Wanted: Ecosystem Outlaw Don’t be fooled by this outlaw! With buckthorn’s ability to quickly grow into dense, thorny, thicket-forming hedges, you may love how it keeps your neighbors from seeing you with your hair sticking straight up while taking the dog out to the backyard first thing in the morning, but, this is one clever...Read More

Did you know that dirt is dead soil? Dirt is “parent” material: rocks, minerals, silt, clay. Soil is dirt formed by innumerable living micro-organisms, organic matter, and abiotic factors such as wind and water. Soil is a complex, living, breathing ecosystem.Read More

Build an Aldo Leopold Bench While Aldo Leopold is best known for his writing, teaching, and work regarding his forward-thinking “land ethic,” back in the early part of the last century, he also designed a nifty little bench. His design is a reflection of simplicity, functionality, oneness with nature, and surprising timelessness.Read More

As daylight transitions to nighttime “electric daylight,” the cosmos above never fully reveal themselves to most of us. According to the article, The End of Night, in the digital journal, aeon, “More than 60 per cent of the world, and fully 99 per cent of the U.S. and Europe, lives under a yellowy sky polluted...Read More

Did you know stormwater does not go to a wastewater treatment facility? Pollutants that go down the storm drain on the streets where you live, such as salt, grass clippings, leaves, pet waste, fertilizers, pesticides, and residue from automobiles, are funneled untreated to the nearest waterbody.Read More

You love your pooch but its waste is an environmental pollutant—so much so that the EPA has put it in the same category as herbicides and insecticides; oil, grease and toxic chemicals. Always bag it up and throw it in the trash (or flush it down the toilet if you have petit pooch poo and...Read More

It’s hard for many gardeners to resist “cleaning up” their gardens in the fall or spring. But many moths and butterflies overwinter as caterpillars, pupae, and even adults in the soil surface, leaf litter, dead plants, twigs, and other hiding places in the garden. Other insects such as native bees, beetles, and more, need “messy”...Read More

Did you know that unused medicines flushed down the toilet cannot be fully removed by our water treatment facilities? According to Scientific American (“External Medicine: Discarded Drugs May Contaminate 40 MillionRead More

Living Next Door to the Avian Superhighway Those who live near rivers in our metro area are fortunate to live alongside one of the world’s most amazing bird migratory routes: The Mississippi Flyway. Every year, over 325 bird species migrate from their breeding grounds in Canada to their wintering grounds in the Gulf of Mexico,...Read More

Pictures tell most of this story. Property owners in an east suburb carved out a section of their property and transformed it into a wildlife haven in just a year. Milkweed that had always grown on the property were supplemented with a variety of Minnesota native plants. The following season, the planting was bursting with...Read More