Creating habitat for pollinators is one of the most effective and efficient ways we can naturalize our landscapes. By establishing healthy, diverse wildflower meadows with the intent to accommodate native pollinators, landscape architects can combine sustainability with design. In 2016, Bill Kieffer, a landscape architect at Hershey Gardens, partnered with Ernst Seeds to build a […]

Landscape architecture professionals understand that the best projects don’t just marry design with science, they come to life thanks to the dedicated people behind them. For more than 50 years, Ernst Seeds has combined creativity with technical expertise to assist firms large and small to create environmentally thoughtful landscapes, from wetland restoration areas to pollinator-friendly […]

Wetland conservancy is making a comeback. For our country’s first two centuries, wetlands across the United States were viewed as a waste. As a result, the U.S. lost an estimated 53 percent of its total wetland area from the colonial times through the 1980s. Wetlands were dried, drained and eliminated as the country expanded, which […]

Regrettably, wetlands have often been viewed as undesirable wastelands to be avoided or destroyed. Today less than half of America’s original wetlands remain. The recent devastation left behind by Hurricane Ida is a grim reminder of what we have lost with them. Wetland losses have slowed in recent years thanks to our better understanding of […]

America loves a good lawn. A lush green lawn is a symbol of the American Dream; it’s been that way ever since the country’s post-World War II economic expansion. As the suburbs boomed, so did the idea of trying to grow the best lawn in the neighborhood. Any company that had a lawn usually hired […]

The PA Queen Project and the HHBBC, with support from Penn State University and Purdue University, collaborated on a study comparing colonies with varroa mite-resistant queens versus non-varroa mite-resistant queens from 2018 to 2019. The study enlisted 100 hobbyist beekeepers in the comparison study with the objective of helping change their behavior to promote varroa […]

by Gregory Monahan As municipalities search for cheaper and cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels, the number of solar installations across the United States is ramping up. With the U.S. government expecting solar energy sites to cover an area about the size of Massachusetts by 2050, one important issue will continue to arise: what should energy companies […]

by Rachel Sohmer Solar farms can (and should) do more than produce clean energy. Creating pollinator habitat at solar energy sites means renewable energy in a sustainable landscape that benefits us all. As the sight of rows upon rows of solar panels sprawling across the landscape becomes increasingly more common, we have good reason to […]

by Rachel Sohmer Given the current realities of pesticide use, habitat destruction, parasites and disease, climate change and air pollution among yet other stressors, there is no denying that conserving bees is a complex problem demanding complex solutions. Poor nutrition, linked to widespread declines in both the abundance and diversity of flowering plants, has profound […]

Allergy sufferers often curse the golden sea of blooms from goldenrods that appear in fallow fields, landscapes and along roadsides from July to November. Sadly, these complaints are based on an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Both members of the aster family (Asteraceae), goldenrods (Solidago genus) are often errantly identified as allergenic ragweeds (Ambrosia genus). Though there […]