Web Resources
National Museum of Natural History - Orchids Jan 29th - April 24, 2011
Landscape For Life
is based on the principles of The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™)
Philadelphia Horticulture Society announces 2011
Gold Medal Winners
Baltimore County Master Gardeners
Baltimore County Master Gardeners mission is to educate county residents about safe, effective, and sustainable horticultural practices that build healthy gardens, landscapes, and communities.
The Disappearing Heirloom Apples of North America
Did you know that nine out of ten apple varieties historically grown in the United States are at risk of falling out of cultivation and falling off our tables? Just one apple variety, the Red Delicious, now comprises 41% of the entire American apple crop. As the overall number of apple trees in cultivation declines to a fourth of what it was a century ago, the number of apple varieties considered threatened or endangered has peaked to 94%.
The first status report on the diversity and health of America’s favorite fruit – the apple – has been compiled by researchers working in an alliance called Renewing America’s Food Traditions (RAFT). RAFT researcher Gary Paul Nabhan and his team have recently published Forgotten Fruits Manual & Manifesto: Apples – a 31-page brochure detailing the history, decline, nursery practices and local restoration efforts to bring back our most endangered apple heirloom varieties. Download this manual from the Slow Food USA website.
Mistaken Identity? Invasive Plants and Their Native Look-Alikes
While some invasive plants are distinctive and easily recognized, many others are difficult to distinguish from one or more species of our native flora. For landowners, managers and the general public, identifying confusing invasive plants can be extremely difficult. Published in 2008 by the Delaware Department of Agriculture, Mistaken Identity? Invasive Plants and Their Native Look-Alikes; an Identification Guide for the Mid-Atlantic helps the non-specialist distinguish between invasives and their look-alike natives. This guide presents a complete side-by-side illustrated comparison of the key characters needed to confirm identification. For example, descriptive text and photos of the invasive White Mulberry Morus alba is contrasted with the native Red Mulberry Morus rubra. This handy 62-page guide is available online as a PDF file
Urban Farming Gets Real
The federal government and a slew of states are pursuing ways to not only officially recognize urban agriculture, but also to allow and promote urban farming activities. The Greening Food Deserts Act would create a Department of Urban Agriculture within the USDA and boost backyard conservation, community gardens and farmers markets. Maryland is leading the way for states with a fast moving bill that provides tax credits for land used for urban agriculture, and legislators in California are getting behind legislation that acknowledges fresh and healthy food as a “basic human right” and promotes opportunities for urban farms stands, farmers markets and direct farmer-to-consumer marketing. Georgia is looking at easing restrictions for private urban food production, Michigan is tying urban agriculture to economic growth and Oklahoma has an urban agriculture bill in play.
A guide to the selection of trees and shrubs in urban areas.
Treesearch — a TREEmendous Resource — and Free!
Are you looking for information on how urban trees improve air quality? Looking for studies on children’s perceptions of trees and nature? Do you want to know how to launch a successful street tree inventory? What about information on the benefits of parks and open spaces in communities? It’s all here in Treesearch, a web database of publications by research and development scientists in the United States Forest Service. The database contains over 30,000 publications.
Publications in the collection include research monographs published by the agency as well as papers written by Forest Service scientists but published by other organizations in their journals, conference proceedings, or books. Searching is easy — you can search by author, keyword, originating Forest station or date, using a Google search box. If you get stuck, consult the help pages. Best of all, your search results yield the citation, abstract and the full text of the publication.
Winter Reading Recommendations by Botanists
What “good reads” do botanists recommend to their students? This question appeared on a listserv for botanists, and the resulting bibliography of natural history books was posted on the Morton Arboretum web site. The books were chosen not only for their scientific content but also for their literary merit. Many of these “must-reads” -- including Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire, Amy Stewart’s Flower Confidential, Aldo Leopold’s classic A Sand County Almanac.
