Evergreen and Creepy: It’s Winter Creeper!

Winter Creeper, (Euonymus fortunei), with its glossy evergreen leaves, is easy to spot in the woods right now. This member of the Bittersweet family, (Celastraceae), is native to China, Japan and Korea. Introduced here as an ornamental plant, Winter Creeper, also known as Creeping Euonymus, has escaped cultivation, according to the National Park Service, and…

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Can Invasive Plants Be Valuable?

Our Capital Naturalist, Alonso Abugattas, recently took action in response to a misinformed  article that ran last week in a Virginia paper touting the benefits of invasive, non-native plants. We thought his comments deserving of a wider audience and he has kindly given us permission to print his letter to the editor of that paper,…

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Dr. Tallamy’s Reply to “What’s all the fuss about native plants?”

Our blog this week is a letter written by Dr. Doug Tallamy, Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, and author of Bringing Nature Home. Written to the New York Times last week: Subject: Misinterpretation/factual errors in article on Gardening for Climate Change Dear Editor: I am…

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