns out that flocking is not about feather color at all, but rather, other similarities the birds share. ... Read More

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Gardening Books that Have Shaped Serendipity Gardens

Jo Ellen Roe March 31, 2014 2 Comments

Pollan

I started collecting gardening books when I began Serendipity Gardens.

Here are five of my favorites that talk about the “why” of gardens — and the reasons I like them. In one way or another, they have shaped my gardening choices and have made Serendipity Gardens what it is. In my post next week, I will focus on books that are more about the “how” of gardening.

Second Nature, by Michael Pollan. I like this book particularly because it is so well- reasoned and thoughtful (as all books by Pollan are). It was one of the first books I read on what it means to garden, why we do it, and what our relationship to nature is. Ultimately, I think, it finds the right balance between gardening for nature and gardening for oneself, the balance between using nature and damaging it. ... Read More

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Thoughts about “Going Native” in Serendipity Gardens

Jo Ellen Roe March 25, 2014 0 Comments

Alien and native

Quite a few years ago, I learned how much I enjoy watching the antics of birds and frogs in Serendipity Gardens. I patted myself on the back because I did not use pesticides, did not rake leaves in the fall, and left lots of seedheads for birds through the winter. “I am gardening for wildlife, and I want to share my expertise on this topic with others,” I said to myself. Thus I began Serendipity Gardens, the blog.

How little I knew!

Being coached (thanks to Molly Greene)  that Twitter would be one of the best ways to draw traffic to my blog, I began looking for Tweeps to follow who were interested in wildlife gardening. Suddenly, I was in a whole new world, and I realized that my own garden, with its mixture of native and alien plants that you can see in this photo, was not nearly the haven for wildlife that I had assumed it was (though it does host quite a few).  ... Read More

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