Snow and Ice on the way? Learn about de-icers

I mentioned the other day that one of the great environmental benefits of this mild winter is that there hasn't been much need for the use of de-icers. Most de-icing products contain high levels of salt, which can be detrimental to the environment. But with the prediction of snow and ice on the way, now may be a good time to think about the use of de-icers and how they affect our environment. What kind of de-icers do you use?

Here's a great document about chemical deicers and how they affect the Chesapeake Bay.

Today is Laugh and Get Rich Day

Did you know that today is Laugh and Get Rich Day? Well, according to Chase’s Calendar of Events (and the other resources that I use to see what’s happening each day), it is. But it took me awhile to find out the origin of the “holiday”. And in the process, I found another great blog to follow to keep me “up-to-date” on the dates.

The blog Lisa Loves Holidays has this explanation for a day that I plan to take full advantage of! Here is an excerpt from the Lisa Loves Holidays blog about:

Laugh and Get Rich Day

Celebrated every year on February 8th. Laugh and Get Rich Day is predicated upon the principal that, in the business world, if you have a good sense of humor it can have a positive influence on your success. Laugh and Get Rich Day is based on the teachings of the best selling book Laugh and Get Rich, How To Profit From Humor in Business written by retail expert and marketing guru, Rick Segel. In an article on the Rick Segel and Associates website, Mr. Segel says, "Many times the biggest thing that differentiates our business is the 'Likeability Factor' of our business. The fastest way to likeability is with the use of Fun, Humor, and Playful Behavior."

We all know that being around a person who can make people laugh (especially one who uses humor in good taste) makes us feel good inside, and we feel more positive toward that person, which could potentially be good for that person's bottom line.

Ending Nature Deficit Disorder – Richard Louv coming to Virginia

I’ve mentioned Richard Louv on this blog before. He is a best-selling author whose book Last Child in the Woods helped sparked an international movement to reconnect children with nature. Mr. Louv offers a vision  of the future, in which our lives are as immersed in nature as they are in  technology. This future offers better psychological, physical and spiritual  health for people of every age.

The Piedmont Environmental Council, in celebration of their 40th anniversary, is bringing  Louv  to the Piedmont for two exciting presentations.

The first program will be  March 14th at 7pm at Tuscarora High School in Leesburg

The second is March 15th at 7pm at The Paramount Theater in Charlottesville

Tickets are only $12.00 for adults and $8.00 for students and they are expected to sell quickly, so reserve yours today and  mark your calendar!

For more information and to Order Your Tickets, visit the Piedmont Environmental Council website.

10 Ways that the mild winter might make spring and summer a bummer

Are you enjoying this mild winter? I know I am. Lower heating bills, fewer car accidents, less damage caused to the environment from the use of de-icing products. And there are plenty of gardeners out there taking advantage of these mild temperatures to get an early start on their spring gardens.

But if you are like me, you are probably wondering what this mild spring might mean for the rest of the year. And since I found quite a few NEGATIVES that might result from the beautiful days we have been experiencing for the past few months, my advice to you is Seize the Day! Get out and enjoy.

10 ways the mild winter might make spring and summer a bummer

1. A mild winter could mean more rats in the spring. A mild winter means that fewer rats and mice die from natural causes, so more will be seen in the spring. Follow this link for tips on rat control.
2. Mild winters could bring more insects in the spring - Jody Gangloff-Kaufmann, a professor of entomology and a specialist with the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program says,“If the winter of 2011-12 continues in the mild pattern that most of the U.S. has seen, I think 2012 will be a very buggy year.”
3. Mild winters affect food crops (which could mean higher priced produce)- Fruits such as peaches require “chill hours” for trees to bloom and produce good fruit.
4. Mild winter could mean earlier allergy season - a mild winter may cause trees to pollinate earlier and bring an early start to the allergy season, and potentially a longer season (American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology 2007).
5. Mild winter may bring more deer to your garden in the spring - David W. Wolfe, a professor of plant and soil ecology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the chair of the Climate Change Focus Group in the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future says, “A mild winter will mean bigger deer populations in the spring because the deer have more to eat with less snow cover and more vegetation exposed for them to feed on all winter.”
6. More invasive weeds – “It also will benefit some insect pests and invasive weeds like kudzu that normally are killed back during winter because of severe cold.” (Wolfe)
7. More fungi - Over 80 percent of our plant diseases are caused by fungi. A mild winter allows those fungal spores and structures to live on more, decaying moist plant parts.
8. Warm winters can confuse our plants - “Warmer winter temperatures can also confuse our plants that are expecting to get cold and stay cold until spring,” Richard Hentschel, U of Illinois Extension horticulture specialist. “We often see this in early spring bulbs and tender perennials that try to start to grow too early and damaged by frosts and drops in temperatures below freezing.”
9. Warm winter can actually make plants deacclimate to the cold, so they are weaker for subsequent winters.
10. Less natural new plant life - with stratification officially on hold with this nice weather its very possible that nuts and some wild plant seeds will simply not germinate well.  It won't be the end of the world but if you've put something in the ground with the hopes that it will stratify I hate to say it but you might want to dig it up and use your freezer instead.

