Free wildflower celebration this weekend
This Sunday -- come rain or shine -- Mt. Cuba Center will hold its 6th annual Wildflower Celebration from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
New this year, children can follow a path of activities marked by naturalistic tables crafted from trees that once lived on the Mt. Cuba Center property.
Visitors may also take the "Wildflower Challenge" -- match the wildflower to its name and win a 2-for-1 tour admission coupon. The popular learning stations this year include: Forest Succession, Tree Care and Pruning, Blueberries, Cutting Propagation, Meadow Plants and Birds, Garden Journaling, Dyeing Fibers with Native Plants, Drought-Tolerant Plants, Hummingbirds and more. The first 500 families will receive a free potted wildflower.
Also, Mt. Cuba Center will preview its latest multimedia technology efforts. Visitors will see clips of classes, gardening techniques and time-lapse video, and learn how these and other resources will become part of a distance learning program now in development.
Mt. Cuba Center is located at 3120 Barley Mill Road, near Hockessin. Free parking will be available at the Red Clay Reservation on Old Wilmington Road. No tickets are needed.
For more information, visit
www.mtcubacenter.org.
Posted by AllGreenEditor
Happy Earth Day! Don't miss these two stories today
Don't miss these two important stories in today's edition of The News Journal:
Laying waste to wastefulnessThe plan is to feed it by the truckload: outdated groceries, restaurant leftovers, school and hospital cafeteria table scraps, castoffs from banana boats and produce markets. All would pour into the maw of Peninsula Composting's new Wilmington Organic Recycling Center -- a commercial venture near the Port of Wilmington that industry officials are touting on Earth Day today as a national trailblazer in efforts to keep food waste out of landfills.
Delaware wind farm nearer realityThe federal government has opened Delaware's ocean waters to bids from renewable power developers, formalizing the state's role as an offshore wind pioneer. The Department of the Interior on Wednesday issued the nation's first Request for Interest for ocean-based renewable energy development. It formally asks developers if they want to build in the waters off Delaware's southern coast, and would result in assigning ocean tracts to one or more developers.
Labels: Bluewater, compost, Delaware, Wilmington, wind power
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Celebrate Earth Day in Wilmington
From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday, a celebration of Earth Day's 40th birthday will take place at Rodney Square, 10th and Market, in Wilmington.
WJBR 99.5 FM will broadcast music, and there will be several giveaways and vendors offering advice that's good for the environment and your wallet.
Those in the market for energy solutions will even be able to browse hybrid automobiles, solar panels and more. Kids will have an opportunity to make crafts from recycled materials and sit in on storytime every half-hour inside the nearby Wilmington Public Library.
Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker; Jennifer Adkins, executive director of the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary; Collin O’Mara, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control; and Shawn M. Garvin, regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's mid-Atlantic office are on tap to speak.
Labels: Delaware, Earth Day, Wilmington
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Native plant sale coming next week
It's time to get planting. Stock up on native trees, shrubs and perennials at the
Delaware Nature Society's annual Native Plant Sale.
The sale will be open to Delaware Nature Society members from 3 to 7 p.m. April 29-30 and open to members and the general public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 1 and from noon to 4 p.m. May 2. The sale is held at Coverdale Farm in Greenville.
This year's theme is edible landscaping -- selecting plants that provide food for human and/or wildlife consumption. Edible landscaping goes far beyond a vegetable garden in the backyard or container of cherry tomatoes on the deck.
Featured edible plants at this year's Native Plant Sale include serviceberry, pawpaw, blueberry, elderberry, American hazelnut, American beech, blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, cranberry and more.
"Edible landscaping offers environmental benefits by providing a food source for wildlife as well as humans," says Jen Mihills, the Delaware Nature Society's associate director for natural resources conservation. "I'm excited that edible landscaping was chosen as the special focus of this year's sale."
There will be more than 300 rare, unusual and favorite plants offered at the Native Plant Sale, including native vines, ferns, aquatic plants, grasses and sedges in addition to a wide selection of perennials, trees and shrubs. There will be plants available for all growing conditions, including drought-tolerant. Some plants are introductions from Mt. Cuba Center and many species attract wildlife, including birds and butterflies.
