By Sonja Heyck-Merlin “When you’re at a plant sale, people can literally watch the bumble bees coming to these plants before they’re planted in the ground. It’s instant gratification,” says Molly DellaRoman of 5 Star Nursery and Orchard, a MOFGA-certified native plant nursery in Brooklin, Maine. It’s not just the pollinators DellaRoman loves but everything
by Sue Smith-Heavenrich If you garden, you’ve seen flower flies, though you may not recognize them. They’re the ones that look like bees and wasps and hang out on many of the same flowers that bees visit. Flower flies are also called hoverflies because of their ability to hang in midair by rapidly vibrating their
Absorbing rain water back into the earth with native vegetation By Anna Fialkoff In a changing climate with extreme storms and floods in our present and future, forests, meadows and wetlands are increasingly vital as densely vegetated areas that act like sponges in our landscapes. They soak up massive amounts of rainfall, slow and clean
By Jacob Mentlik There is a lot more than just apples growing at the Maine Heritage Orchard. While most commercial orchards lean toward monoculture, featuring long even rows of one particular species of fruit tree, the goal at MHO is to create a polyculture orchard, with many species growing together in harmony, mimicking the diversity
By Heather McCargo A hedgerow planted with native species of trees, shrubs and groundcovers enhances a farm with year-round habitat for pollinating insects, birds and the many other creatures and processes critical for our regional ecosystems to function. Our agricultural landscapes once had many hedgerows and edges where native species persisted — all the places
