Wildcraft Landscapes

10/07/2026

Fall is tender, fall is delicate. Tread lightly on the land this season friends & keep you eyes open, many tiny creatures are gearing up for great migrations, and big slumbers.

And for goodness sake, keep those leaves in your garden & save those cleanups for spring.

09/17/2026

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is truly a master piece and was formative book when asking those big questions about what do I want to do in this great and beautiful world for its Good.. Annie Dillard was a champion of nature's simple beauty (and at times, strangeness). My copies of her books are worn from re-reading and frequently loaning out to friends. Rest easy.

Dillard's work was characterized by spare prose and a deep connection to nature. She is best known for Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, An American Childhood, The Maytrees and The Writing Life.

09/16/2026

Woodland's (s)edge coming together wonderfully with this lawn replacement

Help pollinators find a home, create a beautiful, pollinator friendly habitat with us, your local native landscape specialists.

09/14/2026

Solarized lawn to pollinator and bird sanctuary conversion.

Here, where a moist, low spot in the lawn met a north facing shaded hill we were able to create this vibrant ecological landscape by responding with the appropriate plants for to those conditions.

This garden is a constantly changing mosaic of colors and textures throughout the seasons.

In a sea of suburban lawns - every project matters. Create a beautiful, pollinator friendly habitat with us, your local native landscape specialists.

09/09/2026

The caterpillar of the brown hooded owlet moth munching away on this goldenrod.

We love see to caterpillars eating plants in our gardens. It is the sign of a healthy garden. It's not just monarchs on milkweed, every plant and moth and caterpillar have an intricate dance they are playing.

You can see the caterpillar is not bothering with the flower buds - just the leaves, so in a week or so we will still enjoy these flowers.

09/07/2026

We've come a long way from this lawn removal to the ecological oasis of today.

In a sea of suburban lawns - every project matters. Create a beautiful, pollinator friendly habitat with us, your local native landscape specialists.

09/03/2026

Our invasive species management for landscapes begins with a careful assessment of what is present on the property to inform out management strategy. We study the landscape to develop a plan and project what will be the impact of our interventions

This property has numerous unique and desirable native plant species - from abundant native low bush blueberries to patridge berry - all exemplary of an Oak-Heath plant community in our region.

However, the bush honeysuckle, wineberry, and Japanese stilt grass are quickly becoming the dominant understory species. Each invasive species is treated with a science informed strategy to begin the process of controlling the population to where the existing native species can reestablish their population and fill the space.

Not every landscape needs us to come in and plant new plants - science informed stewardship is its own kind of gardening.

09/01/2026

"We counted 12 monarchs at once yesterday"

Quite a transformation a season can hold - this landscape plug planting was installed in June of 2026 and look where we are now.

The 25 different native plant species for this suburban meadow will not only help stabilize this slope but will provide habitat and food for our native wildlife.

08/31/2026

Sunday (ecological) Storytime:

I wanted to share a little moment of discovery with y'all that brings together this beautiful white flower, with the small butterfly you see in the photos, please enjoy.

Skippers - Hesperiidae - are that ever so common group of butterfly, very darty in their movements with the tight upright wings, looking like a small paper football. There's 275 species of them native to North America and today I saw a new one for me. One blurry photo and some internet sleuthing (shout out iNaturalist.org) later it turned out to be a Common Checkered Skipper (Burnsius communis) which has a pretty expansive range - southern California up into central Ontario and everywhere in between it seems. Some further research on ButterfliesandMoths.org revealed that it has several host plants or plants it needs to raise its caterpillars on - across that range. They are all in the Mallow family - Malvaceae.

However, we're here in Pennsylvania and so I wanted to see what it might be feeding on in our eco-region. When we start looking at its host plant species that are found in our part of Pennsylvania that list drops off abruptly. Sure some people plant non-native mallow, some mallow species grow as non-native weeds - some people plant Purple Poppy Mallow (Callirhoe involucrata) and other species ornamentally that are native to the midwest but none of those historically existed in eastern Pennsylvania.

Of the seven FAMILIES of plants that are listed as host plants there is only one that actually overlaps with Berks County - Sida - and specifically the Virginia mallow (Sida hermaphrodita). Which brings us to the first photo in the series...

Virginia mallow is a critically imperiled species in Pennsylvania that has not been documented in Berks county in over 25 years and is currently only known in the Susquehanna region as best as I could discern. This status is primarily due to irresponsible development and habitat loss. It's a massive wetland plant - sometimes getting over ten feet tall with hibiscus like leaves and tiny white flowers blooming in late summer. I had the opportunity to buy this individual from a small specialty nursery some years ago and I have been growing it in a large pot waiting for the right spot - or client's property - to plant it at. It's not an easy plant to find a home for in most garden settings and given its rarity finding local seeds is very difficult.

And so how is this species of butterfly persisting in an area where its singular native host plant has virtually been extirpated? Well likely it is utilizing some of the non native species in the family such as Malva neglecta (buttonweed) which is fairly common in the area or relying on those planting mid-western native species ornamentally. All the while keeping a vigilant eye out for the host plant it would have historically used in our eco-region. As many challenges as we have thrown at out native pollinators they are doing their best to persist.

I can't say for certain that this little skipper grew up eating the leaves of this Virginia mallow but I like to think that she did. And I think to think that that little caterpillar grew up stronger for having had the species she co-evolved over millennia to enjoy.

At Wildcraft Landscapes we're trying to not just heal our ecosystems through how we garden, we want to connect our clients with those ecological processes and stories that connect all beings. The wonders of the natural world are out there to be discovered.