Milkweed & its Many Insect Visitors
Milkweed played such an important medicinal role in the Americas that in 1753 Carl Linneaus, the father of taxonomy, named the milkweed family after Asclepias, the Greek God of medicine.
As native plant enthusiasts, we all know and love our milkweed plants and the wonderful monarch butterflies they host.
But do you know other insects that find a home on your milkweed at different times of the year?
Rebecca Vargas goes through the different stages of milkweed and the fascinating insects that appear at different times on your plants.
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Thanks to all our Volunteers in 2020
Happy New Year and thank you for your continued support of ReWild Long Island.
ReWild Long Island had a busy and productive 2020 in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic. We distributed and planted native perennials, launched a youth summer program to fight hunger and climate change, composted and recycled, zoom conferenced and made bokashi bran, masked and socially distanced, and finally, celebrated the end of a really challenging but productive year.
Our shout out to our amazing members, donors, volunteers and rewilders! We thank you for your continued support in 2021 😊
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ReWild Announces Board Appointments
ReWild Long Island is thrilled to welcome two new Directors to the Board: Liz Skolnick of Sag Harbor and Brooklyn and Kathy Coley of Port Washington.
With the rapid growth of interest in sustainable landscaping, ReWild Long Island has been busy expanding our activities. The addition of Liz and Kathy to the board increases our capacity to conceive of new projects and execute on the vision of replacing conventional landscapes with more native plants, organic produce, as well as soil building and water conservation.
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Fall Leaves: Bag the Bagging
Every Fall, outside your door, there is a huge bonanza of nutrients for your garden and plants. Every year this is free and readily available . We are talking about leaves. Instead of raking, blowing, bagging and sending leaves to the landfill, they can be used the enrich the plants and soil. Since fall leaves contain a lot of carbon and other important micro nutrients they make great mulch, compost, and even lawn fertilizer.
Paul Merkelson who leads ReWild Compost Committee discusses how you can save yourself work and help your yard!
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Jannine's Backyard Pond and Native Garden
When Janine moved into her East Islip home 9 years ago, she always looked at this drab far corner of the yard and imagined a little pond there. It would be small and peaceful, with a sweet little waterfall and a few little goldfish. The idea was always too complicated, too expensive, and too difficult to attempt!
She says, “Enter 2020, Covid-19, home-schooling, murder hornets and quarantine. As a healthcare worker during the most unique and stressful time of my career, I decided there was no time like the present to expand my native pollinator garden …”
Read on to see the amazing transformation of Jannine’s yard even as she battled Covid on the front-lines as a health care worker while home-schooling her two daughters!
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SUMMER PROGRAM TO FIGHT HUNGER AND CLIMATE CHANGE
We are happy to announce the first year of Student Internships to Fight Hunger and Climate Change. These internships are targeted towards High School Students who are motivated to work outdoors in nature, while benefiting people, plants, bees, birds and butterflies.
The program runs from July to October and requires a minimum commitment of 4 hours a week in Port Washington, NY.
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It's About Thyme: Get Rid of that Lawn!
Charles Maass is a Civil Engineer living in Manhasset on Long Island. He grew up in this lawn and tree loving community, and now lives with his wife and two sons. His interests include reading and triathlon training. Most importantly, he has always hated his turf grass lawn, and finally replaced it with a beautiful carpet of creeping thyme. Here is how he did it …
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The Monarch of April
This blog post was sparked from a startling observation–a monarch butterfly in my backyard (in April). To most this doesn't seem like an issue. It was spring after all, and with warming temperatures come butterflies. The monarch butterfly, however, should not be in Southern New York until mid May, so why was this symbolic pollinator in my yard in late April?
Max Goldman, high school senior and nearly lifelong port Washington resident and environmentalist, has contributed this observation on phenological mismatch, on his observing a lone Monarch way too early in the season. Freak of nature or something more systemic and insidious?
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Thanks ReWilders and Volunteers
Thanks to all ReWilders, and especially volunteers, who made our Spring 2020 ReWild Native Plant Sale a great success. We distributed over 2500 plants to 80 ReWilding homes including beautiful phlox, wild bergamont, foxglove, milkweed, elderberries and fragrant chokeberries. This was our most successful event so far, and we estimate that 45 families are new to adding native plants to your yards.
Our thanks also to Rusty Schmidt and Cassandra Castano of Nelson Pope and Vorhees, who did all the hard work behind the scenes, co-ordinating between nurseries and their ever-changing inventory!
See below for some of the photos of the events ….
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From Garbage to Garden: Composting Workshop with Brenda Platt
Did you know you can compost your kitchen scraps and yard trimmings right in your backyard?You don't need any fancy equipment (although there are benefits to an enclosed system). Successful composting at home is all about making the beneficial microbes that live in a composting pile happy. Like us, theyneed air, water, and food.
Brenda Platt, the director of the Composting for Community Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance shared the basics and tips to getting started for the ReWild Long Island Community, and answered questions.
