BILOWZ ASSOCIATES INC. is an award winning landscape architectural design firm with a proven philosophy: "Creating Design with Harmony & Balance."
Our company blog, Annie's Gardening Corner, takes a sneak peek at how we balance our own love for everything green + a place to find inspiration, garden ideas and landscape design tips.

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Thursday, July 8, 2010

We are What We Plant

Yes, I may be digging through the vault a lot this holiday week but reflecting back in time isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So take a minute to review the reruns and let’s not keep repeating the same mistakes.

With the recent sighting of Asian Longhorned Beetle (ALB) in Boston and its potential spread to other locales, it is important to heed the very message cited in the August 2009 post http://blog.bilowzassociates.com/2009/08/importance-of-trees-in-our-lives.html when only Worcester and a few surrounding towns were dealing with the ALB. It would be devastating if the beetle infiltrated the Arnold Arboretum due to its proximity of the recent Faulkner Hospital sighting, but the one plus with an arboretum is its diversity. You won’t find just one genus planted here. Don’t get me wrong. Even one ALB host species lost in this treasured park would be enormous and distressing yet a vast array of trees would remain healthy and strong for years to come. Planting more than one species in a landscape can offer protection from a nasty infestation. It also provides an aesthetic and more pleasing combination within your structure plantings. It’s that simple. Again, sorry for the reruns but one can never be reminded enough that we can avoid making the same mistakes. We may just need a wake-up call from time to time.

One more message to all my vigilant gardening friends. It is better to err on the side of caution. So if you spot a bug that looks funky and unusual, report it. Better to be safe than have a five-alarm fire to put out! This is one nasty beetle so do your part and don’t forget to promote diversifying the species when planting! Check out the re-run, ‘Tuesdays with Annie’ post in case you need to refresh your memory on the ALB. http://blog.bilowzassociates.com/2009/11/tuesdays-with-annie-11-17-09.html

John Muir sheds the best inspirational light for today. “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.” We are what we plant! Annie

Above image of the Arnold Arboretum from their website http://www.arboretum.harvard.edu/index.html
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© 2009 Ann St. Jean-Bilowz/Bilowz Associates Inc. (including all photographs, unless otherwise noted in Annie's Gardening Corner are the property of Bilowz Associates Inc. and shall not be reproduced in any manner nor are they to be assigned to any third party without the expressed written permission and consent of Bilowz Associates Inc.)