The Natural Environment

There’s something special about small flowers. As I was admiring the red columbine, the Ted Talk, Let Your Garden Grow Wild by Rebecca McMackin, showed up on my feed. I highly recommend to watch it. It’s about 12 minutes and the information so helpful to understand why a garden is more than pretty flowers.

The short story about this area of our garden is that we planted native plants that like shade under a large pine tree for easy maintenance and land restoration. I decided to plant a native garden under the tree after I learned all these details (mentioned in the video) last year through the Environmental Steward program at Rutgers University. Nothing was growing under the shade and pine cones until we planted native plants. We included a variety of plants so there’s something in bloom every season.

This spring the first colors are beginning to show. Red columbine is a native wildflower in the northeast. The tiny flowers are hard to photograph, but the color combination is great. Look at that red and yellow! It’s a welcoming treat for the Ruby-throated hummingbird when it travels back home after the winter. Rebecca McMackin explains it beautifully in the video.

While talking about the garden, one of our neighbors told us that she was happy to see a hummingbird around because she hasn’t seen one in a long time. The thing about pollinators is that if you plant a garden with them in mind, they find you. I’m looking forward to seeing hummingbirds in our garden again this year — for the Earth and for our wellbeing.