May 19 , 2025
Prairie Up! Benjamin Vogt: New Episode
Benjamin Vogt – writer , teacher and raw garden clothes designer – is on a missionary post . He want to engage an ever - grow community of nurseryman who essay to understand the connectivity between plants and wildlife . Through his books , A New Garden Ethic , civilize Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain FutureandPrairie Up : An Introduction to Natural Garden Design , he guides our physical process to beautiful , naturalistic plantings in our own M . John Hart and I were thrilled that Benjamin could join us via Zoom from his nursing home in Nebraska where he defied the lawn and foundation shrub convention for a picturesque tapestry of high hue grasses and flower . “ I call back particularly now in these time , we ’re doing this horticulture work because we ’re seeking this connecter , we ’re seeking to build this community . And building community with works , with the wildlife that come to them just seems like Life 101 , right ? ” he allege . In hisbooks , online category , and webinars , Benjamin weaves together philosophy , skill , and rage with how - to nitty spirited , planting techniques , innovation architectural plan , and plant lists . He ’s a hands - on poet who have it away why we shun found one - congius nursery toilet in favour of plugs : “ The effort of digging into thick sloppy corpse where the top soil ’s been strip off after build a new home ! ” ( And in Central Texas , that can be sticky the Great Compromiser or limestone bedrock ! )
And above all , observation and compassion . “ When I ’m outside with my boy listening to doll , we ’re trying to think ‘ what are they saying ? What is that specific call ? ’ We ’re wait at plants , observing them variety over the time of year and how they ’re interacting with other plants and pollinators around them . What is the communication that ’s move on here ? How can we be a part of this ? Because this is so vital to our world , correct ? Not just physical macrocosm , but excited existence as well , ” Benjamin tell .
Here in Austin , landscape couturier Leah Churner and Holly Gardovskycreated plant communities in a hillside series of limestone bed . They select their matrix planting of groundcovers , grasses , perennial , bush and low trees to attractively support wildlife across the seasons . In my late May garden , aboriginal fall - bloom Drummond ’s aster could n’t resist a sneak preview to meet eager bees . A recently planted Gregg ’s mistflower bound in , too , while found clumps bloom in clouds of lilac flowers . Butterflies sail in , though the big show is autumn when queen coquet absolutely blanket them . In our home ground gardens , wasps are valuable pollinator , like this Guinea wasp courtesy of our Quaker andTexas A&M AgriLife entomologist Wizzie Brown . Often , though , we bandy about the terms “ wasp ” and “ yellowjackets ” without really understanding what they stand for . Plus , did you know that there are many variety of newspaper publisher wasps ? To clarify for us all , I get to out to Wizzie to name them and explain what they do . She also admit every child ’s favourite summer solitary white Anglo-Saxon Protestant , the mud dauber!But she ’s got bad word for gardener who discover sovereign caterpillars like this one in viewer Valerie Stein ’s garden . This is NPV , scant for atomic polyhedrosis computer virus . Caterpillars ferment grim and liquefy , finally propagate virus particles over the flora to be take in by other Caterpillar . Wizzie ’s advice : remove the caterpillars , bulge them and bedevil them away . Foliage can be wiped with a 10 % whitener answer , but she commonly just prunes off that area of the milkweed and discards it . Sanitize tool to avoid spreading the virus to other plants . On tour : In a transfiguration of once hard - packed earth at an abandoned storage warehouse , an urban butterfly sanctuary restores life to soil and soul in daily pollinator shows atThe VORTEX Repertory Theater . Bonnie Cullum , theater co - founder and raise aesthetic director , and Alex Cogburn , box office coach and Butterfly Garden keeper , engage the biotic community indoors and out in today ’s important issues , include home ground red . take more and watch their story!Finally , do you have seeds to deal ? Or perhaps you ’re starting a garden or looking for interesting seeds . Thanks to theCentral Texas Seed Savers , co - constitute bylandscape consultant Colleen Dieter , we can gibe them out at a local library!These are seeds that our neighbors spring up , so we know they bear a better chance of working for us . Plus , it ’s a deep residential district connectedness as we grow the home ground main road from neighbor to neighbor . Colleen explains how to label your seed or pick up new ones .
Thank you for stopping by !
tag :
