Our Garden Journey with Jeanne Kadet and Mike Perel

December 19, 2020

Do you need a reminder of how wonderful a springtime Native Garden can be during this cold winter? Look no further than Jeanne Kadet and Mike Perel’s “Garden Journey” story and videos created for the 2020 Northern Virginia Sustainable Garden Tour. Start the tour by clicking on any photo and be sure to scroll through…

Potowmack Members Honored by Fairfax Park Authority

November 19, 2020

Potowmack Chapter members Bob Dinse and Cathy Ledec will be honored on November 20, 2020 with Elly Doyle Park Service awards by the Fairfax County Park Authority.  The Elly Doyle Park Service Awards were established by the Fairfax County Park Authority in 1988 in recognition of former Park Authority Board Chairman and member Ellamae Doyle’s…

Watch Out for Spotted Lanternfly!

May 21, 2019

I recently attended a workshop focused on early detection of Spotted Lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) in Fairfax County. Speakers represented the Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Virginia Department of Forestry, and the Fairfax County Urban Forest Management Division. Spotted Lanternfly is native to China, and has also been found in India, Vietnam, and Japan. Introduced in Korea…

Bluebird eating poison ivy berries by Ed Eder

Meet the Plants of Dyke Marsh: Plants of Value to Wildlife in Winter

March 14, 2019

Many of the plants that grow in Dyke Marsh are of value to wildlife, providing one or more of the animals’ basic needs: food, water, shelter, and a place to raise their young. This article highlights just a few of these plants that help support wildlife in winter. Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). In late summer…

Graupel on Trillium

The Furlough and the Graupel

January 20, 2019

By Susan Jewell Of all the negative aspects of my furlough from the Department of the Interior under the Federal government shutdown, one event will make me smile whenever I think of it. On Day 19 (January 9), I took a rare weekday hike with a furloughed friend from the State Department. Destinations to choose…

Notes from the Understory

June 14, 2018

June 2018—Leaps and bounds The next wave of flowers have bloomed, adding small dashes of yellow, white, pink, and purple to the vivid green of the leaves that dominate now. Each species seems to have its own personality. Some protect their flowers by closing up every evening: the Ohio spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) balances its purple…

Notes from the Understory

June 6, 2018

Recreating woodlands in your backyard Our (under)story For the past several years, we have been working on a garden inspired by the natural community that might have been here before residential development—probably a Piedmont Oak-Hickory Woodlands. The idea was to use native plants to help support wildlife, from the microbiome all the way up to the…