Hi all! A few days have passed since my last entry- my how time flies when you have two kids with the flu.... I wanted to give a hearty thank you to my two tough tour attendees last Thursday. We walked the Blomquist Garden and talked about many of the issues affecting birds in our local wild habitats and gardens. It was most likely below twenty degrees with the wind chill, so a big hats off to you both. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the next tour will be on March 5th, and will focus on the early botanical explorers that so many of our natives are named for, and the latin naming system used by them all to describe the wondrous plants they found.

I also want to say welcome to those visitors who learned of this blog through the NC Native Plant Society website. http://www.ncwildflower.org/ This is a great, well-run organization that does a lot of good work for native plants. If you are not familiar with them, visit the website to learn more.

As I'm in the process of doing the final design work on our new Wildlife Garden, I thought I might mention a few nurseries that I use that have a good selection of natives for attracting our local birds and insects. For great native perennials, I am very partial to Niche Gardens (http://www.nichegardens.com/). Most of my native shrubs and small trees come from either Carolina Native Nursery http://www.carolinanativenursery.com/ , Rarebird Nursery 919-853 3969, or Cure Nursery http://www.curenursery.com/. You can also get links to these and others at the NC Native Plant Society website in their sources section- www.ncwildflower.org/natives/sources.htm

Till next time..