One day, I was working in my front garden in a cold, light rain when a City of Raleigh Parks maintenance pickup truck pulled up outside my house. The driver rolled down his window and asked if he could talk with me. I walked over. Since he could see I was already wet, I guess he figured there was no need for him to get wet too, so he stayed in the truck.

He asked if I would ever consider working for the City, and his carrot was the Joslin Garden. I knew the Garden well, and had once met Mary Joslin. (Mary also graciously bought my first book, Gardening with Confidence.) I really respected William and Mary’s conservation efforts.

In 2020, I became a gardener with the City of Raleigh Parks Department. I was the one who would renovate the Joslin Garden — to conserve it and preserve the Joslin spirit. It had been a decade or more since any real maintenance had been done.

Before I could transfer to care for the Joslin Garden, I first had to work in several other gardens within the Parks system. I was only part-time, which suited me just fine — three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. But I was getting itchy to edit the Joslin Garden.

I started with the City in February 2020, but didn’t begin work in the Joslin Garden full-time/part-time position until July, 2021, the start of that fiscal year. In those prior months, I started to get frustrated, and the City worried I wouldn’t wait much longer. I wouldn’t have. So, reluctantly, my District supervisor lent me to the Garden one day a week. He wasn’t keen about it, and when I went full-time on those three days, he definitely wasn’t happy about losing my time to some other park’s garden. It turned out, though, he was impressed with my work ethic and gardening skills, and hated to see me go.

I later learned from a co-worker who’d been on the hiring team that I wasn’t their first choice. I didn’t love that she shared that with me. As it turned out, whoever had been their first choice didn’t like the “generous” starting hourly rate. I, on the other hand, was in it for the challenge. It was going to be a huge project — one that would take me years to finish. The Joslins left a legacy. It was my job to continue that legacy. It was a high honor! I’m leaving with my own kind of legacy.

When I had my own garden maintenance business, it wasn’t a “mow, blow, go” kind of job. It was true garden maintenance: proper pruning, deadheading, taming vines, and more. My real love was big garden-edit projects. Tony Avent once called me the “garden editor”, both for my work editing gardens and my work as a garden writer.

I could walk into the very worst overgrown garden and bring it back to life. I’d known the Joslin Garden before it was given to the City of Raleigh on Earth Day, April 21, 2022 — it hadn’t been touched in years, decades, really. It was exactly the kind of project I could do. I remember when my friend Barbara came by on my first day; she took one look and said, “Helen, what the hell were you thinking?” Yes, the Garden was in that bad of shape. I was never deterred!

I had bosses (breaking in three of them, but Lauren would say, “No one is the boss of Helen.” Haha. It’s true, I was given free reign over the Garden’s care and improvements. They knew they were getting a bargain, and just let me do what needed to be done. I felt like a Queen Bee! I was humbled.

Starting in the Joslin Garden

I regret not taking before pictures as I walked around that first day. I can honestly say the Garden needed me. Mary Joslin’s philosophy was that nothing that fell in the Garden should leave it — She believed that was the truest form of conservation. If a limb fell away from the paths, it stayed where it landed. If a branch fell onto a path, it was set aside to line the path. By the time I arrived, the paths were so narrow, lined with so many branches, that there was only room for one person to walk at a time. As one neighbor put it, “It looks so snakey.”

The first two years were spent removing the majority of the sticks lining the paths that had narrowed over time. In the first 2 years, we removed 90 dump trucks full of these and other sticks to the Wake County Yard Waste Facility. After that, we started making stick stations and fences, so we could begin keeping the limbs.

Volunteers

Our core volunteers are Todd, Don, Annie, Carol, James, Joanne, Nathalie, and Ms. Ann. Somehow I’ve been remiss in getting a picture of Ms. Ann. She, too, goes by Annie, but since we already had an Annie, I chose to refer to her as Ms. Ann, as she was my children’s piano teacher, and that was how she was referred to then.

When managing a group, it’s important to know their strengths and tasks they’d prefer not to undertake, for various reasons.

Our volunteer core group isn’t a social one like many other volunteer programs. This group likes it that way; me too. Before we start our time together, we check in with each other to see what each of us has been up to. We share trips we’ve taken, movies we’ve watched, books we’ve read, and books we’ve written. They disperse, sometimes alone, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in groups. I make my rounds to see how each is doing. I’m fortunate, since I know what they bring to the Garden so well that I can give them a lot of latitude.

I have been honored to build a very dedicated group of volunteers—who became lifelong friends.

They each came to me for different reasons.

Ms. Ann came back into my life after so many years, as she was looking for me to do a consult on the property she purchased after our piano lessons were over. Ann is an avid gardener. You know how you give a gift to teachers after the school year is over? I remember giving Ms. Ann live ladybugs. I remember her saying, “This is a first.” I think we bonded over that.

Ms. Ann will do pretty much any task, but she mostly weeds and is good at it! She brings a warm smile and comfort to all when she arrives to volunteer.

I remember when Todd came to us. My friend Jere was visiting me in the Garden, and Todd came walking through the Joslin Garden, with his bike to access the Greenway. He stopped to chat with us and said he was a neighbor. So Jere said, “Why don’t you volunteer?” He’s been with us ever since. Todd keeps us in stitches. He’s really smart, so often what he says goes over our heads, or at least gets a delayed laugh. He likes to plant, blow, and generally tidy up. If pressed, he will weed. I never press him, though. He’s really good at hauling branches to the stick stations and more.

One of my favorite volunteer stories is Don’s. He and his wife, Val, had just moved to the area from California. Don had read one of my stories in Walter Magazine about conserving grasslands. He tracked me down and asked if he could volunteer in the Joslin Garden and work alongside me to learn more about gardening on the East Coast and conservation! “YES!” I said. I think that was about 4 years ago, or was it 5? He comes most Thursdays; I can only remember Don missing one Thursday volunteer day, or was it 2.

