Because I believe that small acts can add up to big change, I'm going to participate in Earth Hour tonight by turning off the lights between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. Earth Hour organizers are hoping to increase the level of participation worldwide this year over last year when Earth Hour was first started by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney, Australia. Turning off the lights for an hour is a small action, but it goes a long way to increase awareness of our energy use and abuse and also of the fact that change can be simple and relatively painless.



Excuse me now while I go hunt for some candles...

Hello, and thanks to Flora for the invitation to join this blog. I love the idea of having a blog focusing on the link between gardening and the environment at large. I've tried to occasionally address topics such as climate change, habitat loss, and other environmental concerns at my garden blog, An Alameda Garden, but these issues are so important, they really do deserve their own platform. In a sense, we gardeners are on the front lines in the battles against environmental destruction. We can see the changes, both good and bad, up close and at ground level. But we can do more than see change; we can be change. And then we can blog about it so change can spread.

Looking forward to many lively discussions ahead!

I was reading quite a bit about gardening in a time of climate change last fall, working on an article about gardeners' perspectives. It wasn't a particularly uplifting topic. Thinking about what climate change will mean for our native plants, the plants we can grow in our gardens, wherever we are, and how weather unpredictability will affect the plants (native or not) that we love certainly exacerbates my usual environmental concerns.

But I've found that gardening as restoration (of place and spirit) is an excellent antidote to environmental worries. Transforming our own yard from lawn to wildlife garden has been a remarkable source of satisfaction, and the ability of plants to heal degraded landscapes is something that we can actively embrace.

What I appreciate is the essential ability of gardens to restore patches of earth to support wildlife, and everything associated with a diverse array of plants. I know that we can transform barren spaces to areas that are both lovely and life-sustaining, and that communities, towns, and cities can 'green' themselves by planting a diversity of trees, shrubs, and perennials and encourage gardening for food and wildlife, and become living spaces in the process.

This is a perspective that has grown on me, as a plant ecologist interested in the natural world, and the wild plants and the wonderful diversity of plant communities that still exist on our planet.

I think gardening, and planting, is a way to actively restore our bit of habitat, and maybe more, as we seek to make a difference in how we approach living on the Earth. Nature restores habitat even more effectively if seed sources are available. Everything we plant is helpful in terms of taking up CO2, although I'm hardly worrying about that when I plant something. But by being good stewards of the little patches of earth in which we garden, we CAN make a difference by providing habitat, growing plants that don't need a lot of extra 'stuff' and vegetables (which are waterhogs), but nevertheless are the epitome of local food.

My family has been in the garden business since 1881. Five generations accumulate much information of a hands-on nature. Our records and personal memories tell us that, what we call weather, is changing. Once three foot long icicles formed along the edges of our greenhouses. It has been at least thirty years since that happened. Today, the garlic mustard, our mid-Atlantic invasive species de jour is beginning to make its run of dominance in the woodland edges of my community, something I never saw when working and walking with my grandparents.

The Bradford pears are in bloom and so dominate the landscape, that some of our customers, whose landscape literacy is not complete, identify the tree incorrectly and come to the nursery asking for dogwoods, having completely substituted in their minds the correct species for the invasive species.

What has changed to create this wave of invasive species? A cursory reading of gardening literature and scientific reports shows a surface correlation with climate change, specifically an increase in CO2. The explosion of invasive species seems to be tied to the dramatic increase in CO2 which is the primary current villain for the increase in global average temperature.

Our traditional plant choices are changing, as plants once not hardy (could not survive the cold) in Washington DC now grow fine. Obnoxious plants such as poison ivy, a native, now are more toxic. This surge in activity in the garden means that we are spending more time and resources (energy) maintaining the status quo. This increase in energy used to halt change in turn contributes to the release of carbon into the atmosphere.

I look forward to commenting on future postings, and to instigating a few comments a long the way. Ipetrus

Hi Friends!

The blog is on a mission to spread awareness among bloggers around the world regarding Global Warming and Environmental Pollution. I invite interested bloggers to join this blog as a CONTRIBUTOR and post your valuable words to spread awareness. As a first step to this I've searched through several bloggers, selected and invited some of them to contribute to is blog. Hope they would accept my invitation and make the blog a real success. We would also use this platform to promote gardening tips, garden accessories and other garden related things.

Thanks for your kind support and soon we would come up with new postings.