Gardening

As spring phases into summer across the U.S., kids are spending more time outdoors. Playing outside is healthy in all kinds of ways, but it also poses some risks. One that many families may not be aware of is exposure to lead in soil, which is still a serious problem, mainly in cities. Children can be exposed to lead by swallowing or inhaling soil while they are playing. Young children often put their hands in their mouths and may have dirt on their hands. Kids and pets also can track lead dust from soil indoors. And anyone who eats fruit or vegetables grown in contaminated soil can ingest lead. Early in 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lowered the screening level for lead in residential soils from 400 parts per million – a standard that was more than 30 years old – to 200 parts per million. This more protective lower number reflects current understanding of soil as a significance source of lead exposure for children. EPA officials said that at homes...

It’s a simple idea: Stop mowing your lawn in the month of May to let flowers in the lawn, such as dandelions and clover, grow and support bees and other pollinators. “No Mow May” was started in 2019 by Plantlife, a conservation charity based in the United Kingdom, in response to a well-documented loss of meadows and an alarming decline of native plants and animals there. Since then, it has been taken up by many gardeners and conservation advocates in North America. Studies have shown that many flowers that grow in unmown British lawns do support British pollinators. But North America has vastly different ecological communities, composed of unique flora and fauna. If you are interested in supporting pollinators, it is important to consider the ecological context of your yard – and #NoMowMay may not be an effective strategy. As entomology researchers who run programs on pollinators, we see better ways for people in North America to help pollinators fl...

With the arrival of spring in North America, many people are gravitating to the gardening and landscaping section of home improvement stores, where displays are overstocked with eye-catching seed packs and benches are filled with potted annuals and perennials. But some plants that once thrived in your yard may not flourish there now. To understand why, look to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recent update of its plant hardiness zone map, which has long helped gardeners and growers figure out which plants are most likely to thrive in a given location. The 2023 USDA plant hardiness zone map shows the areas where plants can be expected to grow, based on extreme winter temperatures. Darker shades (purple to blue) denote colder zones, phasing southward into temperate (green) and warm zones (yellow and orange). USDA Comparing the 2023 map to the previous version from 2012 clearly shows that as...

Urban agriculture is expected to be an important feature of 21st century sustainability and can have many benefits for communities and cities, including providing fresh produce in neighborhoods with few other options. Among those benefits, growing food in backyards, community gardens or urban farms can shrink the distance fruits and vegetables have to travel between producers and consumers – what’s known as the “food mile” problem. With transportation’s greenhouse gas emissions eliminated, it’s a small leap to assume that urban agriculture is a simple climate solution. But is urban agriculture really as climate-friendly as many people think? Our team of researchers partnered with individual gardeners, community garden volunteers and urban farm managers at 73 sites across five countries in North America and Europe to test this assumption. We found that urban agriculture, while it has many community benefits, isn’t always better for t...

When people think of spring, they often picture flowers and trees blooming. And if you live in the U.S. Northeast, Midwest or South, you have probably seen a medium-sized tree with long branches, covered with small white blooms – the Callery pear (Pyrus calleryana). For decades, Callery pear – which comes in many varieties, including “Bradford” pear, “Aristocrat” and “Cleveland Select” – was among the most popular trees in the U.S. for ornamental plantings. Today, however, it’s widely recognized as an invasive species. Land managers and plant ecologists like me are working to eradicate it to preserve biodiversity in natural habitats. As of 2023, it is illegal to sell, plant or grow Callery pear in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and will become illegal in South Carolina on October 1, 2024. North Carolina and Missouri will give residents free native trees if they cut down Callery pear trees on their property. How did this tre...