Recovering the Native Lupine Population in Maryland - AWS Lecture Series

Interested in protecting native wildflowers? Join the Anacostia Watershed Society (AWS) on Wednesday, February 15, for their next Lecture Series event and learn about the unique habitats where Maryland's remaining lupines (Lupinis perennis) grow, the factors responsible for their decline, and the successful efforts that are being made to save them. Presenter Sara Tangren is an instructor of Soils and Environmental Policy at Johns Hopkins University, and founder of the native gardening effort at the University of Maryland campus in College Park. AWS Lecture Series: Recovering the Native Lupine Population in Maryland Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Time: 7:00pm - 9:00pm Location: AWS Office 4302 Baltimore Avenue Bladensburg, MD RSVP to: The Anacostia Watershed Society Office: (301) 699-6204 E-mail: info@anacostiaws.org Website: http://www.anacostiaws.org/ Information provided by Kathy Jentz, Editor, Washington Gardener Magazine

Tomorrow’s Landscapes: More Birds, Bees & Butterflies for your Garden

Here’s an upcoming, full-day conference that some of you might be interested in. It is on April 14, 2012 from 7:30am – 4:30pm at the Brandt Student Union at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA.

The Piedmont-Blue Ridge Horticulture Society & Shenandoah University have teamed up to present “Tomorrow’s Landscapes: More Birds, Bees & Butterflies for your Garden” with six nationally acclaimed speakers.

• Doug Tallamy - Author of Bringing Nature Home
• Janet Scott Davis - Owner of Hill House Nursery
• Vincent Simeone - Director of Planting Fields Arboretum
• Jeff Lowenfels - Author of Teaming with Microbes
• Jim McCormac - Wildlife Expert
• Stephen Orr - Author of Tomorrow's Garden

Space is limited and registration is $99 until March 1st. Here is a link for more information.

National Bird Feeding Month

Tomorrow may be the ground hog’s big day, but the rest of February belongs to the birds.

In 1994, John Porter, a former United States Representative from Illinois, proclaimed February as National Bird Feeding Month. This resolution was passed in an effort to help encourage people to discover the  fun and beneficial hobby of backyard bird feeding.

When I was a kid, I thought that bird watchers were real nerds. But now I start each day singing a different tune – and it is often accompanied by birdsong.

Backyard birding has been called one of the fastest growing outdoor sports in the nation. According to the  National Survey of Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (FHWAR), in 2006  more than 71 million people said that they enjoy wildlife watching and over 68 million  of them say that they do it around their homes. The report also says that these wildlife-watchers spent over $45 billion dollars on their hobby.  If I’m a nerd, I’m obviously one of many.

What I think is great about backyard birding is that it helps encourage people to take care of the planet. Once you start attracting wildlife to you yard, you soon learn that they like native plants and they DON’T like chemicals (such as pesticides, herbicides, etc.)

So if you aren’t already a bird watcher, I encourage you to give this fast growing hobby a peep – I mean a peak. It doesn’t take much of an investment to get started and winter is a great time to provide a little extra nourishment to neighborhood birds. Put out a bird bath or other water source or buy an inexpensive feeder and a bag of seed. Make sure that they are out of the reach of wandering cats or other predators. And then sit back and enjoy the music!

• 10 tips for Creating a Wildlife Friendly Landscape
• Autumn in the Garden – Great Time for Backyard Birding
• Tips for Helping Chilly Critters

Maryland Statistics -
Total wildlife-watching participants . . . . . 1,491,000
Around-the-home participants . . . . . . . .  1,322,000
Total expenditures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $633,699,000

Virginia Statistics -
Total wildlife-watching participants . . . . . 2,312,000
Around-the-home participants . . . . . . . .  2,082,000
Total expenditures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $960,190,000

How I became a bird nerd

February is National Bird Feeding Month, so I thought I would write a post about how I got interested in bird watching.

I’ve always liked nature and wildlife but my interest really took off back in the early 1970’s.

My mother came home from a trip to Oklahoma and told me that my Aunt Fran (aka Miss Fran from Story Land if you grew up out there) had her yard certified as a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Backyard Wildlife Habitat . Knowing my Aunt Fran (she’s one of my idols), she may have been one of the first people in the country to do so. I thought it was so cool, that I wanted to have my yard certified too. So I learned, from the NWF, what I needed to do to help attract wildlife. I made my yard wildlife friendly by adding elements that provided food, water, shelter and places to raise young and by eliminating the many dangers that could harm the wildlife.

One of the first things I learned to do, of course, was to eliminate chemicals from my landscape. Chemicals in the landscape can harm birds, bees, hummingbirds, beneficial insects and even human critters and once I cut them out, a lot more wildlife species began hanging around. I also learned the benefits of adding native plants, which are usually great sources for feeding local wildlife.

