GH
Those Unruly, Vexing, Delightful Vines: Midwest Natives with Attitude and Impact
Yes! vines can be exasperatingly aggressive: it’s their nature. Even those that grow in shade are always seeking sunlight, and in their...
GILLIAN HARRIS
Natural History Illustration & Writing
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Blue State
Blue barely describes a jay’s feathers: the soft ozone blue of its crest and mantle, the jewel-toned panes - lapis, sapphire, turquoise -...
GH
Milkweeds for Monarchs and Other Pollinators
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and Butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosus) keeping company in an old field. A monarch butterfly...
GH
Native Viburnums: Form and Function in the Landscape
In a finely-timed spring ritual, a vibrant host of warblers, tanagers and other songbirds have ridden the wave of emerging caterpillars...
GH
Life Among the Red-cedars: Beautiful and Bizarre
As I strolled along my road this winter, I admiring a row of Eastern Red-cedars dark against the snowfield behind them, I startled a...
GH
Winter Sowing Bee at Fish Creek Preserve
On a frigid Friday in December, folks have gathered at Myriam Wood's Fish Creek Preserve to start the plants of future springs and...
GH
Fantastic "Cats" & Where to Find Them
. . . In your own backyard, as it happens, munching the foliage of native trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants. Many caterpillars eat a...
GH
How the Blue Jay Plants an Ecosystem
by Gillian Harris, Bloomington, Indiana One of the greatest pleasures of living in southern Indiana is wandering our oak-hickory forests...
GH
Skunk, Jacks & Dragons: The Curious Arum Family
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) unfurling in April. As July moved into August of 2016, gargantuan Titan Arums were blooming all...
GH
Trilliums: Sweet Whites and "Aromatic" Reds
No spring shade garden is complete, in my estimation, without trilliums and their distinctive triads of leaves, sepals and petals. Our...
GH
Life in the Leaf Litter
Harbinger of Spring (Erigenia bulbosa), late February Look carefully at the faded leaves carpeting the forest floor in February and early...
GH
The Christmas Fern: a Fern for All Seasons
I take pleasure in the muted palette of the winter woods: the sepias and silvery-grays of tree bark, the faded ocher of leaves fallen or...