Where Do Butterflies Come From
http://jonesfalls.org/ Jones Falls Watershed Association : Jones Falls Watershed Association works to protect and restore the health and beauty of the Jones Falls Watershed through restoration, monitoring, advocacy, and citizen awareness
Explore Asia
Travel along with the plant explorers who delved into Asia in the early twentieth century. The Arnold Arboretum’s Botanical and Cultural Images of Eastern Asia, 1907-1927 will introduce you to these intrepid men and show you some of the beautiful images they captured on their journeys.
Go Gray for Green
Gray water is a great way to slake the thirst of your vegetable or flowerbed. Gray water is non-toilet waste water that you can reuse to water your plants. Before implementing your gray water recycling program, consult this factsheets from the University of Massachusetts or this video from Treehugger
National Wildlife Federation’s Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming. Learn how global warming is affecting USDA Zone maps. Review the site’s gardener’s pledge to help fight global warming by composting kitchen and garden waste, by contacting government officials, by developing a rain garden, and more.
A Deep Subject
Did you know that one teaspoon of soil contains more microbes than there are people in the world? For more interesting facts on soil and its importance in our lives, check out the Smithsonian’s online exhibit, “Dig It! The Secrets of Soil.”
PlantersPlace.com
Expert Tips for Smart Gardeners! This interactive format allows you to easily read, share with friends, and click on web links to get further resources.
Human Flower Project
It’s easy to take for granted the fragrant and beautiful role flowers play in our lives. The Human Flower Project aims to remind us of their connections to our religious rituals, secular customs, medicine, ecology, and other aspects of our life. This site is written by correspondents from three countries. You are invited to submit photos and content as well.
Dry Stone Walls Are Anything But Dry
Commonly found in the British Isles, dry stone walls are free-standing walls built without mortar on a foundation laid in a trench. Flora of Dry Stone Walls is a website dedicated to investigating and conserving the plants, lichen, and fungi that grow on these structures. Through text and photos, you can learn how these plants differ from those that grow on mortared walls, whether dry-stone-wall flora is distinct from the flora that grows in the area around the wall, and what you can do to help conserve these walls and the plant life they support.
University of Cambridge Takes You Back in Time
University of Cambridge’s Plant Evolution Timeline was originally designed for the plant scientists at Cambridge, but they have made a simpler version available to the public. Using their highly interactive site, you can trace the evolution of your favorite plants through various geologic and evolutionary events and eras. A quick orientation using the help pages is highly recommended before you begin your trip.
PHS Announces its 2009 Gold Medal Plants
Tracy DiSabato-Aust check out her web site. www.tracylive.com
PHS has made its annual selection of plants notable for their pest resistance, ease of growing, and beauty. Read about our 2009 winners: Chaste Tree, Japanese Hornbeam, Fragrant Sumac, Privet Honeysuckle, Spicebush, and Weeping Katsura. To learn more about this program and past winners, visit the web site.
Find a Daffodil
Searching for a photo of a daffodil? Look no further than DaffSeek. Sponsored by the American Daffodil Society, this website will provide not only the photos you are seeking, but also information on the flower’s hybridizer, season, height, pollen or seed parents, and more.
The Perfect Ten
The International Institute for Species Exploration of Arizona State University has announced its top 10 list of new species described in 2007. Among them are Tecticornia bibenda, a plant described as resembling the Michelin Man™, and Xerocomus silwoodensis, a fungus which has been found on a London college campus. The Institute and its partners also produce the State of Observed Species (SOS) report. The most recent edition, released this year, summarizes data on 16,969 species newly described in 2006.
A Medieval Garden Revealed
Peek over the walls of the Cloisters Museum and Garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Their blog, The Medieval Garden Enclosed will teach you about the symbolism of gardens during the Middle Ages, the plants commonly grown in them, and their uses. The blog features beautiful images of the gardens and of the items in the Museum’s collections. Its writers welcome your participation.
Soak Up Information on Rain Gardens
Rain gardens are a great way to reduce the pollution of our waterways from stormwater runoff. The mission of the Rain Garden Network is to be an informational and educational resource and advocate for anyone who would like to install a successful rain garden. The site offers articles on the benefits of rain gardens and the negative effects of water pollution, explains the water cycle, maintains listings of rain barrel sales, and presents other resources for teaching and learning about this important topic. Some of the content is fee-based, but much of it is free.