Don's main job is caring for our muscadine grapes. Not exactly what he was used to; his career was as a vintner—a winemaker—and we all ask for advice on selecting wine. He also went to culinary school, so at our annual holiday party, he brings cured gravlax he makes himself from steelhead salmon. And occasionally he treats me to his cured pork belly. Yum!

Don doesn’t like to weed, but he will remove invasive species. Don was instrumental in removing the nandina (Nandina domestica). Don also has a wicked sense of humor. His specialty is one-liners, which always bring a smile to us all. When David, my husband, needed help on our muscadines, Don helped with that too.

I asked Annie to remind me how she came to us. Here’s her reply: “I was volunteering for various invasive removal projects through Parks and Rec and wanted to do something longer-term. Parks and Rec suggested I volunteer at Joslin Garden. I loved the idea, and the rest is history.” Annie’s experience with invasive removal and hard work has been invaluable! We have worked very hard over several years to make the Joslin Garden free of invasive species. It’s been a challenge, but we must start, or we’ll never finish!

Carol coming to us was another reminder I needed. Here’s Carol’s response: “I reviewed the Raleigh parks newsletter, saw the Garden, which I had never heard of. After walking around the Garden on my own, my passion was renewed, and I signed up. Next, I visited you [Helen] there, and here we are.”

Carol’s participation has been invaluable. Her specialty is pruning. Over the last 2-3 years, Carol has been instrumental in reviving our overgrown, leggy shrubs, especially the azaleas. (One can’t stand still for too long if Carol is heading your way with loppers in hand, or you will be prunned!)

James came to us easily, as he is a Joslin, one of William and Mary’s six children. James and his dad laid the brick in the quadrant beds; I believe it was in 1980. So laying brick was his fortè.

James took up the ratty (and trip-able) slate path and repaved it with the same-colored brick used in the Quadrant beds. James is also our muscle man! When he fills a wheelbarrow, he has to own it, since no one else can even lift the handles to move it!

I had to ask Joanne how she came to us; here is her reply: “During COVID, I looked for volunteer opportunities with the City of Raleigh. One opportunity was to spread mulch at Joslin Garden. I enjoyed it, and Helen asked if I wanted to become a regular weekly volunteer. Of course I said yes! I was happy to have a regular garden volunteer gig about 1/2 mile from my house instead of driving all over Raleigh. I've been coming most Wednesdays ever since. I've learned so much over the past few years about garden design, weeds, invasives, mulches, and native plants and pollinators. I'm grateful for the experience and all I've learned from Helen.

Joanne likes (loves) to weed. She puts her head down and only comes up for air when her day is done. She gets great satisfaction removing especially large smilax. When I first started, the trees everywhere were topped with smilax and birds spreading seed—EVERYWHERE. We were taking out roots as large as a three-year-old's torso!

It’s easy to remember how Nathalie came to us, since she was already a dear friend for a decade or more. Nathalie is also very strong. She helps James a lot wherever more muscle is needed. As an example, she helped James with the repaving. I estimate the new path is about 40 feet long and 3 feet wide, as it started at the entrance bed and rounds around to the front of the Food Forest and beyond. All tasks in the Garden are Nathalie’s specialty, but I like it when she mows the best.

We had other volunteers who stayed with us a year or so, but then moved on, including Aillene, Art, Cindy, Chris, and Linelle. And we have Ann Neal, who serves as the garden tour docent, and the Gardeners of Wake County, caring for the Jeu de Palm each month.

Looking Back

I was so dedicated, maybe too much so; I never missed a beat as I was diagnosed with four major cancer surgeries and treatments—breast cancer and radiation, rectal cancer (2 surgeries), and a brain tumor; thankfully, it was benign. (I did take a week off after this surgery, though.)

During my time, I also experienced various bugs, viruses, and parasites. I had a hell of a time, but continued on with wonderful support from our dedicated volunteers and bosses, who stood by me from the start. I never missed a day.

The best part is making so many like-minded friends who started out as volunteers and became lifelong friends

Looking ahead

I’ve put in for retirement on April 1, 2027. No, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke; it just worked out that way. There are three more projects I want to complete before I retire: 1) Design and install the new area where the utility corral was removed. 2) Update the Maintenance Plan, and 3) update the plant list. But if another cancer comes a-knockin’, I’ll say goodbye even earlier.

Until soon,

Helen

Look, I said to no one,
how the tiny gold heads
gather at the tip of each stem
like a fist of small suns
deciding, all together,
to open.

They do not wait for permission.
They do not wait for anything.
By August they are already
leaning out over the meadow,
wandlike, curved,
as if the whole plant
were reaching toward something
only it could see.

I have learned to stop
and kneel in the ditch grass
for this — the ordinary miracle,
the roadside flower
no one plants on purpose.

A bumblebee, heavy and slow,
climbs into the yellow crowd,
filling herself for a winter
she has not seen yet
but somehow already knows.

A monarch stops here too,
on her long orange journey south,
because someone, someone
must keep the gold going
a little further down the road.

And when the frost finally comes
and turns the flowers to rough brown seed,
the finches will arrive
like small commas
punctuating the dead stalks,
and the sparrows after them,
and the whole plant will keep giving
even in its diminishment —

which is, I think,
the entire lesson:
to be useful and lovely
right up to the end,
and then to be useful
a while longer.

Naturally, Helen Yoest

The freshness of spring brings awareness of new life; sleeping flora and fauna awaken our senses. Indeed, in the Joslin Garden, newness abounds. Visitors first notice the colorful camellias in bloom, then the garden’s quietness — you can hear the birds chirping, singing, and preening as mating season begins again. The ferns emerge, forming fiddleheads that will soon unroll into leafy blades, and the moss is forever a verdant green.

If you look closely, spring ephemerals abound: blooming trillium, galanthus, and cyclamen. Between Anderson Drive and St. Marys Street, this city park offers more than 4 acres to explore, a refuge for personal renewal. As a young couple in the 1950s, William and Mary Joslin wanted to do their part to steward the land. Together, they built this garden to conserve its beauty for the future.

