Want to create a nature journal with your child? Grab some paper and a pencil, step out the front door and use this prompt.

Want to create a nature journal with your child? Grab some paper and a pencil, step out the front door and use this prompt.

Want to create a nature journal with your child? Grab some paper and a pencil, step out the front door and use this prompt.

Around the same time every year — late summer through early fall — our fields, meadows, prairies and wetlands take on a golden-yellow hue. This color change is primarily caused by a priceless pollinator plant, goldenrod. Goldenrods are members of one of the largest plant families in the world, Asteraceae. There are about 60 different […]

When I was taught about how plants create their own energy as a child, I thought it was cool they didn’t have to hunt or grow their own food — but mostly it was a bit boring. The plants don’t move (or so I thought), and the diagrams of the plant with the sun in […]

‘Tis the season to be holly! While most of the plant world has dropped their leaves for the winter, some native plants keep pumping out oxygen all winter long like this holly, Ilex spp. The holly is specially adapted to hold its leaves through the winter with a thick cuticle that holds water in and […]

Languedoc, a region in the South of France, is full of lanes lined with London planetrees. Upon first glance, this tree bears a striking resemblance to our American sycamore. The plane’s leaves are somewhat smaller, but the bark has the same distinct white coloration as our sycamore. The London planetree (Platanus x acerifolia) is a […]

The milkweed is blooming, the milkweed is blooming! Why all of the excitement? Common milkweed is a favorite plant for more than 450 species of aphids, bees, wasps, beetles, butterflies, moths and more. Whether these insects are using it as a nursery for their larvae to munch on once hatched or sipping nectar from the […]