New Free Webinar Series!

Looking for a change of scenery and inspiration
while housebound?
ELA's new webinar series might just be the ticket
- and the ticket is FREE!

Join us for A Walk in the Garden as we come together for a much-needed diversion during these tough times of isolating, quarantining, and sheltering-in-place. 

The one-hour presentations will be at noon on Wednesdays beginning April 8th.

Across the country and around the world we are learning to cope with ongoing limitations on gathering with family and friends and with the temporary closures of favorite green spaces. To offer a much needed respite and to help reconnect with nature from the safety of our homes, ELA launches this new webinar series.

Presentations will be hopeful offerings that take you on a virtual garden walk, complete with stunning plant photographs, valuable garden information, and inspiration to take a walk in the garden. The series runs through June.

We invite you to join us as we support one another and find inspiration and strength during challenging times.   
Read more and register 

Nature Happenings...April 2020

https://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/outdoor-almanac/spring-2020

If it's too cold, and you're stuck inside...

Here’s an idea: instead of binge-watching Friends, how about getting a first-class horticultural education, an hour or so at a time?  Grow Native Massachusetts is an organization dedicated to encouraging New England gardeners to plant trees, shrubs, and perennials native to our region.  To that end, they host ‘Evenings With Experts’ talks by first rate horticulturalists who also happen to be terrific speakers with remarkable visuals.  They are usually held at the Cambridge Library before an attentive audience of a few hundred.  

Their website is an encyclopedic collection of information on native plants, and well worth bookmarking.  Also, inside that website is a complete compendium of professionally-produced videos of those talks.  You can see Doug Tallamy on restoring native landscapes at home, or William Cullina discussing ‘Sugar, Sex and Poison’.  There are 13 videos available to view, each one roughly an hour in length.  They’re informative, frequently humorous, and memorable.  It's a great opportunity to learn and escape reality for a little while... 

Annie White of the University of Vermont did ground-breaking research on plants; www.grownativemass.org

Dry Soil?

When the soil in your yard is dry enough not to leave footprints when walked on, collect the sticks, branches and debris from your lawn. Then, give it a good raking with a steel tined rake to remove dead grass, the dead leaves, and any other debris that has accumulated since the end of autumn.

Start Planting Summer Flowers and Bulbs—in Pots!

Get a head start on tender bulbs such as begonias, cannas, colacassia (elephant’s ear), dahlia and ranunculus. Started indoors in pots. they will be larger and bloom sooner when you put them outdoors after the weather has warmed sufficiently. Check the planting details for individual bulbs or corms, but most can be potted now in a lightweight, well drained potting mix. When the shoots appear, move them to a site where they get several hours of sunlight a day. As the temperatures increase, increase their sunlight exposure.