Home & Garden
The Beauty in Nature: Blooming Southern Trees
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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
One sultry, moonlit July evening a few years ago, I enjoyed seeing, and smelling, the large, white blossoms on a 30-foot-tall southern magnolia tree on a southeastern Pennsylvania lawn.
The Beauty in Nature: Tree-Nesting Shorebirds
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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
Solitary sandpipers and Bonaparte’s gulls are unusual shorebirds in their respective families.
The Beauty in Nature: Converging Birds and Horseshoe Crabs
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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
In May of some years, I’ve traveled to Delaware Bay beaches in New Jersey and Delaware to experience the convergence of many thousands of spawning horseshoe crabs, nesting laughing gulls, and migrating shorebirds, including red knots, ruddy turnstones, dunlin, and semi-palmated sandpipers.
Melinda’s Garden: Spring into the Growing Season
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- Written by Melinda Myers Melinda Myers
Spring-flowering bulbs and perennials are filling our landscapes with color.
The Beauty in Nature: Peeping Peepers
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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
I visit the shallows of certain ponds and wetlands in, and bordering, woods in southeastern Pennsylvania a couple evenings every April.
The Beauty in Nature: Waterfowl in Flight
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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
Winter and early spring are the times of waterfowl (ducks, geese, and swans) in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Melinda’s Garden: Grow Herbs Indoors for Year-Round Enjoyment
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- Written by Melinda Myers Melinda Myers
Add garden-fresh flavor to your meals year-round. Grow a few of your favorite herbs indoors, harvest, and enjoy.
Melinda’s Garden: Managing Gnats on Houseplants
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- Written by Melinda Myers Melinda Myers
They flit across your face, hover near your houseplants, or gather by the window. Fortunately, these fungus gnat insects are more annoying to us than harmful to our plants.
The Beauty in Nature: Wintering Harriers and Short-Ears
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- Written by Clyde McMillan-Gamber Clyde McMillan-Gamber
In winter, over several years, I’ve seen wintering northern harriers, which are a kind of hawk, and short-eared owls hunting mice and small birds in marshes and tall-grass fields in southeastern Pennsylvania, including at Middle Creek Wildlife Area and Gettysburg National Park.