The rush to tidy yards in early spring through leaf removal disrupts the delicate balance of nature's cycles. Premature cleanup harms plants, deprives wildlife of habitat and food sources, and undermines ecosystem health. In this blog post, Francesca reminds us to pause and allow nature to thrive. 

Update: applications are now closed. ReWild Long Island invites applications from community groups interested in creating and maintaining sustainable public garden spaces. We offer a short and painless process to apply for and gain our support. Our program is targeted at enabling small groups of motivated people to gain access to skills, design, education, plants, regular on-site maintenance advice and professional consultations needed to make a rewilded garden project successful. Whether you represent a small garden club, school, faith community such as a church, community club, or a well-established non-profit, you are welcome to apply.

ReWild Long Island seeks a full-time Gardens Project Manager. This full-time position combines a number of synergistic roles, including garden designer, consultant and installer as well as educator and administrator. It is a hybrid position with outdoor hands-on group work, as well as remote work administering and co-ordinating programs. This full-time position may also be shared between two part-time employees, one taking the garden focused role, and the other more focused on administration.

The growing season is coming to an end. How to shut the gardens down for winter - what to do and what not to do? Here is a recording of a talk by expert Maggie Muzante as she goes over the steps needed to prepare your garden for the winter along with what you can do to promote a better, more resilient garden for years to come.

Insects are often categorized as "good" or "bad" based on their interactions with humans, but is this thinking useful? Many of the insects around us are both beloved and feared, but they play an essential part in our ecosystem as pollinators, predators, recyclers, and so much more. Jared Dyer, Entomologist from Cornell Cooperation Extension of Suffolk County, delves into the multifaceted role that insects play in both nature and human society, and how we can live with them—because we can’t live without them.

About six years ago Valerie started a pollinator garden on a small strip of partially manicured land in front of her canal side tiny co-op. As with many that have planted natives, Val is bewitched by the colors, shapes and activity of an ecosystem that spings magically to life.

“Squeezing myself between pleats I snuggle within these petals of safety until the glare of daylight smooths me like a hot iron and I drift to the winds of my intuition floating on the thermal of a rare nothing to do day until I land on a mural I have yet to paint. “

Read on to discover her closely observed new world …

We live in a miraculous world. A small seed will sprout and become a plant or a great tree. However, seeds have evolved to require specific conditions — temperature, moisture, season, etc — to germinate.

This blog post is about home germination of native plant seeds so you can propagate and grow your own native garden. Not only does this cost less, done right, it can be educational and fun!

The author of this blog, Catherine Halpern, fell in love with the process of germinating seeds. In this post, she breaks it down into easy steps for the winter!

A garden is a place of solace and connection with Nature. It is also a place for exploration and education. Three lifelong gardeners and recent Master Gardener SCCE graduates set out to plant and maintain a native garden in Huntington.

In this blog piece, Master Gardeners Alexandra,  Carolyn, and Hope discuss how they were inspired to start and finish the Kubeka Garden project with a little help from ReWild Long Island.

New and experienced ReWilders ask about resources around sustainable landscaping. Rather than try to recreate well-known national resources like wildflower.org, we have chosen to compile local answers relevant to Long Island. Sustainable landscaping is relatively new, and there is much to experiment and learn. Your land, your soil, your sun and water situation may dictate your success. In that light, we love to feature the experience of other rewilders on Long Island as the basis of what may (and may not) work for you.

If you have a story or experience to share, please send it to us. If you spot an error, please let us know. This faq is only as good as the community that informs us!