My new book on the Crosby Arboretum is out

While not exactly urban, the Crosby Arboretum is an early public garden example of how to heal heavily disturbed agricultural lands through restoring natural process. Located in Picayune, Mississippi, The Crosby Arboretum, Mississippi State University Extension, is dedicated to displaying exhibits of regional plant communities to a visiting public. Biologists Sidney McDaniel and Chris Wells, landscape architects Ed Blake and Andropogon Associates, and architect Fay Jones created a miniature jewel of a native plant garden in the Pearl River watershed. The Crosby Arboretum uses the natural processes of prescribed fire and woodland succession to guide its landscape management. I was fortunate to get involved in the early stages of this ASLA and AIA award-winning garden, and served as its site director/curator for 13 years. My new book, The Crosby Arboretum, A Sustainable Regional Landscape (2014), published by LSU Press, traces the history of the Gulf Coast landscape, the arboretum origins, the design of the landscape and architectural exhibits, and subsequent care and management. The book is now available through your favorite local or online bookstore. For more information, check out an interview on the book that I did at http://msulalc.blogspot.com/2014/04/q-with-bob-brzuszek-about-his-new-book.html

Drifts of Spring Beauty and Henbit in an analogous color composition

Keep the weeds in the lawn?

When I was a kid, my mother would give me a kitchen knife to dig dandelions out of the lawn. Now it seems that I should have left them. Sarah Lovell and Douglas Johnston state in their 2009 paper in Ecology and Science that residential yards can have a role to play in contributing to ecological function, especially those that have a range of environments (shrubs, trees, ponds, grassy areas, etc.). Take the common lawn. Herbicided and clipped lawns contribute little to biodiversity but weedy lawns can enrich it. Lovell and Johnston state that "a simple example of a site-level opportunity for improving biodiversity in a residential area is the replacement of a conventional turf lawn with a  mix of prairie species." If you don't want to replace the lawn, some plants are perfectly suited to co-existing with turf and lawnmowers, including plantain, lyreleaf sage (Salvia lyrata), and spring beauty (Claytonia virginica). These early spring wildflowers can be overseeded into a lawn if you don't have them. How do you manage for them? Simply don't mow for a while until they are finished blooming and have set seed.

Proof of the second law of thermodynamics

                                          Entropy.

Research supports the need for more prairies and meadows in urban landscapes

Most everyone loves butterflies, but who knew that butterflies are good indicators of urban landscape health? The reason is that adult butterflies are very sensitive to extreme changes in temperature, light and humidity; which can be extreme in downtown urban areas (Erhardt and Thomas 1991). A 2002 study published in Biodiversity and Conservation finds that "species are restricted in their distribution in the landscape by the availability of suitable habitat," rather than being able to disperse to available habitat patches (Wood and Pullen 2002). The authors conclude that cities should focus on providing more biodiverse grassland habitat rather than trying to connect existing patches.

Somewhere in Alabama

Study shows that urban environments contain high levels of biodiversity for a range of wildlife

Patches of derelict urban lands can provide valuable wildlife habitat for a wide range of taxa. A study published in 2006 by researchers from 4 universities evaluated 50 "derelict" sites in Birmingham, England. Their study, entitled "Biodiversity in urban habitat patches," found that wastelands provide rich habitats in the city. The research combined field surveys of the sites and sampled plants, beetles, insects, and selected mammal species; and looked for correlations of biodiversity to the nearness of green corridors. Interestingly, they did not find a correlation between species richness to proximity to corridors such as railways or rivers. They did find, however, a correlation of species richness to the proximity of another derelict site. Meaning that if another abandoned property was nearby, the biodiversity increased. They conclude in the paper, that "planners can have a positive impact on urban biodiversity by slowing the pace of redevelopment and by not hurrying to tidy up and redevelop brownfield sites." (Angold, P.G., et al, "Biodiversity in urban habitat patches," Science of the Total Environment 360, (2006), 196-204.)

Out of Gas

I was born in a nondescript suburb of Detroit, Michigan amidst a sea of urban sprawl. Unable to breathe in the gridded streets, my childhood was spent wandering the railroad tracks and industrial yards. It was there that I noticed my first wildflowers and urban wildlife. Since then I moved to a state that has more country than city. Ironically, Detroit now has more country than city. Go figure.