"The most common way gardeners attempt to connect with insects is by planting for butterflies. It is a noble idea... Sadly, the execution of this enterprise is so often directed by misinformation that we end up having fewer butterflies than we started with."
-Doug Tallamy, Bringing Nature Home
The cultural and political legacy of Thomas Jefferson is complicated, just as the man himself was. The man who wrote that "all men are created equal" kept other human beings as slaves. The man who kept slaves also wrote "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it." The man eventually elected to lead the...
Nine years after Wisner House was built at 165 Hobart Avenue in Summit, New Jersey, two enterprising plant collectors and growers purchased land less than two miles away. Their names were John Lager and George Hurrell, and they had just taken the first step towards turning Summit into the de facto orchid capital of the United States.
For 81 years, the owners and staff of Lager and Hurrell collect...