August 2020

  By Sandra Nelson   It used to be that your choice in water features was limited to a fountain or a pond. While both  could be stunning, they didn’t always fit with the existing landscape or mesh with the environment. Today, there are all sorts of alternatives available, offering the perfect choice for any …

  By Sandra Nelson     The hummingbird moth is one of nature’s best impostors.  With only a quick glance, you’re sure you’ve seen a baby hummingbird flit by, but a closer look says otherwise.     A frequent late summer garden visitor, hummingbird moths, unlike their other moth cousins, do their flying and foraging …

  By Sandra Nelson   One of the more unusual species of the insect world, scale insects are both fascinating  and frustrating.     Ranging in size from microscopic dots when hatched up to a half of an inch as adults, all of the 8,000 described scale varieties share some common characteristics. As juveniles, scale …

By Sandra Nelson  

So you’ve been considering adding a water feature to your backyard, but haven’t quite decided if it’s the right decision for you. Having enjoyed ponds and streams, waterfalls and fountains in my yards for decades, I can give you lots of reasons why adding water to the landscape is a great …

  By Sandra Nelson   Throughout my childhood, this was the defining (and to be perfectly honest, somewhat creepy) sound of summer to me… …the raucous calls of hundreds of emerging cicadas.   But the noise wasn’t the whole story  —  the crunchy abandoned shells scattered all over the place repelled me; I couldn’t wait …

  By Sandra Nelson   One of the joys of a truly functional outdoor living space is the fact that inclement weather  —  days that are too hot or too cold  —  don’t force you back inside. Instead, these carefully designed spaces let you decide where to spend your days and nights.    CLIMATE CONTROL …