Publications — techniques

Creating a wildflower meadow, even a small one, is an excellent way to enhance the ecological and ornamental value of your garden. Not only does it add a touch of natural beauty to your outdoor space, but it is also a powerful way to support biodiversity!

April 4, 2023 Spring is here, and with it comes the urge to clean up our gardens and remove all the dead plant material from the previous year. However, it is important to resist this urge, at least for a little while longer, and leave some of the debris in place to protect the pollinators that have taken refuge there for the winter! Many pollinators, including bees, butterflies, and other insects, spend the winter in dead leaves, plant stems, and other debris in our gardens. More than 70% of bee species nest in the ground! By removing this material too...

January 20, 2022 Many native and wild plants, such as anise hyssop or common milkweed, need a period of cold stratification to germinate in spring. In nature, some plants have developed brilliant mechanisms to protect themselves and avoid germinating in the fall before the onset of winter or too early in the spring. These self-seeding plants will remain dormant until the right conditions for germination are present.  As you can imagine, the easiest way to stratify seeds is to plant them in the fall and let nature do the work.  
However, since we often plan our crops and order seeds...