Your Planet: the Complete Course
Funded by Annenberg Media, The Habitable Planet is a multimedia site for adult learners and high school teachers and students interested in environmental science. Download the textbook and work through the course’s 13 units. Videos, photos, a glossary and interactive labs will reinforce what you learn.
Flutter by this Website
Treat your inner lepidopterist to a visit to Butterflies and Moths of North America, a database and website maintained by The Big Sky Institute at Montana State University and the NBII Mountain Prairie Information Node. Learn about these important pollinators, find out which are most common in your area with the map search feature, or just enjoy their beauty by browsing the image gallery.
Leaf through the Green Guide
First launched as a newsletter in 1994, National Geographic has expanded the Green Guide into a magazine. The Green Guide presents the latest processes, products, and technologies that are friendly to the environment. A subscription is required to access full digital or print content, but there is much available via the website. Check out the CO2 calculators to find the carbon dioxide given off by your daily activities. Then, minimize this output by following the tips.
Everything for the gardener! Resources, information, directories, tools, calculators, products, articles, photos, video, community, web specials and more.
A Great Resource for Information on Greening
Explore EBSCO’s GreenFILE. This freely accessible database provides citations and abstracts for approximately 295,000 articles on the positive and negative aspects of the relationship between humans and the environment. The full text of nearly 5,000 articles is available.
The Library of Congress Librarians Sleuths It Out
Have you ever wondered how grapefruit got its name, or what’s the world’s smallest flower? See the Library of Congress’ fun website, Everyday Mysteries. Here, you’ll find answers to these and other questions you’ve always had but never asked, thanks to the Library’s Science Reference Department. Links will also guide you to more resources on an interesting topic.
Happy Tercentenary, Albrecht von Haller!
Poet, botanist, physiologist, magistrate, and all-around polymath, Albrecht von Haller will celebrate in spirit the 300th anniversary of his birth on October 16, 2008. Visit Haller 300 to learn more about the man who started the botanical garden at the University of Göttingen, published a flora of Switzerland, and was one of the leading opponents of Linnaean nomenclature.
Root Words
If botanical terminology has you stumped, visit Garden Gate’s Glossary of Roots of Botanical Names. Here, you will learn that the Delphinium is so named because of its flowers’ resemblance to dolphins; and that the root “ludovic” means that a plant is native to the State of Louisiana.
You Grow Girl Keeps on Growing
Join blogger and author Gayla Trail in celebrating the eighth birthday of her project, You Grow Girl. Since 2000, Ms. Trail has maintained an online gardening community with a contemporary and environmental yet stylish and humorous approach. Visit the website
No Yard? No Problem!” Exclaims Washington Gardener Magazine
Free Plant Information Online
Plant Information Online, one of the best internet resources for botanical and horticultural information, once only available by subscription, is now free to the public. University of Minnesota Libraries maintains this huge database of botanical images, information, and plant and seed sources.
Catch Up on the Latest Botanical Research
Peruse New York Botanical Garden’s research pages .Their scientists have been doing research in the field since 1891. Learn what they have discovered during their nearly 2,000 expeditions about lichens or liverworts, ferns or frankincense.
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been diminishing the honeybee population across the country. Several interesting websites explain what a world without honeybees or other pollinators might be like. Explore National Biological Information Infrastructure’s Ecological Topics: Pollinators , Celebrating Wildflowers - Pollinators , or the National Academy of Sciences’ Resources on Pollinators to learn about this problem, and about the other animals that make our world productive.
Botany from British Columbia
Get your daily dose of botany from the University of British Columbia’s blog, Botany Photo of the Day. Treat yourself to a beautiful plant portrait and a few descriptive paragraphs each day. Blogger Dan Mosquin welcomes your comments and contributions.
Reacquaint Yourself with Rodale Institute
Help the Rodale Institute celebrate its 60th anniversary. Their website is full of current events, news, activities, and information on organic gardening for all ages.
Plants and People in the Workplace
Want to encourage your employer to incorporate more plants into your workplace? Consult the Plants for People website for facts on how plants in the workplace increase workers’ health, happiness, and productivity. The site also includes many plant-science activities for children.
