News Articles

Stay updated with the latest developments and discoveries in the world of plants and horticulture with our News Articles category. Here, you’ll find timely updates on conservation efforts, botanical breakthroughs, gardening trends, and industry news. Whether it’s a new species discovery, tips for sustainable gardening, or global botanical initiatives, this section keeps you informed and connected to the ever-evolving plant world. Perfect for enthusiasts, researchers, and nature lovers looking to stay in the know.

Permaculture Board Games – Top Recommendations


As first a school teacher, THEN a permaculture teacher, THEN a board game fan, I have found dozens of board games out there with Permaculture themes…

…Some are more fun…. Some more educational… Some are terrible and aren’t worth buying. Curious to hear what others have found and recommend. 🙂

I’ll start off with 2 recommendations:

1) Reykholt – I played this yesterday for the first time and highly recommend. You are a farmer in the Icelandic town of Reykholt where geothermal energy allows for greenhouses. It’s a 1-4 player worker placement game where you race to farm the most goods and sell them”.

2) Ark Nova – I’ve only played this one once as well… it’s a bit longer and more complicated, but it has all sorts of “hidden curriculum” lessons… about society, zoos, and doing good onto the world. Essentially, you try to run a zoo but you lose if you try to only do good things (like heal and release animals or do research)… and you also lose if you only try to make money (have more animals in the zoo, higher admissions, etc). The winner is the person who balances both. Zoos are quite a controversial topic… this game lets to dive right into that + topics like financial sustainability. And you will learn all about different animals.

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been learning medicanal herbs lately however i don’t what is zoning.


so i’ve been learning herbs and what they use it for and i also read reddit post likethis to see what bigginers are growing before going into advance stuff and i am wondering what is zoning and how do i find out what zone do i belong to i live in Texas. thanks for the help

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After clearing invasives, what can I plant to build soil while stopping regrowth?


Zone 7A/Long Island, NY

About 40% of our property is shaded by trees (Silver & Norway Maple) and massively overgrown with invasive plants like multiflora rose, poison ivy, English ivy, and some kind of obnoxiously thorny blackberry. Since it is the furthest part of the property from the house, it’s the least maintained. I’ve made attempts at clearing away the stuff we don’t want, but without having something to put in the open space, things return to the less-than-desirable status quo pretty quickly.

Can anyone suggest some quick growing beneficial replacements for that would help keep the unwanted things at bay so we’re not fighting the same battle year after year?

I would prefer pollinator-friendly plants since both the multiflora roses and blackberries get visited heavily when they are in bloom and I don’t want to impact that negatively. Natives would be nice, but not an absolute must. Dynamic accumulators and/or high biomass generators would be helpful as well, but also not a requirement.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

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Help: Mason Jar Soil Test


I did a mason jar test from two spots of my site. The one with a darker color is native soil that’s never been disturbed and I believe the darker color means more nutrients. Another one is imported soil.

However I’m unable to identify the 3 layers I’m supposed to be seeing: clay, silt and sand. I can only see two layers: sand at the bottom and a layer with finer texture on top.

Can anyone let me know I’m missing one layer in my soil? Or if it’s there but just hard to see?

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Rare Plant Research, again (because why the heck not)

The open house at Rare Plant Research (RPR) rolled around again, last weekend. Of course I went, I mean why not? It’s close (23 miles) and it’s not open to the public regular hours so you can’t just drop in when you feel like it. After all these years though (I believe this was my 19th annual visit) I figured I wouldn’t need to take any photos. Of course I was wrong.

I mean when you see a big Platycerium sitting on the ground…With a Colocasia growing out of it, well, you have to take a photo. Right?
Ditto for a large pair of Agaves with one of them busting out of it’s plastic pot.
I was very tempted by these gorgeous (and large, I’m not sure the photo really conveys how large they are) Alcantarea imperialis ‘Julieta’. If I lived somewhere I could leave bromeliads outdoor year round I would have multiples of this plant growing in the ground. 
But I don’t, and it would have to come into the (already packed) basement for the winter. Plus it’s so large it would dwarf every other bromeliad in my garden. It took several visits (just another pass-through to see if someone else had bought them) but I managed to walk away without it.
One of my favorite things about the RPR greenhouses are the many plants that have gone feral and are living their best lives there. Like this Tradescantia pallida.
And this Dalechampia aristolochiifolia…

Hmm, walked by a cart belonging to a friend and had to check out what he’d grabbed.
Echium down!
There were a few Echium wildpretii on offer for the sale, and this older, blooming plant, showing off next to them.
Several clumps of different Eucomis were popping up in the soil at the edges of the greenhouses. Seeds doing their thing?
There were once pots of Trachelospermum asiaticum ‘Ogon Nishiki’ for sale here. Now there’s one growing in the ground, rooted through the fabric.
Moss. I had to stop and photograph the moss…

Out in the field there were Scadoxus puniceus doing their thing…

Waiting for the payment line to get shorter I walked up to check out the owner’s home and grounds. When you’ve got plants and greenhouses at your disposal you can have a lot of fun.
Although not all the plants need to come inside for the winter.
Agave ovatifolia

NoID Arctostaphylos
Yucca rostrata and the man-made lake.
Another blooming Echium wildpretii.
Every year I check out how this wall of bromeliads in the conservatory is doing.
After paying for my plants (which I’ll share at the end of this post) I decided to swing by Hughes Water Gardens, One of my RPR purchases had me thinking about a water bowl. Walking their display garden I admired the Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow’…
And the lotus growing in the tropical greenhouse.

There was an early blooming water lily…
And the nonstop blooming Bougainvillea.
I adore it’s orange/pink coloration.
After that I stopped at an open HPSO garden on the way home. It’s always fun to admire plants you like, but don’t grow, in other people’s gardens.
Oh my!
Poor fellow, his girl is missing her face!
Rodgersia hanging on to it’s chocolate blush.
Nectaroscordum siculum, aka Sicilian honey garlic.
So what did I buy? At RPR I couldn’t resist this Platycerium bifurcatum ‘Netherlands’ with multiple growing points at a very good price ($14.50).

And almost as though he read my mind, Burl (owner of RPR) started some dwarf lotus from seed and was selling 4″ pots for just $5 (I’d been hoping to find an interesting water plant for a small bowl in the garden). They’re inside the house for a week or two (we’ve got an night in the mid 40’s in the forecast) but it will be fun to watch them grow this summer. 
At Hughes I picked up this Ledebouria cooperi for that same water bowl. It was a very planty Saturday! I hope you did something fun over the weekend involving plants.

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