Friday, October 05, 2007

New England Native Alternatives Gardening Guide

Every so often, a great and wonderful tool comes along, which helps those who wish to help the cause of sustainable landscape alternatives, and, therefore, fight the battle of invasive species in our environment. One of the largest problems facing the end-user is the difficulty in identifying conservation landscape alternatives. Having decided that English Ivy should be eliminated leaves the consumer struggling with a lack of easy to find alternative information as to which species could be substituted.

Over at Invasive Species Weblog, a user-friendly alternative species tool is now up and ready for your use at the New England Native Alternatives Gardening Guide. Lest you be put off by my first attempts at review and, seemingly negative comments, let me stress that I am delighted, encouraged, and fully supportive of this endeavor. If my first two attempts were somewhat unusual, I was not discouraged, but rather suspected that this was a symptom of a work in process.

Entering in Lythrum gave me eleven alternatives! I can envision a retail use and wish we had this tool at our nursery. Jennifer Forman Orth, Ph.D. and her team are to be commended and supported in their effort to provide a simple, easy-to-use tool for those consumers and users searching for non-harmful plants to grow in their gardens and landscapes.

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