Soft Landings Diverse Native Plantings Under Keystone Trees
If You Stop Mowing This May, Will Your Lawn Turn Into a Meadow?: Not necessarily. Two new books offer some advice on what to expect when you decide to leave your lawn behind.
Neighbors Fight Over No Mow May: ‘What in the World Is Happening in This Place?’: Some say a break from grass cutting helps nature —others abhor the ‘shaggy raggy’ look - "Dr. Tallamy sees little logic in letting lawns grow longer for a few weeks. If people simply let their grass grow for a month and then revert to a clipped green monoculture, they are teasing pollinators with short-term snacks followed by starvation, he said. A nonprofit he co-founded, Homegrown National Park, urges homeowners to reduce space devoted to regularly clipped grass, add native plants and remove invasive ones."
Phosphorus Saved Our Way of Life—and Now Threatens to End: It Fertilizers filled with the nutrient boosted our ability to feed the planet. Today, they’re creating vast and growing dead zones in our lakes and seas. - "In a toxic algae bloom, tiny photosynthetic organisms reproduce explosively, then throw off chemicals that, in addition to nausea, can cause brain and liver damage. And, when the algae die en masse, a fresh hell ensues. Their decomposition sucks oxygen out of the water, creating aquatic dead zones where almost nothing can survive. ...
"In terms of CO2 emissions, corn-based biofuels are probably worse than gasoline; getting rid of them would thus benefit both the climate and the country’s waterways."
The composition of British bird communities is associated with long-term garden bird feeding
Bird Feeders Are Good for Some Species—But Possibly Bad for Others: Studies of bird feeding in the U.K. raise concerns about the ecological impacts of provisioning our feathered friends - "As feeding has ramped up over the past 25 years, they wrote, populations of adaptable and aggressive generalists—Great Tits, Eurasian Nuthatches and invasive Ring-necked Parakeets—have skyrocketed by 40 percent, 83 percent and 1,480 percent, respectively. Meanwhile woodland species that avoid feeders, such as the Wood Warbler and Marsh Tit, have suffered sharp declines. Willow Tits increasingly lose nest holes to feeder-using Blue Tits and lose hatchlings to hungry Great Spotted Woodpeckers, another feeder-using species whose numbers have jumped by almost 150 percent in the past 25 years. U.K. Willow Tit populations have crashed by 87 percent in the same time period. In essence, the researchers argue, the commercial feeding industry in the U.K. seems to have helped aggressive generalists take over entire bird communities and spill out from gardens into unprovisioned wildernesses."
Should we let nature feed the birds?: Exploring the problems posed by bird feeders
Her tiny native plant habitat garden is flourishing. And she didn’t even need a yard
Decline in wild bee species richness associated with honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) abundance in an urban ecosystem - "Although wild bee populations can fluctuate largely in space and time, our analyses of the bee and floral community in 2020, and the comparison to the bee community in 2013, strongly suggests a negative relationship between high-density urban beekeeping and wild bee richness."
7 doomsday scenarios if the U.S. crashes through the debt ceiling: Economists warn of worst-case outcomes should Congress fail to raise the federal borrowing limit by the “X-date” deadline
After red-state shootings, gun-control advocates see glimmers of change - "Between 2020 and 2022, death rates from firearms in states with GOP-controlled legislatures outpaced rates in blue states, according to a Post analysis of CDC data, including about a 50 percent higher rate of deaths from firearm assaults and around a 35 percent higher rate of mass killings."
Opinion 11 questions I wish Trump had been asked at the CNN town hall
Football bonded them. Its violence tore them apart.: They were roommates and teammates at Harvard, bound by their love of football and each other. Then the game -- and the debate over its safety -- took its toll. [ed. note: THE DEAD EX-PLAYER'S SON PLAYS FOOTBALL WITH THE WIFE'S BLESSING EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW THE DEPRESSION AND ALCOHOLISM ARE FROM CTE]
How a rural Arkansas prosecutor advocated for her pedophile uncle: One of Barry Walker’s victims, now 22, blamed those close to Walker for not stopping him before he sexually abused more than 30 girls. “They failed us,” she told NBC News.
