We love native plant gardening and want to introduce folks to all its joys. One way we are doing that is through a little sign we installed in our garden and in front of our sidewalk. It reads, “What’s new in our garden?,” and includes a QR code that takes you to our relatively new garden updates website we’re calling The Bud Watch. I have, in fact, seen people scan the code, and analytics suggest folks have been visiting as well as clicking (or tapping) around. The site includes our updates but also resources and a visual list of other native plant gardens we have seen while out and about. Thank you to my spouse’s coworker for helping edit the historic image of blue-eyed grass for the sign makers!

Enjoy, and consider subscribing to those updates as well (see “subscribe” button in lower-right of the Bud Watch website). Native plants are not only beautiful and fun to garden with, but they are also crucial to our survival. Join us!

Additional Notes

We enjoyed visiting a new shop near us in Collingswood, NJ, called House Finch that specializes in birdseed and has a wonderful selection of books about the environment. We haven’t tried the birdseed yet, but we bought a few books!

In addition to moving through the books that are a part of my climate change reading group, I also just finished environmentalist Bill McKibben’s book Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization.

We recently added a few new-to-us native plant species to our garden such as coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus), American strawberry bush (Euonymus americanus), beach plum (Prunus maritima). We’re excited to see them flourish! Thanks to our friends at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve nursery for hooking us up.

As we picked up our strawberry bush, we noticed a little friend—a tree frog—inside! We helped them scurry into the forest so they could stay with their friends and fam.

Views my own.