In the fall of 2016, after the meadow plugs were planted and the drought finally ended, I thought I had something going.  The following spring, I cleared more space, planted more native plants, and the garden began to take shape.  The lawn was receding, the …

What surprises me most is the year-to-year persistence of some weeds.  I did not recognize how fertile was this area of Flintstone, Georgia, in what’s also called Chattanooga Valley. It does not suffer from the unnatural sterility of many neighborhoods where house-by-house, repeated treatments with …

How does one transform a 2.5 acre plot of invasive plants, mostly lawn, into a sustainable native landscape? This turns out to be a more complicated and enduring problem than I would have thought. To work out the solution, it is helpful to step back …

This blog germinated after many months of reflection on my 40-plus years of work in the landscape. Clearly, the most fundamental and compelling changes that occurred during those years were all informed by an evolved understanding of my relationship with nature. The first of these …

This blog is not a scientific journal, nor a how-to-guide to landscaping with native plants.  It is, rather, a story that chronicles the building of a native landscape, and it would be best be read by starting with the first post and proceeding forward in …