Planning Your Garden: Set Goals, Find Space, & Determine a Budget
Maintaining a perfect garden takes time, effort, and some proper planning. Planning a garden before planting will help you ensure the health and longevity of your plants. Depending on the type of garden you’re planting, you could face different challenges and have different goals than other gardeners. For example, if you’re planting a vegetable garden, you will […]
Keep It Clean or Not: How to Tidy Up Your Outdoor Spaces & Still Protect Wildlife Habitats
Now that spring is on our doorstep, it’s easy to get anxious for greener days. We see all the dead ornamental grass stalks, the spent perennial stems, and the autumn leaves collected in our gardens and they give us spring fever! We want to bolt outside and clean up the yard, garden, or patio as […]
Garden Trends for 2022: From Crisis to Innovation
Each year, Garden Media Group puts together a Garden Trends Report for the upcoming year, which highlights major shifts and things to look for in the gardening, horticulture, and nature-related areas of our life, especially those that work in these types of industries. The Great Reset of 2021 had people switching up their lifestyles, making choices related […]
WPS Garden of Lights Spotlight: The Homes of Beneficial Insects & Pollinators
As you explore the wintry outdoors and see a dazzling 325,000 holiday lights during WPS Garden of Lights, you’ll likely notice that we have a botanical and nature-inspired theme, and this is no coincidence! Each and every one of our hand-crafted displays represent an element of nature in some way, from buzzing bees to spinning […]
The Little-Known & Endangered Karner Blue Butterfly
In 1992, the Karner Blue Butterfly, a subspecies of the small blue butterfly, was federally listed as an endangered species. Since then, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species program has worked to identify, protect, and restore the Karner blue butterfly to prevent its extinction. You, too, can help prevent the extinction of this […]
The Magnificent Migration of Monarch Butterflies & How a Super Generation Makes it Happen
No migration compares to that of the small, black and orange creature you see fluttering through your neighborhood in summer. When you think about migration, you might describe how birds fly south for the winter and return when temperatures warm up again. For a monarch, migration is much more complex and requires multiple generations to […]
Welcome Beneficial Insects into Your Garden with an Insect Hotel
It’s not uncommon to see your garden infested with insects and have the urge to get rid of them. But as Mark Konlock (Director of Horticulture) says, sometimes you have to learn to live with the damage of insects because it likely means you’re supporting a healthy ecosystem full of plants, trees, insects, and other […]
Pollinator Migration Roundup: Who Stays and Who Goes?
When record-breaking cold temperatures hit Wisconsin during our brutal winters, some of us endure the piles and piles of snow that arrive while others travel to warmer destinations. It turns out, pollinators do the same thing: some of them stay and some of them go. Pollinators that migrate to climates that are warmer and closer […]
Pollinator Feature: Beetles, Birds and Bats – The 3 B’s of Lesser Known Pollinators
Bees and butterflies are two of the most famous types of pollinators, and ironically, they both start with the letter b. This alliteration is made up of extremely essential creatures that help fertilize plants, so they can produce fruits, seeds and other young plants. However, this extensive, large-scale job does not rest on the shoulders […]
Dinner for Pollinators: More Than Just Nectar and Pollen on the Table
In our Butterflies & Blooms exhibit, butterflies have a buffet of meals they can munch on. Nectar, sugar water and overripe fruits like bananas and blood oranges keep these creatures feeling satisfied with their favorite meals. But what about other pollinators? Honey bees, hummingbirds, moths and bats all consume nectar and help with the pollination […]
