Month: December 2022

Seaweed compost supplements and “manure” made from beans will be among the top garden trends of 2023, the Royal Horticultural Society has predicted.

As regenerative gardening becomes fashionable, experts in the horticulture charity’s gardens have been demonstrating how to tend beautiful plants in a more eco-friendly way, protecting the soil rather than extracting it from it.

People will also learn how to attract creatures previously malignant as pests into their garden for the unexpected benefits they can bring. The RHS said its garden advice service was receiving more inquiries about encouraging a greater abundance of wildlife to their gardens to fend off more troublesome species. These include wasps that predate on caterpillars, slugs that can help recycle decaying material, and aphids that provide food for ladybirds, and lacewing and hoverfly larvae.

Dr Mark Gush, head of environmental horticulture at the RHS, said: “Regenerative gardening is all about improving the environmental

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CNN
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High lettuce costs are coming for Olive Garden’s never-ending salad.

Darden Restaurants, which owns the casual dining chain in addition to Longhorn Steakhouse, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen and other restaurant chains, said that a spike in wholesale lettuce prices led to a big hit in the quarter ending November 27.

“It was, call it, $4 million to $5 million impact in the quarter,” Darden CFO Raj Vennam said during a Friday analyst call discussing financial results. “That’s meaningful.”

He pointed to “poor growing conditions and weather-related events” as reasons for the price increase.

Extreme weather like droughts and flooding, in addition to produce and animal diseases, has squeezed supply and led to wild price swings across food items this year.

The price of eggs, for example, has been soaring because of a deadly avian flu that’s harmful to egg-laying hens. In Florida, a disease called citrus greening

This holiday season, more than 500,000 lights brighten Longwood Gardens.

friday, the lights were named the best in the country.

The Kennett Square site won the best botanical garden holiday lights in USA Today’s 10 Best Readers’ Choice contest. This is the fifth year the garden won the contest.

Longwood Gardens competed against nine other gardens with holiday lights, from Gardens Aglow at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens to River of Lights at the ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

A panel of experts and 10 Best editors picked the nominees. The top 10 were selected by public voting.

Longwood Gardens’ holiday lights have a botanical splendor theme. They’ll be up through Jan. 8. Here’s a look at the lights plus a quiz.

It was morning in the valley, and I knew it had hailed outside and all the water was ice. The birds were frantically feeding on all the seeds; there’s a group of about 30 that come here often. When I went out to feed them, I saw there was a goldfinch that was frozen. It was a few minutes away from death!

My dad and I brought the bird inside. She wouldn’t open her mouth to drink. We started to worry, so we piled her up in warm blankets. There was still a chance she could stay alive, and just then she started to drink. She was really thirsty so we got her a dropper and some warm water, and I looked up how to save a freezing bird. I was scared that she might be in pain. She was so gentle, small and fragile.