William Joslin

Born in 1920 in the neighborhood formerly known as Cameron Park, William Joslin played in the surrounding creeks and woods. The impact was deep and lasting. William became a birder and hiker and loved everything about nature. After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, William had just turned 21 and was finishing his first semester at Columbia University Law School in New York when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. He enlisted in the Navy, where he served as a lieutenant on the U.S.S. Massey, a destroyer in the Pacific.

By the time the war was over and William finished law school, the 158-acre forest in the Raleigh of his youth was being developed as the Southeast’s first shopping center. Cameron Village, now known as The Village District, opened in 1949.

Mary Coker Joslin

Mary Coker was born in Hartsville, South Carolina, in 1922, and came from a scientific, agricultural family that valued education. Mary’s grandfather, James Lide Coker, founded Sonoco Products Company, now an international corporation, as well as Coker College in Hartsville. Mary’s father, David R. Coker, was a plant breeder who founded Coker’s Pedigreed Seed Company. In the early 20th century, the company developed and marketed varieties of cotton with exceptional-quality fiber, later expanding to include corn, oats, and sorghum.

Mary’s mother, May Roper Coker, was an avid gardener. In the early 1930s, her brother-in-law, William C. Coker, a professor of botany at UNC, gave her 35 acres of land just outside of Hartsville. There, along the bluffs of Black Creek, there were large stands of Kalmia Latifolia, the native mountain laurel. Over the next four decades, she developed the garden now known as Kalmia Gardens. At her death, this garden became part of Coker College (now Coker University).

Mary attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she studied botany. During her summers, she returned to Hartsville to work at the Coker’s Pedigreed Seed Company, and her work eventually led to the development of a soybean variety named for her (the Majos), which is the ancestor of a bean that is widely planted and marketed today.

Early Days Together

One of Mary’s cousins, Thomas Rogers, was a good friend of William Joslin’s during their undergraduate years at Chapel Hill. On a visit to New York, Tom introduced William, then a naval officer, to Mary, who had come down from Vassar into the city. During the war they corresponded, and in 1946, they married in Hartsville. Their wedding reception was held at Kalmia Gardens.

After William finished law school, he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black in the 1947-1948 term. Then the couple moved to Raleigh, where William opened his law practice. In 1950, when Mary was 27 and William 29, they set about finding some land where they could put their heart and soul into developing a garden and raising their family.

The Joslins found a little over 4 acres for sale off of White Oak Road — then on the northern outskirts of Raleigh — along a tributary of Crabtree Creek. The land had once been part of Arrowhead Farm, owned by J. Bryan Grimes in a previous generation, who had been the N.C. Secretary of State during the first two decades of the 20th Century. (The farm’s name came from the many Native American arrowheads that have been found on the property over the years.)

They both loved the rolling terrain of the land and the little stream that ran through it; they loved large hardwood trees and the pine forest that had grown during the years after farming operations ceased. The soil was the good old red clay of the North Carolina Piedmont region.

William became active in the North Carolina Chapter of the Nature Conservancy with its inception in 1977, and in the 1980s he also became involved with the Triangle Land Conservancy. As they grew older, William and Mary began thinking about the best way to preserve their land for the enjoyment of future generations, and in 1997 they granted a conservation easement on the property to the Triangle Land Conservancy.

In 2010, the Joslins approached the City of Raleigh about donating their home and garden for a park. They worked with then-mayor Charles Meeker to create the City of Oaks Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports the Raleigh parks system. After William’s death in 2011, Mary continued to live in the home and maintain the garden. At her death in 2016, the foundation maintained the property until the infrastructure was in place for the city to accept it. On Earth Day, April 22, 2021, the Joslin Garden became a City of Raleigh Park. Helen Yoest became the conservation gardener.

Wildflowers, pollinator plants and nectar- and pollen-rich plants — many descendants of the diverse plantings of the Joslins — provide food for bees, birds and butterflies. “The Joslin Garden brings nature and peace closer to us all in our busy city,” says Meeker. “It’s always a great joy to visit.”

Until soon,

Helen Yoest

Consider the fir trees of Oyamel,
how they hold, in their high cold arms,
an orange and black coloring all winter long —
wings folded like praying hands,
four months, five months,
from November until the world tips back toward light
somewhere near the end of February,
or March, when the mountain remembers
it is only a resting place, not a home.

I mostly meet them in August,
in my own garden in Raleigh,
already halfway through some enormous errand,
stopping for nectar, stopping to lay
their small green promises
only on the milkweed, only on the Asclepias —
as if the whole world offered a thousand flowers
and only one would do.

Here is what I have learned, and will never understand:
when they cross into Texas, a mother stops.
She lays her eggs and then, within a week or two,
she dies —
not tragically, not even sadly,
the way a leaf isn’t sad to fall,
just finished, just done what it came to do.
And the children she never meets
carry the rest of her journey north in their bodies.

Read more

Our natural world is changing, and we can help. At times it may seem hopeless, but doing nothing only makes things worse. We can each make a difference.

I have yet to speak with anyone who hasn’t noticed a decline in the birds, bees, and butterflies visiting their home habitat. Through my decades as a wildlife gardener — gardening especially for birds, bees, and butterflies — I’ve welcomed a wide range of other species too, including anoles, frogs, black snakes, and beneficial insects that come to feed in my garden.

Today, I’m seeing fewer and fewer visitors. I can only imagine how much steeper the decline looks to those who haven’t spent decades paying close attention. It’s not too late to start.

Habitat loss is the leading cause of species decline today, which means we all have a role to play as conservationists and ecologists.

Conservation is an interdisciplinary field that draws on the environmental sciences and focuses on preserving endangered species and their natural habitats. Ecology, meanwhile, is concerned with understanding how living organisms interact with their environment — the relationships among species, and how those relationships shape the world around them.

Both fields are rooted in a concern for the climate and for addressing environmental challenges, and both recognize the importance of preserving biodiversity. I’ve spent a lifetime studying and practicing these principles in my own garden.