MedlinePlus Herbal Medicine
Plants were our first medicines and are still used for that purpose today. The National Library of Medicine’s MedlinePlus Herbal Medicine site is a starting point for investigating the benefits and risks of herbal medicine, learning which plants treat which condition, and finding other information on this topic.
Nature Story
“Stories from the Heart of the Land” is a public radio show sponsored by the Nature Conservancy and Visa. Listen to stories of people interacting with nature all over the world and in ways you might not have imagined.
Just the Plants Ma’am
Meet Flora Delaterre, Plant Detective. She is a character created by the University of Montana who hosts the radio show “The Plant Detective.” Ms. Delaterre travels the globe to investigate medicinal plants and reports to you via her radio broadcasts and this colorful, informative website.
Sustainable Table – Serving Up Healthy Food Choices
Sustainable Table provides information and tools to help you shop smarter and eat healthier. Use this highly interactive site to learn why locally grown food is not only healthier for you and for the environment, but also more delicious.
Make Your Lawn Safe
SafeLawns was founded in 2006 to spread the word about the advantages of organic lawn care and gardening. Watch their instructional videos on how to care for your lawn organically. Use this knowledge to participate in the SafeLawns Challenge, a pledge to manage your lawn using organic methods. Your pledge will help Safe Lawns to reach their goal of one million acres managed organically by 2010.
New York Times health writer Jane Brody recently wrote about some of our most common poisonous plants especially the all-too-common Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). She interviewed Dr. Lewis S. Nelson, M.D., who co-wrote the Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants, a reference work written for health professionals that home gardeners should look at as well.
A Magic Hour
The National Wildlife Federation encourages parents to give their children a daily dose of nature through 60 minutes of unstructured time spent outdoors. Their Green Hour website features a blog, community pages, suggestions for activities, book lists, photography tips and articles on nature’s effects on children. Now that long summer days are here, you have no excuse for staying inside!
What’s the Buzz?
During summer evenings, you may find yourself enjoying a little night music. Identify chirps, buzzes and whistles and learn about the creatures that produce them on the Singing Insects of North America (SINA) website. Listen to the recorded songs of crickets, cicadas, and katydids and you’ll quickly become a fan.
Catalogue of Life Exceeds One Million Species
It seems fitting that during Linnaeus’s tercentenary year, Species 2000 and Interagency Taxonomic Information System’s Catalogue of Life has exceeded one million entries. The Catalogue of Life is the product of the collaboration of several governmental agencies, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, United States Department of Agriculture, and the Smithsonian Institution. This partnership has become known as the Interagency Taxonomic Information System, or ITIS. Its goal is to catalogue all Earth’s animal and plant species by 2011. They estimate that they are “just more than half done.” Click here to browse their impressive work so far.
Wildflower Power
The entire family can learn about wildflowers on the US Forest Service’s Celebrating Wildflowers, a website dedicated to instruction about and enjoyment of our nation’s wildflowers. Check in periodically for the Plant of the Week or Pollinator of the Month, and to update your children’s coloring books with the site’s coloring pages.
Kitchen Gardeners of the World, Unite!
If you enjoy growing and eating plants from your garden, visit Kitchen Gardeners International’s website. Their mission is “to empower individuals, families, and communities to achieve greater levels of food self-reliance through the promotion of kitchen gardening, home-cooking, and sustainable local food systems.” Perhaps you’d like to find a recipe, volunteer to participate in Kitchen Garden Day (August 26, 2007), or see a picture of people sporting asparagus costumes. You can do all this and more at the website.
Non-Native Plant Species in Maryland
www.dnr.state.md.us/wildlife/ieplists.asp
EPA climate change
www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html
Maryland Native Plant Society (MNPS)
http://www.mdflora.org/
About Maryland's Habitats
American Forests’ National Champion
http://www.americanforests.org/resources/bigtrees
Birds of Baltimore
University of Maryland Cooperative Extension's Home and Garden Information Center
.We offer free information to writers or callers about plants, pests, and other landscaping questions
1-800-342-2507 .