North By Nature Landscapes

06/07/2026

Bring Nature back. 🌱🌳🐛
Nurture Nature! 🙏👏🙏
Guardians of Nature

05/27/2026

Sunrises on the farm! It’s a new day, full of Grace.
Check out Tiarella and Strawberry in bloom, that’s a sight for sore eyes! 🙏👏🌅

05/04/2026

Mosquito Bucket Challenge instructions!

05/04/2026

Mosquitos a problem in your yard? Fogging is expensive, kills beneficial insects (and more critters), and doesn't work. The good news: this CHEAP, SAFE ALTERNATIVE WORKS! Win-win!

05/01/2026

It’s so fun seeing all the things wake up from dormancy. What a long winter, and we are all so happy to be out in it again!

04/23/2026

Small changes that make a BIG difference start with you! 🙌
Each yard and every homeowner who chooses to plant native and garden sustainably makes a huge difference in the monoculture-driven society we live in. 🙏🏼
Thank you to Wild Ones Saving Monarchs for these awesome & informative signs! 🌱🌟

04/22/2026

One of our clients on Crooked Lake with a ground cover of Blue-Eyed Grass, one of the early bloomers. We can’t wait to see it in bloom again soon!

04/22/2026

👏👏👏
Guardians of Nature Mary Reynolds. Nature activist and reformed landscape designer
“Be a Guardian, not a Gardener”

Every Earth Day, people post about planting trees. That same weekend, many of them spend Saturday clearing out the leaves where dozens of species were about to emerge.

It's not carelessness. It's a gap in information.

When you clear dead leaves from under shrubs in late April, you're not just tidying. You're removing the shelter that overwintering insects and amphibians have been using since fall.

🌿 What's likely in those leaves right now:

- Giant silk moth pupae — luna, cecropia, polyphemus — wrapped in cocoons in the leaf layer, often weeks from emerging as some of the largest moths in the country
- Bumblebee queens — each one the sole survivor of last year's colony, preparing to dig into soil nearby and start the season's pollinators
- Firefly larvae — in the top layer of soil beneath the leaves, hunting slugs and snails. Late spring fireflies are the adults of these larvae
- Overwintering butterflies — mourning cloak, eastern comma, question mark — tucked into leaf folds waiting for sustained warmth
- Salamanders, tree frogs, ground beetles, wolf spiders — the pest control system your yard runs before anyone sells you a product

When the leaves go into bags this weekend, most of what's sheltering in them goes too. The moth pupae don't survive composting. The butterflies lose their insulation. The queens get displaced.

🌱 What helps:

- Leave leaves under shrubs until nighttime temperatures stay reliably warm — typically mid to late May in most eastern areas
- If you need to move them, shift them to a back corner of the yard instead of bagging. Same shelter, different spot
- Hold off on broadleaf lawn spray until late May — most of what it targets in April isn't causing problems yet
- Cut back native perennial stems in late May, not April — many are still holding overwintering eggs and cocoons

The yard you want to clean up is already full of what Earth Day is about. The cleanup can wait a few weeks 🌿

04/22/2026

Happy EARTH DAY! 👏🌳🌏