My journey began when my husband and I bought our family home in 1997, though I’d been practicing these principles for decades before that. Putting down roots in this Raleigh home and garden has let me track changes over time in a way I couldn’t before.

I started with the four elements every wildlife habitat needs: food, water, cover, and places to raise young. That part was easy. The harder — and more important — step was eliminating pesticides altogether, organic or otherwise. I’d never used much to begin with, but marketing has a way of getting to you: scare tactics that make you afraid of everything outside your door.

There’s a better way. If you focus on four ecological goals, you can build a garden that actually makes a difference:

1. Plant to support pollinators year-round. We’re lucky to garden year-round here, which makes it easy to have something in bloom at any time.

2. Provide energy for the food web. Food webs run on biomass — the energy stored in living organisms. Autotrophs, the producers at the base of the web, make their own food from light, water, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals, and are especially good at building that carbon into their tissues and holding it there. Planting species that do this well means sharing the energy they’ve harnessed from the sun with the local animals that keep our ecosystems running.

3. Help remove carbon from the atmosphere. In theory, burning crops for electricity while capturing and storing the resulting carbon dioxide underground could pull carbon out of the atmosphere — but that isn’t happening at any meaningful scale. Planting forests and trees and managing the forests we already have are more realistic ways to help draw down carbon dioxide.

4. Manage the watershed you live in — yes, even from your own yard. A watershed is the area of land that drains into a particular body of water, like a lake or river. As rain or melted snow runs downhill through it, it picks up sediment and other material, carrying them into that body of water. In my own garden, I’ve routed all my water so it filters through the ground first. Doing this improves water quality by controlling erosion and filtering pollutants, while also reducing water use — and your water bill.

We can all take small steps in our daily lives to make a positive impact on our local environment. I’d start with the simplest one: providing food, water, cover, and places to raise young.

Until soon,

Helen Yoest

Until soon,

Helen

Wildlife Gardening: Choosing Plants for Ecosystem Health

What’s the best part of being a wildlife gardener besides the wondrous wildlife we attract? Nothing. We have all we need in the natural world to provide local wildlife diversity, but we can always plant more.

Diversity is essential to a healthy ecosystem, and that is the goal of a wildlife gardener. We want our gardens to do more than look good—we need them to provide ecosystem services. Adding genetic diversity to the plant population strengthens the entire ecosystem.

For wildlife, the preferred plants are straight native species and select cultivars that still benefit local fauna. To help you make informed choices, here is a breakdown of straight species, cultivars, nativars, and hybrids.

Straight Species: Native Plants

By definition, a straight species is considered a true native plant—one that occurs naturally in a given location or region. Native species are adapted to the local climate and soil conditions, providing the greatest benefit to local wildlife. These essential plants offer nectar, pollen, and seeds that serve as food for native butterflies, insects, birds, and other animals.

Cultivars

A cultivar (a portmanteau for cultivated variety) is a plant selected or bred by humans for specific traits. Straight species, such as garden phlox, have been extensively cultivated as ornamental plants.

Cultivars are almost always clones, propagated commercially through root cuttings or divisions. It’s important to note that cultivar seeds collected in your garden will rarely “come true” to the parent plant. If you grow self-seeding species like bee balm or many asters, offspring grown from cultivar seed will likely revert or look different. There are also sports and cultivars that occur naturally, such as Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana’, which I recently wrote about.

Nativars

Nativars are simply cultivars of native species. While some purists find the term distasteful or redundant—since all nativars are cultivars, but not all cultivars are nativars—it serves a practical purpose. It clearly distinguishes native-derived cultivars, reinforcing the importance of native plant lineage.

The Problem with Double Flowers

Depending on the plant, some cultivars and nativars are botanical oddities highly prized by the nursery industry—especially those with double flowers. In breeding double flowers, petals replace the stamens. A classic example is the coneflower Echinacea purpurea ‘Hot Papaya’.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for bees and butterflies to gather pollen or nectar from double flowers. Furthermore, these modified blooms are often sterile and produce no seeds—bad news for goldfinches and other birds that rely on them for nourishment.

Hybrids

• 

  To add to the mix, there are hybrids, which are crosses between multiple distinct species. Hybrids are indicated with a multiplication symbol (×) after the genus name (e.g., Coreopsis × ‘Redshift’).

Final Thoughts

As you plan your pollinator garden, aim to choose straight species or cultivars that haven’t been altered to the detriment of their pollen and nectar production. As striking as those double flowers look, they simply don’t offer the necessary benefits to our local wildlife.

Until soon,

Helen

Two thousand miles from the dark jungles of Mexico,

over the wild, salt water

no larger than a jumbo paperclip,

no heavier than a penny.

It is early spring.

The males come first, solitary and fierce,

claiming a patch of light,

waiting for the red wild columbine

to open its soft, trumpet-shaped secret.

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While I have your attention, please LIKE the post by clicking on the heart, assuming you do like it. Also, be sure to read to the end or scroll down to see a weekly digest of my daily Notes. Thank you for being here <3

It’s fun to catch a thief! Nectar robbing in action is always fascinating, and I love to share it. Whenever I have visitors to my garden, and the anise-scented sage (Salvia guaranitica) is in bloom, there will always be bees bypassing pollination to sip sweet nectar. Witnesses are always amused.

Nectar robbing is a foraging behavior where animals, mostly bees, bypass the flower’s natural opening, where pollen is found, and obtain nectar at the base of the flower’s corolla or nectar spur. In doing so, these robbers are stealing nectar without touching the flower’s reproductive structures.

Read more

long before the sun reaches over the horizon,

the darkness is broken by a small, bright music.

It is the robin,

perched high in the damp cool of the branches.

He does not wait for the light to begin.

He flutes his song into the gray air—

clear, urgent, and untroubled.

He is calling out to the world:

Here I am. This is my place.

Read more

For reasons unbeknownst to me, I can’t log into Facebook. In the past, I’ve been kicked off, saying my garden posts didn’t meet community standards. Maybe I used the word S3X, instead of procreation. I really don’t know. That was about two years ago, or was it three? I worked to rebuild it, but then just got frustrated. Now I can’t log in, and I’m thinking it’s a sign; time to move on.

