Garden Notes: Late summer harvest
It always provokes a bit of a negative response to walk full-face into a sticky spiderweb stretching invisibly across some shadowy corner of the garden. Doing some weekend gardening to get in the mood...
What’s in your backyard?
BiodiversityWorks, founded by wildlife biologist Luanne Johnson, is an organization whose mission is to promote conservation through wildlife research and monitoring, and to provide opportunities for people to engage with nature. One of the...
Wild Side: On the hunt
On the long list of insects I’d like to see, one species near the top is the Northern mole cricket, Neocurtilla hexadactyla. The only known Vineyard representative of a small taxonomic family, Gryllotalpidae, that’s...
Garden Notes: Late summer
As summer moves through its solar cycle, nights are cooler with dew, shadows are deeper, and midday sun intensifies with infrared rays. It feels like early fall weather, which children greet with groans of...
Wild Side: A new Vineyard resident
Climate change stands out as the greatest current threat to biodiversity. But when discussing nature, it’s axiomatic that no matter how dire a threat, some species manage to benefit from the changing conditions.
A recent...
Garden Notes: Summer chores
Vitex seems impossibly bluer than ever, this year. Surprise lilies, Lycoris squamigera, do literally surprise, as they suddenly pop up. Island gardens and sidewalks are adorned with the bountiful burst of bloom of rose-of...
Wild Side: Tiger beetles
A favorite activity for my wife and I is canoeing on the Vineyard’s bays and great ponds. Our canoe is a lumbering brute, heavy, flat-bottomed, and broad-beamed, an old boat already when we bought...
Garden Notes: Keeping the flowering alive
August is the high point of Island summer, and the M.V. Agricultural Society’s Agricultural Fair (August 15, 16, 17, 18) is the high point of August. Deadlines loom for making serious floral and vegetable...
Wild Side: The stealthy robber fly
Among the most impressive members of the family Asilidae — that is, the robber flies — the genus Laphria poses something of a puzzle on Martha’s Vineyard. We’ve got vast amounts of seemingly suitable...
Seeds that know the Island
Native plants produce seeds ready to live here. Sure, planting requires care and attention, but anyone is capable, and not just in specialized greenhouses, but on back porches, balconies, and home gardens; all you...
Garden Notes: Carry in, carry out
One finds all sorts of crazy trash in scenic Island spots. “Carry in, carry out” is a good precept for a place like the Vineyard, with heavy visitor pressure.
Unfortunately, our guests, and some residents,...
Wild Side: Bee happy
With more than 200 species of bees having been documented on Martha’s Vineyard, it’s no surprise that our bee fauna exhibits a huge amount of variation. Large and small, social and solitary, specialist and...
Garden Notes: Our terrifying friend, the white-faced hornet
Fourth of July rolls around once again, and the Season officially begins. Fireflies spotted here on June 18. Midsummer and June’s last weeks were struck by July-like heat and humidity; there were some showers...
Wild Side: Planting for wildlife
As environmental awareness grows among the general population, and as the benefits that can come from creating even small-scale wildlife resources grow more apparent, I’m often asked for advice on plants to use for...
Garden Notes: Your garden can aspire to rise
As we enter summer, Ron Rappaport’s death tears a large hole in the fabric of Island life. He and his partners in Edgartown maintained beautiful trees and plantings at the Cooke Street headquarters, a...
Wild Side: Eye of the naturalist
Sometimes described as the founder of American ornithology, Alexander Wilson (1766–1813) was a naturalist and painter of prodigious talent. The nine volumes of his magisterial “American Ornithology,” released between 1808 and 1814, portray 268...
A blooming century!
Spring has sprung, and the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club is buzzing with activity as it gears up for the summer season. The club, with its 207 members, is honoring its centennial with various offerings...
Garden Notes: Catching up to June
The rains, the weather, all seem to have converged to create wonderful gardens this spring. Now it is June, and the season hurtles along. Seed-started zinnias and nasturtiums are in the ground; lupines and...
Wild Side: The Discreet, Though Plentiful, Red-Eyed Vireo
Standing on a hilltop in the woodland of the Chilmark moraine this past weekend, I experienced a single, dominant impression: Red-eyed vireo is one seriously common bird on Martha’s Vineyard. One of our later...
Garden Notes: Spring in full fragrance
Tonight’s full moon is called the Flower Moon. Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and the hardy garden fragrance plants are at their height. Is there any other time of year so flowery and...