My yard began attracting birds and butterflies and life was good.

A few years later, I was writing for the home & garden section of a local newspaper and I suggested that the editor let me write about the Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program. I got to visit many certified Backyard Wildlife Habitats in the area and seeing what those very eco-minded people had done with their yards just added fuel to the wildlife-loving fire in my heart.

That was the beginning of a whole new relationship with nature and the environment for me. Once I got up close and personal with wildlife, I started learning more and more ways to protect the critters, which meant learning how to protect the environment. I gave workshops to teach other people how to create environmentally friendly landscapes. And some of those people went on to train others.

I guess you can say that the seed that the NWF planted in me, to protect the environment, took root and has had a far-reaching effect.

Many people have heard of the Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program (which is now called the Certified Wildlife Habitat Program), but most of them probably don’t know that the program started from an article that they had in the April 1973 issue of National Wildlife Magazine. The article encouraged people to landscape and garden in a more sustainable, natural way, with wildlife in mind, to help restore the ecological balance of the planet.

Response to the article was so overwhelming that NWF began the Certified Wildlife Habitat™ program (originally known as Backyard Wildlife Habitat program) that same year to educate people about the benefits, for both people and wildlife, of creating and restoring natural landscapes.

There are currently over 140,000 NWF Certified Wildlife Habitats in the country and just from my own experience, I would guess that a good percentage of those property owners have made major changes to their gardening practices that have ended up having a significant positive impact on the planet.

So in honor of National Bird Feeding Month, I encourage you to take a closer look at nature. Cut down on the chemicals in your landscape. Plant some native plants. And learn to share your yard with the critters that were here before you!

10 Tips for Creating a Wildlife Friendly Garden

“When it comes to the environment, our fates are the same”. FY11 “Green” report card for DC

The District Department of the Environment recently released their FY11 Accomplishments Report which lists the many ways that Washington DC government is working hard with citizens and organizations to keep DC “clean, vibrant and healthy for future generations.” It’s another one of those documents that I really wish I could publish here, in its entirety. But since I can’t, I encourage you to download the document and at least skim it to learn about all of the great things going on in DC.

Here are a few excerpts:

Green Together [teamwork, friends and funds]
Individuality defines who we are. We are unique. One in billions. Yet, the billions of us have one thing in common: our planet earth. When it comes to the environment, our fates are the same. We share the sun. We breathe the same air. Whether we believe the “butterfly affect” – a theoretical example of a hurricane’s formation being contingent on whether a distant butterfly flaps it’s wings – as hard fact science or just poetic metaphor, we, as a collective force, have much more influence over climate change, for example, than we could ever imagine.

• The District is #1 per capita in the amount of LEED certified and ENERGY STAR buildings.
  
• The District uses more green power than any other jurisdiction in the US EPA Green Power Community.
  
• The District has the largest bicycle share program in the country and is second in the country in the number of commuters who walk to work and take transit.
  
• The DDOE WPD's RiverSmart team had an outstanding FY11. TheRiverSmart Schools team worked with five District public schools to identify, plan, and construct low impact development (LID) retrofits and outdoor learning gardens, and funded numerous teacher trainings on effective use of schoolyard gardens in the school's curriculum.
  
• Through its grantees—the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Casey Trees, and DC Greenworks—DDOE installed 575 rain barrels, permeable pavers on 14 driveways and patios, and 180 rain gardens; and planted 151 native plant gardens and 681 trees. Collectively the practices installed in FY11 through RiverSmart Homes are treating 21 acres of land in the District.

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Trees Tame Stormwater - cool interactive map

Okay. I know I said I was going to quit writing about trees for awhile, but sometimes trees - and great topics about trees - just sprout right up and can't be ignored.

 I found this cool interactive map on the Arbor Day Foundation website that shows you the benefits that planting trees has on preventing stormwater runoff. 

You can use the slider at the top of the graphic to show the difference that trees play in a landscape.

 As the site explains: Rain refreshes the land and nourishes the green landscape. But as houses, stores, schools, roads and parking lots spread and natural tree cover is lost, so is the absorbing effect of vegetation and soil. The welcome rain becomes costly stormwater runoff. Without the benefit of trees and vegetated infrastructure, waterways are polluted as oils, heavy metal particles and other harmful substances are washed away. Fish and wildlife suffer, drinking water becomes expensive or impossible to reclaim, property values are reduced, and our living environment is degraded.

Placing the slider at the far left, with few trees, shows a fairly bland landscape with popup boxes that explain the various consequences such as overwhelmed sewer systems. Moving the slider to the right not only shows a beautifully, wooded town, but also explains many of the benefits that I listed in my previous post of today, 20 More Benefits of Trees Hop on over to the Arbor Day Foundation website and check out the map. They also have beautiful pdf versions of the files that can be downloaded and printed.