I’ve been on Facebook since 2007. It was a wonderful platform where I only posted about gardening. No cats. No family. No dogs, except when I had to say goodbye to my cherished Pepper girl.

I never got the hang of Instagram; for decades, I was immersed in Twitter, but then just quit one day, and that was way before X. I played around with Pinterest, and I still like to look at what others post. I never even bother with whatever platforms were out there.

I’ve blogged since 2005, first under Gardening with Confidence and now Bee Better Naturally with Helen Yoest. At the first of the year, I will not re-up for another year.

I’m no longer speaking unless it is in the comfort of a garden club that meets in a member’s house.

I will no longer consult.

I will no longer offer garden maintenance services—which was always my love. I will continue the care of the Joslin Garden and my own.

Yes, I will still garden. I will continue to garden until I’m face down in my garden bed, clutching a three-pronged cultiver, which I lovingly call a scratcher.

So, what will I do? I will write. I plan to embrace substack.com as my one and only way to communicate. It’s a great platform for writers. I started a year or so ago, and I’m slowly getting subscribers. But in the end, I’m not chasing a ranking or an increase in subscribers or followers. While I hope readers will subscribe, I won’t take it personally if someone isn’t interested in what I have to say.

There are photographers using Substack, and I only occasionally get a request for prayers, but for me, it’s about garden writing. Not blog posts, but articles like those I write for magazines, but without an editor, so please excuse any typos.

I will continue to write for the magazines I currently work for.

I’ve even ventured into writing nature poems, with my first going up on Saturday, July 25th.

My schedule will look like the following:

A daily Note. May two.

A weekly poem on Saturdays.

A story about wildlife and a few muses filtered in each Sunday

I have several email subscribers. But they are missing out on my daily Notes unless they go to my actual Substack.

These Notes are also focused on wildlife habitat tips and tricks. If you want to get more information, log in to

Garden writing from the heart...

Sustainable gardener by respecting Earth first!

By Helen Yoest

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Notes are free. There are options for subscribers to choose between free or paid plans. Several of my readers are at the paid level, telling me they like supporting my writing. Some of my Saturday and Sunday posts have a firewall, as a benefit to my paid subscribers. Others are free.

In the past, to get a book published, one had to have a large social media following. I must have had enough followers since I’ve written five gardening books.

I’ve decided not to write another traditional book. My publisher would like another, but I’m over writing books. We are in an internet world, one that I plan to embrace. Like when Madonna sings,

‘Cause we are living in a material world

And I am a material girl”

I now sing through Substack:

“Cause we are living in an internet world

And I am an internet girl!”

My next book will be written on Substack.com. I’ve already posted a dozen or more stories. You can check them out if you haven’t seen them and would like to see what I’m writing about.

I hope you reach further to see the notes I post. You will not be disappointed.

Until soon,

Helen

I was one of the lucky ones, growing up on the East Coast of Virginia where lightning bugs, as we called them, lit our warm evening summer sky, often as early as May. Today’s term for these beetles seems to have gravitated towards fireflies. I like that too, but I still fall back on my childhood term of lightning bugs; after all, they were lighting up the night sky like that of a summer storm.

For those of us East of the Rockies with warm and sultry nights, awaiting the arrival of the fireflies meant the arrival of summer.

There are more than 2,000 species of fireflies, a type of beetle. Did you know there are fireflies out West as well, but they don’t light up the sky at night? Despite their name, not all fireflies glow. Fireflies in the western United States, for example, lack the ability to produce light. Another interesting fact about fireflies is that most females don’t fly. Instead, on the East Coast at least, they remain in moist leaf litter and flash to a receptive mate.

Sadly, fireflies are in decline. The reasons remain to be pinpointed, but experts believe that habitat loss and light pollution play a role by interfering with firefly flash patterns. Light from buildings and streetlights makes it difficult for fireflies to signal each other during mating season—meaning fewer fireflies. It has been noted that flashes of synchronous fireflies get out of synch for a few minutes after a car’s headlights pass.

Males flash to attract females, and mating begins when the flash carries the right rhythm. The flash of a male firefly is only the first stage of courtship, and may not even be the most important. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but a study shows size matters! Females are more likely to mate with males who give them a larger nuptial gift.

Life Cycle of Fireflies

Like all beetles, fireflies undergo complete metamorphosis with four stages in their life cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

Egg – In mid-summer, mated females will deposit about 100 spherical eggs, singly or in clusters. Fireflies prefer moist soils and will lay eggs under mulch or leaf litter, where the soil is likely to stay moist. But it varies by species. These eggs usually hatch in three to four weeks.

Larva – Larvae emerge from their eggs in late summer and live in the soil through the winter before pupating in the spring. This is one of the many reasons to keep leaf litter in our garden beds. At night, the larvae hunt and eat slugs, snails, and worms. To consume food, the larvae will capture their prey and inject digestive enzymes to immobilize it and liquefy its remains.

Pupa – Different species of firefly larvae pupate in different ways. When the larva is ready, usually in late spring, some species construct a mud chamber in the soil and settle inside it. In other species, the larva attaches itself to a tree’s bark, hanging upside down by the hind end.

During pupation, a remarkable transformation occurs. In a process called histolysis, the larva’s body is broken down, and special groups of transformative cells are activated, triggering biochemical processes that transform the insect from a larva into its adult form. When the metamorphosis is complete, the adult firefly is ready to emerge, usually about 10 days to several weeks after pupation.

Adult – When the adult firefly emerges, it has one purpose: to reproduce. To find a mate, fireflies use a species-specific pattern to locate compatible individuals of the opposite sex.

Typically, the male flies low to the ground, flashing a signal with the light organ on his abdomen, and a female resting on vegetation returns his communiqué. By repeating this exchange, the male homes in on her, and the rest of the story is happily ever after.