Rain barrels will be available at a cost of $82, as well as organic potting soil and other garden items. More info, including a complete plant sale listing, is available at
www.delawarenaturesociety.org or by callling (302) 239-2334.
Labels: Delaware, Delaware Nature Society, gardening
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A second garbage patch: Plastic soup in the Atlantic
By MIKE MELIA, Associated Press -- Researchers re warning of a new blight on the ocean: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square miles in a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
The floating garbage -- hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents -- was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands.
The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.
"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.
The debris is harmful for fish, sea mammals -- and at the top of the food chain, potentially humans -- even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.
Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses non-biodegradable materials for disposable products.
"Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem -- it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said.
The research teams presented their findings in February at the 2010 Oceans Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. While scientists have reported finding plastic in parts of the Atlantic since the 1970s, the researchers say they have taken important steps toward mapping the extent of the pollution.
Cummins and her husband, Marcus Eriksen, of Santa Monica, California, sailed across the Atlantic for their research project. They plan similar studies in the South Atlantic in November and the South Pacific next spring.
On the voyage from Bermuda to the Azores, they crossed the Sargasso Sea, an area bounded by ocean currents including the Gulf Stream. They took samples every 100 miles with one interruption caused by a major storm. Each time they pulled up the trawl, it was full of plastic.
A separate study by undergraduates with the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based
Sea Education Association collected more than 6,000 samples on trips between Canada and the Caribbean over two decades. The lead investigator, Kara Lavendar Law, said they found the highest concentrations of plastics between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude, an offshore patch equivalent to the area between roughly Cuba and Washington, D.C.
Long trails of seaweed, mixed with bottles, crates and other flotsam, drift in the still waters of the area, known as the North Atlantic Subtropical Convergence Zone. Cummins' team even netted a Trigger fish trapped alive inside a plastic bucket.
But the most nettlesome trash is nearly invisible: countless specks of plastic, often smaller than pencil erasers, suspended near the surface of the deep blue Atlantic.
"It's shocking to see it firsthand," Cummins said. "Nothing compares to being out there. We've managed to leave our footprint really everywhere."
Still more data are needed to assess the dimensions of the North Atlantic patch.
Charles Moore, an ocean researcher credited with discovering the Pacific garbage patch in 1997, said the Atlantic undoubtedly has comparable amounts of plastic. The east coast of the United States has more people and more rivers to funnel garbage into the sea. But since the Atlantic is stormier, debris there likely is more diffuse, he said.
Whatever the difference between the two regions, plastics are devastating the environment across the world, said Moore, whose Algalita Marine Research Foundation based in Long Beach, California, was among the sponsors for Cummins and Eriksen.
"Humanity's plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint," he said.
Plastics have entangled birds and turned up in the bellies of fish: A paper cited by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says as many as 100,000 marine mammals could die trash-related deaths each year.
The plastic bits, which can be impossible for fish to distinguish from plankton, are dangerous in part because they sponge up potentially harmful chemicals that are also circulating in the ocean, said Jacqueline Savitz, a marine scientist at Oceana, an ocean conservation group based in Washington.
As much as 80 percent of marine debris comes from land, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.
The U.S. government is concerned the pollution could hurt its vital interests.
"That plastic has the potential to impact our resources and impact our economy," said Lisa DiPinto, acting director of NOAA's marine debris program. "It's great to raise awareness so the public can see the plastics we use can eventually land in the ocean."
DiPinto said the federal agency is co-sponsoring a new voyage this summer by the Sea Education Association to measure plastic pollution southeast of Bermuda. NOAA is also involved in research on the Pacific patch.
"Unfortunately, the kinds of things we use plastic for are the kinds of things we don't dispose of carefully," Savitz said. "We've got to use less of it, and if we're going to use it, we have to make sure we dispose of it well."
Photo: A coastal area of the Azores Islands in Portugal is shown littered with plastic garbage. Researchers are warning of a new blight on the North Atlantic ocean: a swirl of confetti-like plastic bits, bottle caps and other refuse stretching for thousands of square miles. (AP/5 Gyres)Labels: Atlantic Ocean, oceans, plastic, pollution, water
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