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a blossoming of conservation insights and inspiration
Plantings is a monthly online journal published by the World Sensorium Conservancy, an initiative of Nalls Studio. If it enriches your soil, please join WSC so you don’t miss an issue and consider supporting it with a contribution.
Issue 3: September 2021
Article
Rediscovering Bee battles: why our native pollinators are losing the war
By Kelsey K. Graham • September 1, 2021
As global commerce grows, the movement of goods is occurring at ever-faster rates. And with increased global trade comes the spread of non-native species. This includes invasive insects that are making life difficult for domestic bees.
Article
15 Health and Well-being Benefits of Plants
By Charles Hall and Madeline W. Dickson • September 1, 2021
Why plants make us more resilient and help safeguard our future
Article
Why Some Species Thrive after Catastrophe – Rules for Making the Most of an Apocalypse
By Nicholas R. Longrich • September 1, 2021
Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid struck the Earth. The world was plunged into darkness, killing the dinosaurs and over 90% of all species alive. Today, every living thing descends from the handful of surviving species. But not all survivors thrived.
Article
Dumbarton Oaks Gardens; Celebrating Landscape and Legacy
By Liz Macklin • September 1, 2021
This year with a fanfare of blossoms and new energy in programs blending science and the arts, Dumbarton Oaks marks its one hundredth anniversary.
Article
Life Always Wins. Follow Me.
By Richard Harkess • September 1, 2021
A botanist is introduced to escapees from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
Article
Supporting Pollinators, Yourself, and Your Ecological Community with Anise Hyssop
By Gayil Nalls • September 1, 2021
With fragrance, food, and therapeutic properties, the giant anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) can be a big contributor to an eco-community.
Issue 2: August 2021
Article
Rediscovering Dumbarton Oaks and one of America’s First Landscape Architects
By Liz Macklin • August 1, 2021
Liz Macklin explores the historic garden at Dumbarton Oaks with Director of Garden and Grounds, Jonathan Kavalier, and discuss the genius of Beatrix Farrand’s design and ways to meet challenges in today’s gardens.
Article
We Crush, Poison, and Destroy Our Insects at Our Own Peril
By John Hainze • July 1, 2021
Insects are escape artists. Now they face a threat more pernicious than predation.
Article
Can Plants Think?
By Stuart Thompson • July 1, 2021
They could one day force us to change our definition of intelligence
Article
Why Do Flowers Smell?
By Richard Harkess • July 1, 2021
Animal pollinators can carry pollen from one flower’s stigma to another flower’s ovule as they forage for food
Article
The Plan of the Grounds
By Beatrix Farrand • July 1, 2021
Excepted from the Reef Point Gardens Bulletin, Vol. 1, No. 3, September, 1948
Issue 1: July 2021
Article
How small family forests can help meet the climate challenge
By Gabriel Popkin • July 1, 2021
In the past, forest restoration could be informed by what once was. Now we have to make hard decisions about what we’re working toward.
A large majority of people, even in the United States, recognize climate change as real, but the percent who are actively changing their lifestyle, aggressively fighting to prevent climate change is much smaller. Why?
This 95-acre woods in south-central Pennsylvania’s ridge-and-valley country is a hunting and hiking refuge co-owned by eight families. As much as he loves it, Leiby knows it could be even better.
Article
One Thing We Could All Do To Make a Difference
By Gayil Nalls and the WS/C Advisory Board • July 1, 2021
Learning is rapid and reliable when rewards immediately follow the action and slow and even non-existent when rewards are substantially delayed in time.
Dr. Rhian Guillem of the Gibraltar Botanic Gardens discusses the Gibraltar Campion, Silene tomentosa.
I asked WSC’s knowledgeable Board of Advisors who have diverse expertise and perspectives to name one thing they think we all can do to make a difference. This is what they said.