Adult fireflies don’t live long, averaging about two months; just long enough to mate and lay eggs.

No matter the life cycle, all stages of fireflies glow. Interesting, right? Bioluminescence is present in firefly eggs, larvae, pupae, and adults, and even some larvae living underground or underwater glow. Some firefly eggs emit a faint glow if disturbed.

Experts theorize the ability to emit light helps larvae signal to predators that they aren’t appetizing, since part of the firefly defense mechanism is to produce foul-tasting steroids.

The firefly’s glow is the result of the reaction of two chemicals found in their tails, luciferase and luciferin. Luciferin is heat-resistant and provides the glow. Luciferase triggers the flash. Firefly light can be yellow, green, or orange.

Where do Fireflies Live?
Fireflies thrive in warm, humid climates, which is why they are found on almost every continent on Earth. Fireflies inhabit forests, fields, and marshes near bodies of water because they require a moist environment to survive. Some species of firefly larvae have gills and are aquatic, while others live in trees.

What do Fireflies Eat?
As adults, most fireflies feed on nectar and pollen, but some don’t seem to eat at all. Those few species that carry their carnivorous lifestyle into adulthood switch from snails to other fireflies. Yikes!

Catching Fireflies
Lightning bugs are so ingrained in our childhood memories. I’m sure everyone on the East Coast has a memory to share. The top one is to catch them and keep them in a mason jar overnight.

There is plenty of air in the jar to keep the insects alive for a day or more, and poking holes in the lid will cause the jar to dry out too quickly. Instead, put a small piece of washed apple and a small clump of fresh grass in the jar, or a moistened paper towel in the bottom, keeping the air in the jar moist, and it gives the fireflies something to grab onto. The grass is for them to climb on and hide in.

Every day, unscrew the jar lid and blow across the top of the jar. This keeps the air in the jar fresh. Don’t put the jar in direct sunlight.

You don’t need to feed the fireflies. Most adults never eat. They did all their eating in their larval stage. But don’t keep them in a jar for more than two or three days. Fireflies only live a few days or weeks, and we need them outside to mate.

Unlike some other insects, fireflies are no bother to us humans. They don’t sting, bite, attack, or carry disease.

WEEKLY NOTES DIGEST

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday & Wednesday

Thursday & Thursday

Friday & Friday

Saturday

Until soon,

Helen Yoest

Full disclosure: My garden’s edging isn’t very creative, since it is just plain rusted metal. I like all the creative ideas I will share below, but in the end, I like structure and don’t want my garden to look so busy. It’s also interesting to note that I’m a collector and a sustainable gardener, so one would think I would be all over the following creative edging design. For me, given my background in garden reading and writing, nothing is new. If, and that is a big IF, I did embrace another type of edging, it hasn’t been invented yet.

Between 2012 and 2013, a movement took off as upcycling, crafting, and thrifting made their way onto the garden scene. This decorative dish edging—where saucers and plates are buried halfway into the soil to create a storybook, whimsical border. The first time I saw dishes used as edging was in a magazine; I loved it. So did the rest of the gardening world! Gardeners everywhere, it seemed, began to follow this trend. I didn’t. The idea had a loooonggg contrail.

I’ve only ever seen this edging on the internet! I love it. And before you think the weeds will grow all up and between the shells, I agree! But it is super cute! I think it would look best at the coast, and if you are a sheller, then there is a good story to go with it.

Stone is another great example of edging. And, yes, weeds will get all up and in it. I hand-weeded it recently, and it wasn’t bad. You see rocks used often in the Northeast, since all you have to do is stick a shovel in the soil and you’ll hit one! Unlike seashells, stone can look appropriate as edging in a wide range of gardens.

Well, maybe not exactly edging, but I like it. It looks super easy to do. I wouldn’t consider it a handrail since it will move when you need to grab hold of it.

Here’s another type of edging that has a very long contrail. Using wine bottles as garden edging became a widespread DIY trend in the early 2010s, again fueled by the upcycling movement; gardeners began burying empty bottles upside-down to create colorful, weather-resistant borders for their flower beds. It’s OK, but I raised three little kids in my garden, where these can be murderous. They’re cute, though. It would take me forever to drink that much wine to make an edge. What I do like is that an edge can be added on after each garden party. The tricky part is finding wine you like that also comes in colorful bottles!

I like this a lot. Frankly, I like metals in general for a variety of things. I purchased a metal-framed mirror from a thrift store for my garden gazebo, which also has a long contrail. This trend is centuries old; I’m finally catching on. More about that later.

I wonder if being a Pisces is why I’m so attracted to metal? From what I understand, we are, but particularly silver and gold. I prefer my metal to be oiled bronze or rusted metal. I seek vintage in most everything I buy. I’ve always been a renegade.

Here’s another fine example of metal edging.

Oh, yes, I could do this all day long! But alas, my Raleigh garden is rocky, and they are never bigger than an egg. I love this look! It’s so organic-looking, which I tend towards.

These are interesting. I’m not sure I would want them in my garden, but their use here was perfect, since they were at the property line. I’ve seen them before, but never knew what they were. My friend, Jere, who was on the tour with me, said, “They were concrete test cylinders.” She then had to explain it further by saying, and I’m paraphrasing, these small, cast cylinders (typically 4” x 8” or 6” x 12”) made of wet concrete from a fresh pour. They are cured and crushed in a laboratory press to verify the concrete’s compressive strength. Why these pieces got a reprieve from the lab press is a mystery.

What a great use of saving the trunk of trees instead of hauling them off. Over the years, I’ve done something similar, working to conserve the Joslin Garden. One would have to be mindful of scale. The size of this garden vegetable bed supports these logs. Plus, it is parallel along the long side street. One must keep scale in mind!

If left in the shade for years, the stumps will develop a wonderful patina. I love this look! You can’t buy it. You can’t gather it. You can’t make it. One must wait patiently for Mother Nature to turn on her charm.

I love this image! The log became a serendipitous edge when the Galanthus spp. spread into the path.

