Topic
Articles on forests and habitat: which native trees feed birds, bees, beetles and caterpillars, how old fields become woods, and how to keep forestland whole.
Habitat is the point of a native planting, so these pieces end in plants. The habitat bundles group species that feed birds, bees and the rest as a set, and the companion species tool shows what grows beside a given tree in the wild.
Which native trees suit Great Lakes clay, dune sand, prairie and river bottoms, how the lakes shift the zones, when to plant, and which pests change the choice.
Which native to plant instead of burning bush, barberry, privet, Bradford pear or boxwood, why each is being replaced, and which states have banned the sale.
Why little grows under maples and beech, how to plant beneath a tree without harming its roots, and which native shrubs still flower in dry or moist shade.
Why oaks, hickories and beech crop heavily in some years, how red and white oaks keep separate calendars, what mast does to wildlife, and when to collect seed.
Why native trees become rare, from ice-age relicts and scarce soils to blight and lost fire, what G-ranks mean, and ten rare eastern trees and shrubs to grow.
What deer and wild turkeys eat, how many years each oak, hickory and fruit tree takes to bear, where cover and openings go, and what a food plot cannot do.
A Mid-Atlantic guide to the Coastal Plain, the Piedmont and the mountains: which native trees suit wet ground, sand, clay and cold, and which pests to expect.
Why standing water kills roots, how bottomland trees get air to theirs, what cypress knees do, why fill kills an upland tree, and what to plant in a wet spot.
A bloom calendar of the native trees and shrubs that feed native bees and honey bees, month by month from willow to witch hazel, and the bees tied to one plant.
Which native trees and shrubs feed and shelter birds in every month, why native fruit and native insects beat ornamentals, and how to plant a yard for birds.
A caterpillar eats only the plants its species evolved with. Here are the native trees and shrubs of the East that feed the most butterflies and moths, ranked.
Which native trees and shrubs feed and shelter mammals, reptiles and amphibians, month by month, and how to plant a yard or woodlot so the animals show up.
Insects are the base of the food web. These are the native trees and shrubs that feed the most of them, and what dead wood, leaf litter and dark nights do.
Trees cannot run, so they fight with resin, thorns, tannin, latex, thick bark and stump sprouts. A tour of the defenses, with the debated parts flagged.
Vines and shrubs topple canopy trees and stop a forest from regenerating. Free the trees first, then the shrubs, then keep after the seedlings for years.
A forest floor of leaves, twigs and fruit feeds a tree and holds water in ways a wood-chip bed cannot. How to build one in a yard, and where chips still belong.
The copper-brown leaves rattling on beech saplings and young oaks in January are marcescence. What it is, why it might happen and why it needs no action.
A conservation easement is the tool most private forest owners end up using. What it does and does not do, the weaker tools, and what to ask a land trust.
Neat rows of small holes weeping sap are the work of a sapsucker, not a borer. What the bird is doing, who else feeds at the holes, and when it matters.
Leaf litter, stick piles, an exposed root flare and uncompacted soil keep a tree alive for centuries. Nails, straps, fill and parked trucks quietly undo it.
An abandoned field in the East goes from goldenrod to redcedar, sweetgum, tuliptree and black locust in a decade, and to oaks in a century. How to steer it.
Well under one percent of eastern forest is old growth. The six outward signs of an old tree, where old stands hide, and how to steer a woodlot back toward it.
Most native range maps are hand-drawn 1970s outlines, copied ever since. Why they are coarse, the kinds of errors they carry, and what to trust instead.
Hollow trunks, torn-out limbs and shelf fungi look like the end. Trees can live for decades or centuries in that state, and here is how to tell when it matters.