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Layering Wildscapes in Your Garden [Video]
Joyce Hostyn, an amazing ReWilder from Kingston, Ontario, had hosted a wonderful session on designing landscapes with native plants. We have her recorded session and links to more information in this blog post.
Joyce is a rewilder who dreams of city streets lined with fruit and nut trees, wild parks and wild yards. She sees each yard as a possibility space - one yearning to burst free from tightly controlled grass and foundation plantings to become a beautiful, biodiverse, magical wildscape populated with native species, edibles and companionable exotics. Raised on a farm where her family grew, foraged and preserved enough produce to last the year, Joyce now experiments with edible forest gardening on her lawn-free quarter acre lot (featured last summer in the Kingston-Whig Standard).
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New to Native Plant Parenthood? Read this ...
ReWilders have highly varying results when planting natives in their garden. A lucky few report 100% success, most of us are in-between, and an unfortunate few report all plants dying on them. This is not a matter of experience alone — there are very experienced gardeners who have known the desolation of plants that don’t come back up the following spring.
While we have not unlocked the keys to complete success, here are some tips that may help newcomers to native plant gardening have greater success.
And if you agree or disagree or want to add your tips or wisdom to this list, please email us with your ideas at info@rewildlongisland.org.
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On Earth Day : Curb Appeal and Earth Care Go Together
Phyllis Sickerman, a long term gardener and resident of Port Washington, NY, who started gardening 26 years ago primarily for nice curb appeal on her beautiful prominent front yard. Over time, she realized there was much more and moved on to perennial gardening. She says, “Gardening has become an Important part of my life providing me with an opportunity to bond with Mother Nature as well as helping and preserving Mother Earth!”
On the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day on Wednesday, April 22nd, Phyllis shares her rewilding experiences so that those starting out can be assured that earth care and curb appeal can definitely go together!
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Getting Started With Bokashi
Don’t throw away good food … or even bad food. Food scraps and yard waste need to be kept out of the landfill where they can contribute up to 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. That is also great organic matter that could go back into your garden helping raise your spring flowers or spring onions!
Raju and Paul have recently started experimenting with indoor food waste recycling using the Bokashi technique. This is an indoor fermentation method for creating compostable matter without any flies, smell, rodents or fuss …
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Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society Partners with ReWild Long Island
Cow Neck Peninsula Historical Society (CNPHS) has generously allowed ReWild Long Island (RWLI) the use of open garden space adjacent to the Thomas Dodge Homestead in Port Washington. ReWild plans to showcase native plants in the gardens, and promote the strong and growing demand for environmentally-friendly landscaping that increases bio-diversity and reduces the negative effects of the conventional approach to gardening.
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Welcome to Hicksville: Mindy and the Eagle Scout Project
Mindy Marcus is a long-time Long Island resident, and a Master Gardener. She and her husband Michael grow ornamental plants, a vegetable garden and have been adding Native plants to their gardens. They have a son Joey who in October of 2010 finished his Eagle Scout Beautification Project, at the Welcome to Hicksville Site on the corner of Levittown Parkway and Old Country Road. The family has upkept the site and adding plants and flowers since. Native plants as Joe Pye, Mountain Mint and Black-eyed Susan’s have been added to bring the pollinators and birds to the area and keep it a site of beauty and honor, to recognize all who serve.
Mindy reflects on her long road to ReWilding and what she learned on the way …
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Container ReWilding: Angie's Beautiful Backyard
Can you garden with no ground? Most people would be stopped in their tracks by tree roots choking up the back yard and not letting any plants come up. But not Angie Ng.
Angie took up gardening to relax and clear her mind. Over time she has added a number of delightful plants in containers, artistically arranged to great effect in her backyard. And now, she ReWilds with Containers in her beautiful backyard.
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Memories of Long Island: Randal Wolfer
Randal Wolfer, a long time Long Islander and Cornell Extension Master Gardener, recalls the steady loss of habitat and wildlife on Long Island. She writes, “I’ve been a Long Islander my entire life and can attest to the steady decline of our local insect and bird populations due to loss of habitat to lawns and formal gardens made up primarily of ornamental plants. While lovely to view, lawns provide no benefit to our native population of insects and animals, and use large quantities of water to keep them looking green. You won’t see insects butterflies or bees hanging around your lawn or ornamentals as they offer no nutritional value to them.”
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"Art and Garden" Event : A Resounding Success
A photo-video-journal of the “Art And Garden” Event on 22nd September 2019, where the Manes Center at the Nassau County Museum of Art teamed with ReWild Long Island to create an incredible day of Children’s illustrations, Storytime readings, Butterfly Workshops, Native Plants Sales and the planting of a Perennial Garden. Mindy Marcus, our reporter extraordinaire, reports from the scene …
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Labor of Love: Margaret and Charlie on their first ReWilding Experience
Margaret and Charlie DeSiervo are long time gardeners and advocates of sustainable practices. They ReWilded their yards in the past fall and reflect on the experience of designing, researching plants, preparing the yard, planting and then waiting for results. What worked for them and what did not?
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