On a very lucky note, we were able to rescue hundreds of Belgian blocks from a neighbor 2 doors down. We used many of the pieces to edge the formal bed at the Joslin Garden. I took a bunch home for additional edging (I already had some) and for steps when I built the new railing and path along my Southside. Other workmates took what they wanted, as did friends. Is it too much to say they were manna from Heaven?

In case you did see my post sharing the steps and railing I created on my Southside.

Don’t you think these are the Crème de la crème? I do.

But it’s never going to happen for me. While I was shopping at a thrift store yesterday, I found these for sale. Not enough to do much with. If you have any ideas, please share. And even if there were plenty, the small ones cost $42 each, and the larger ones were $48.

Until soon,

Helen Yoest

So why am I noticing that, in my home garden, the Bee Better Teaching Garden, and the conservation garden where I work part-time, the Joslin Garden, these lovely elephant ears are popping up—everywhere! I never planted this elephant ear cultivar, ‘Pink China’, but for some reason it has made its home in my garden and in the garden where I work.

One might think that I’m the common denominator, but I promise you, I am not; well, maybe I am. If I planted them, I would be honest and tell you. The only question I have is why are you showing up now?

‘Pink China’ is a lovely cultivar of Colocasia esculenta; I’ve seen it for sale at Tony’s nursery, but I never purchased it. I like elephant ears, but I’m satisfied with a few little ones like Colocasia esculenta ‘Tea Cup’.

At first, I thought they were charming, and I was even a little giddy for their arrival. As I researched this cultivar, I realized it is highly invasive. But where was it coming from?

From my research, I learned that ‘Pink China’ is legendary in North Carolina gardening circles because it was originally sourced and popularized right here in Raleigh by Tony Avent at Juniper Level Botanic Garden. Because it is so tough, it has been widely given away at local plant swaps, shared over fences by neighbors, and planted in local public spaces for years; it has spread to even further reaches.

Because I buy bulk composted leaf mulch from the City for my home garden and the Joslin Garden, it could have come in through the mulch. Or a tuber or runner could have been hiding in the soil of a pass-along plant.

Given Raleigh’s ranking of having the sixth-driest winter since 1944, I am even more surprised, since elephant ears like moist soil, and the drought started during this past winter.

It’s a mystery. I have no plans to see what they’ll do. Out they’ll go. I need to make sure I’m on top of removing every trace of this plant, or it will overtake other plants I grow.

Until soon,

Helen

If ever there was a native plant gardeners love to hate, it’s greenbriar, Smilax spp., also known as catbriar. If you’ve ever walked into it, that is what it’s like, as if a cat’s sharp claws attacked you.

There are approximately 20 to 24 native Smilax species in the United States, with 16 native to North Carolina. These thorny, vining plants seem to come up from everywhere. The best way to see if your garden has been invaded, look up into the tree. That’s the best way to notice an invading vine, due to a color or foliage difference.

In the back area of my little writing beach COTtAGE, I found the Motherlode. For the last six years, I have been removing what I thought was the whole root since it was coming up as a roundish bulb. It kept coming back, tho. So, during a moment of writing exhaustion, I decided to vent by discovering just how big the root was.

Photo Credit: Helen Yoest

It took three tries to remove it because it was 92°F and highly humid. What I discovered was like an iceberg. I traced the edges of the ginormous bulb.

Photo Credit: Helen Yoest

Most of the eastern US has been invaded by greenbriar, various Smilax species. I say invaded because, as a native, it is not technically invasive, but rather aggressive; and AGGRESSIVE it is! But when it comes to greenbriar, it is an invasion. Reaching over a 20-foot climb!

Did you know the difference between invasive and aggressive is that invasive refers to non-native plants, and aggressive refers to native plants that love your space too much! ~Helen Yoest

Smilax spreads both by seed and vegetatively

Flowers are green and present from April until August, and yes, smilax has incredible wildlife benefits (see below), but if you close your eyes for long enough, it will spread beyond belief. The birds spread the seed, and the root tuber just grows and grows and grows, forming dense underground thickets.

Blue-black berries appear in September and may stay through the winter. Seeds are red. And be sure to wear gloves when dealing with greenbriar. It is a thorny vine! Once called “The devil’s wrapping yarn” because of its thorns and tendrils.

Phoro Credit: GG. Smilax, weighing in at about 25lbs.

The preference is partial sun, moist to dry-mesic conditions, and slightly acidic soil containing loam, clay loam, rocky material, or sand. Pretty much everywhere. And as you can see, it thrives at my COTTAGE, on Emerald Isle, NC, where it is ALL sand. The seeds can remain dormant in the soil for several years; germination is enhanced by increased light exposure.

Wildlife Benefits:

This is the painful part of riding Smilax.

Likely pollinator floral visitors of Smilax rotundifolia include a variety of bees and flies, including Halictid bees, Andrenid bees, cuckoo bees, Syrphid flies, and other flies.

The flowers offer nectar as a floral reward to such visitors; the male flowers also offer pollen.

Songbirds feed on the berries of Smilax. These bird species include the Ruffed Grouse, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, American Crow, Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, and White-Throated Sparrow.

Edible Benefits:

Photo Credit: The Virginia Native Plant Society

The entire plant is edible. Berries are delicious raw or cooked into a jam or jelly. Roots can be ground, dried, and used like flour. Early Native Americans used the roots as a source of starch. The roots can also be used like any root vegetable – boiled, stewed, or roasted. Smilax is also mentioned in my book, Good Berry, Bad Berry, as an edible berry to eat. The new shoots can be sautéd, with a taste akin to asparagus.

What do you think I did with this massive root? Did I eat it? Hell no; after spending six hours to remove it, I said, good riddance!

Until soon,

Helen Yoest

Adobe stock: a mulberry tree.

In Norfolk, VA, July 4th marked the peak of summer heat, lasting through the end of August. The air was still, the sky in a haze, and everyone was in slo-mo, so as not to exert oneself. Our dog, Josie, would lie on the grass in the shade of the giant mulberry tree—where we would climb up to sit on the branches. There were no steps to climb; we had to shimmy up the trunk to reach the branches. It wasn’t hard tho, since mulberry branches hang low. Getting down was never a problem, since we could just jump.

