Deep Roots Landscape Design

Now is a very good time to begin aggressively spraying deer spray. Or to get an aggressive German Shepherd. The deer are establishing this year's foraging patterns and are teaching them to their young, so making your yard as inhospitable as possible now will encourage them to go elsewhere for the rest of the year. At least in theory--the deer are unpredictable.

Contra landscape fabric. We've been urging clients for years to forsake the plastic and use natural mulch to suppress the w**ds.

Say No to Landscape Cloth The answer to a better garden is one less step for you.

Brushpiles are so important to our winter wildlife.

A good explanation of the "soft landing" and why it's so important.

Soft Landings Add Life Under Native Trees You can help insects complete their life cycle.

Leave the leaves! Here's a good, short blog on why and how.

Leave the Leaves 30 Oct Leave the Leaves By Karen Villalobos Think those fallen leaves are just yard mess? Think again! Before you grab the rake, find out why leaving the leaves might be the best thing you can do for your garden this fall. Nature’s cleanup crew has it covered.  P.S. Happy Halloween!  Leave the L...

The science of leaving your leaves. Just rake them, whole, onto your beds, and the pollinators will thank you.

calculating the impact of leaving the leaves, with max ferlauto EVERY GARDENER has certainly heard the rallying cry each recent autumn to “leave the leaves,” invoking us to go gentler with our cleanup to support a diversity of beneficial invertebrates who call the fallen leaves

It's been a great year for our native asters. And stiff goldenrod is the clear winner for 2025 Monarch Favorite!
My garden here in Bloomington, early October.

Straight talk about invasives, from our friends at North Creek Nursery.

Real Talk: Space Invaders 29 May Real Talk: Space Invaders By Chelsea Ruiz For our Space Invaders series, we usually focus on one invasive plant at a time. This week, it's a real talk. We're looking at a whole group of invaders. They overrun woods, ditches, and fields. Let's shed some light on 'sterile' cultivars of invasive...

Friends, please reconsider "No-Mow May." Like many ideas that sound good at first blush, it turns out to be a pretty bad idea. Your yard and your wildlife do not benefit from it.

Just Say No to No Mow May Letting your lawn go won't appease neighbors and could lead to invasive w**d issues. If you want to mow less and provide increased ecosystem function, consider a more intentional design that takes into account how you use the space, what environmental ben

This is a thoughtful and sensitive discussion by one of the pioneers of native design, brought to my attention by our friend Andy Marrs of Andrew Marrs Garden Design. The idea is that we should be intentional in our choices rather than ideological (a notion that applies in all arenas, IMHO), thereby choosing the best species for our wildlife support goals rather than what sounds like it should be best. Worth a quick listen!

High Performing Plants — Growing Greener Claudia West, co-author of "Planting in a Post-Wild World' and co-founder of Phyto Studio, describes how she selects plants for landscapes based on on place of origin but on their level of performance in the ecosystem

In gloomy times, stories like this should lift our spirits.

This alien plant is lethal for the environment. Now it’s being turned into a plastic to regrow forests | CNN Invasive plant species cost the global economy billions of dollars. One of the worst cases may have finally met its match.

Native plants do it all...

‘The dead zone is real’: why US farmers are embracing wildflowers Strips of native plants on as little as 10% of farmland can reduce soil erosion by up to 95%