Plants are amazing!

The bookmark comb-through continues. This post contains information which I found terribly cool, but had no place to include it.

Did you know that plants can tell the difference between day and night and can even become jet lagged? And that they may even display altruistic behavior?

Why We Garden and Growing Up In the Backwoods

The year is almost over and I'm cleaning out the blog bag. Hoepfully you have a little time on your hands to read a couple of provocative posts, the first entitled "Why We Garden" and the second called "Growing Up In the Backwoods". Enjoy!

Season's Greetings - 2013

Christmas Time in the Country - Kenny Neal
Please Come Home for Christmas - James Brown
Zat You, Santa Claus - Louis Armstrong
Christmas is a Joyful Day - The Executor

New ways to quantify the benefits of green infrastructure

K-12 Minnesota teachers have released a comprehensive new guide for integrating school gardens with academic standards. At 268 page, there plenty for you to use as well.

-With land becoming more and more scarce, several folks have proposed planting community gardens under power lines. In California, there is a new push and in 2012 a Torontonian won a design award for the same idea.

-The benefits of green infrastructure are at least a dozen fold. But historically it has been difficult to quantify how much a green roof or green wall can increase rental and property values or reduce the cost associated with flooding. The NRDC thought it was about time that these issues were addressed.

-Sydney, Australia has a new draft green roof and green walls policy. I am not sure how this is different than the last one. The next step for Sydney is incentives! That would be exciting!

he draft policy and implementation plan promotes the measures as a means of improving air quality, supporting biodiversity and creating new places for relaxation in the city centre.

At the moment, there are around 96,000 square metres of green roofs and walls across Sydney and the trend continues to grow rapidly. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said the city is receiving around one new development application featuring a green roof or wall each week, and that there are more than 50 projects already approved for construction.

“Green roofs and walls are not only beautiful additions to buildings, they also improve air quality, clean stormwater and provide a natural habitat for biodiversity. We want to support this emerging industry, give local providers a boost and help city residents and businesses discover the benefits of installing green roofs and walls,” Moore said when announcing the new draft policy.

- See more at: http://sourceable.net/sydneys-new-green-roofs-walls-policy/#sthash.5vBRqvJm.dpu

Bill Mollison on permaculture

For those of you celebrating Christmas, you have about one week left!  If you want to procrastinate a bit more, check out the permaculture guru. Yes, I have contributed to the problem...but in an educational way!