One day my brothers and I decided to build a fort. It was more of a platform than an enclosed fort, but it was private just the same. Along the way, we gained wisdom. We tied a thick rope to a sturdy limb so we could haul materials up into the tree, then left the rope hanging, adding friction knots every six inches or so, making ascension easier. We were fundamentally mountaineering, or so we imagined.

July 4th is at the end of the mulberry fruiting season. We ate them until our mouths were berry red—our hands too—and to our Mother’s horror, our bare feet were the shocking color of a murder scene, as we stepped all over the fruits that naturally fell to the ground.

Botanically, mulberries are not a single fruit; rather, a syncarp, or a multiple fruit—considered an aggregate fruit. Unlike a blueberry, which develops into a single unified structure, mulberries are formed when multiple small ovaries fuse together, forming a single unified structure.

We would often find tiny white worms in each syncarp, later learning that they were likely fruit fly larvae. We didn’t seem to mind, tho. I often wonder if this is why I prefer protein over most other nutrients.

When I was in High School, my parents had the tree removed. I’m not exactly sure why, but I believed my Mom was fed up with Josie and us tracking in the fruit juice. Since my parents never paid anyone to do work we could do ourselves, this in itself was a novelty. The tree was huge. It required pros to remove it. The trunk, as I remember it, was so big that a friend and I would hold hands and wrap ourselves around it to hug the tree, until we reached hands again. I, alone, couldn’t reach around it.

As I will end each of these musings, I had the most wonderful childhood, spending every minute of daylight in the great outdoors, until the street lights came home, and it was time for bed.

As a sustainable gardener, I look for recycled materials, and reusing them helps reduce waste that would otherwise go to the landfill.

In my Raleigh garden, The Bee Better Naturally Teaching G…

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Photo Credit: Liz Condo. Bee Balm growing in the Mixed Border, a Transitional Zone.

One might think designing your garden to be waterwise isn’t necessary since our last major drought in 100 years was in 2007. We even had watering restrictions, and Raleigh’s water rates went from a single-tier to a three-tier system. While we’ve had several droughts since then, we haven’t had any major restrictions since 2007. I don’t want to live those days again, for many reasons, but since I have a waterwise design, I don’t have to stress over droughts, not for my garden anyway.

And now, in 2026, the drought is back. The jury is out on whether this drought will rival 2007. So far, it’s looking that way, worse, actually.

As of early June, Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU) has recorded roughly 8.32 inches of precipitation for the year, which is significantly below the normal year-to-date average of over 18 inches. Even with the water-wise design I’ve had for over 30 years, it’s showing signs of suffering, with no rain in sight. So far, it has been worse than the 2007 drought.

As a sustainable gardener, I find gardening with waterwise practices a no-brainer. For budget and future drought restrictions, we need to find ways to make our gardens less dependent on supplemental water. Waterwise gardening will save your garden and bank account during times of drought.

The East Coast is lucky in many ways. Our area’s average annual rainfall is 44 inches. During the worst drought, we received 37 inches of rain. Think about that. If we were in Austin, Texas, that would be almost normal, as their annual rain is 35.5 inches, with some to spare. What we must always remember is that we don’t receive our 44 inches evenly spread throughout the months. And a reduction of just seven inches has the government ready to bring in the National Guard. And now, we are 10 inches below. Ouch! We are under water restrictions, but not everyone is abiding by them, as evidenced by the water in the street as I go to work in the mornings.

While my garden is mostly native, Bee Better Naturally isn’t specifically a native garden. There is a misconception that native plants can handle drought better than introduced plants. Case in point: during the 2007 drought, I lost all my native dogwoods (Cornus florida). It wasn’t necessarily the drought that did them in; it was from anthracnose, a fungus that infects trees when resistance is down. Drought caused this resistance. They did come back, so the roots were viable, but it took a while. My Chinese dogwood, Cornus kousa, did not suffer, although if severe enough, more severe than we have already experienced, it could have.

Waterwise gardening is not new, but gardeners seem to have drifted from understanding the benefits and techniques of waterwise design. This strategy is not limited to gardening in a drought; it is a practical and effective way to garden anywhere while promoting good environmental stewardship of our land and water.

The main way to achieve a waterwise design is to group plants with similar needs together. Remember, too, waterwise gardening isn’t limited to only drought-tolerant plants. It’s a planting scheme that uses a variety of plants, from agaves to tropicals, and groups them into efficient beds based on their watering needs. The beds in a waterwise garden are divided into three gardening zones: oasis, transitional, and xeric.

The oasis zone is the area closest to the water source. These sources can be drain spouts, rain barrels, or a faucet and hose. Also include the area around the front door as an oasis, where you can easily water your container plants with water collected indoors. Hydrangea, canna, and elephant’s ear come to mind. In the Bee Better Teaching Garden, the oasis zone has container plants near the spigot.

The transitional zone is the area away from the house, about midway between the home and the property line. Plantings here should be sustainable, requiring only occasional supplemental water. Typically, these areas are island beds, driveway beds, or raised beds. Coneflowers, solidago, and crinum come to mind.

The xeric zone is at the property’s perimeter. These plants should be tough and should not require supplemental water once established. This area can be filled with dependable, drought-resistant plants. Lantana, salvia, and bee balm come to mind.

It’s not difficult to be waterwise. Get a rain gauge, and pay attention to the local rainfall. Only water when plants need watering. Even the thirstiest plants, once established, only need about an inch of water a week. However, container gardens may require daily watering in the summer heat. Remember to mulch—its moisture-trapping ability will be your best defense against drought.

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Photo Credit: Helen Yoest

When the weather is right, I like to walk among the ancient live oak trees. A visit to the Fort Macon State Park is where you’ll find many great specimens of Quercus virginiana along parts of the 3.2-mile nature trail loop.

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