Maureen Wise

For those embarking on a journey to make their home zero-waste, the kitchen—with food scraps and plastic food packaging galore—may be the most daunting room to tackle. But don't worry! With some research and planning, you can achieve the zero-waste kitchen you've been dreaming of!

What Is Volcano Mulching?

Volcano Mulching, also known as Over Mulching, is the improper mulching technique that piles mulch high around the tree against the tree trunk. This excess mulch can promote surface roots that ultimately end up strangling and killing the tree. Additionally, it can cause too much moisture retention during the wet seasons, promoting fungus, rot, and pests. In the dry seasons, the mulch can completely dry out and repel water, not allowing water to get to the roots of th...

The bathroom may not be the room you’d think of when you consider high energy consumption in your home. Instead, you might consider the electricity-hungry refrigerator in the kitchen, the clothes dryer in the laundry room, or the plethora of electronics in the living room and family room to be the biggest culprits. But it’s worthwhile to take a second look at your bathroom and how you can make a few tweaks to use less energy there as well.

Reusable cloth napkins keep trees from being cut down as most brands use virgin tree pulp to produce paper napkins. Cloth napkins also help keep our finite landfill space a little emptier by reducing waste — even more so if you make them from upcycled fabric.

Most of us use pillows every single night as we sleep and we often lounge on them while we park on couches. Pillows help make us cozy and comfortable, but what do you do with your pillow when it is completely worn out or is damaged beyond repair?
There are few options for recycling but pillows have lots of potential for upcycling and reuse. Donating pillows may also be a great way to help you reduce the amount of waste you send to the landfill.

What Is Zoysia Grass?
Zoysia Grass is a warm season grass that was refined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Professional Golfer’s Association (PGA) in the 1950s. It is a grass cultivar that is thick, drought-resistant and loves heat. In our Midwestern climate, it turns brown in the Fall and Winter. It doesn’t need a lot of water to stay green in the Summer, so less sprinkling and irrigation is needed. It also doesn’t need as much mowing because this grass cultivar is slow growing...

Light emitting diode (LED) light bulbs are a very high-efficiency lighting option. These bulbs produce light up to 90% more efficiently than old-school incandescent light.
LEDs are even more efficient than compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, which are up to 70% more energy efficient compared to incandescent bulbs. Because LEDs last so long, you will probably use your LED light bulb for a long time before you need to worry about recycling.

Making your home greener doesn't require major construction or spending a lot of money. Here are six low-cost, low-time-investment, eco-friendly home improvement projects to make your home greener today!

Terrariums add variety, depth, and beauty to your plant collection. You can easily make one at home out of an upcycled container. Creating an upcycled jar terrarium is also a fun and educational project to do with your kids.

Have you heard about the slow drain on your electricity from appliances, known as “vampire loads,” “phantom loads” or “standby energy drain”? These are the oh-so-scary loads of electricity that our electronic devices and appliances suck out of outlets without our notice. According to Energy.gov, as much as 10% of our electricity usage is due to electronics that consume energy when we aren’t even using them.

Composting is the best way to get rid of your kitchen scraps without sending them to the landfill. And if you’ve been composting for a while, you may have already started experimenting with composting other items you don’t usually see in a list of materials you can compost. If you’re new to composting, you may be surprised by some of the items we suggest in this list things to compost.

What Are Wild Violets?

Wild Violets are perennial flowers with predictably dark purple flowers that bloom in the Spring. The flower color can vary from white or very light purple to blue-ish purple to dark purple. They have low-growing, waxy, dark green, heart-shaped leaves. The leaves form a cone and do not lose their color in the Fall or Winter. Their flowers attract pollinators in Spring and Summer. They grow in USDA Hardiness Zones (3-9), in the eastern part of the United States.

Mushrooms often invade our lawns in Autumn after a rain. They can appear very suddenly, even overnight. And frequently, en masse.

When invaded like this, you may feel a bit better knowing what kind of mushrooms are visiting your kingdom. Download iNaturalist or the Book of Mushrooms apps to try to identify your mushrooms. Even if do you ID them, do not eat them. Most mushrooms, while not totally poisonous, are going to give you a bad stomach ache and will not make you see psychedelic flowers....

When the coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020, lots of people hit their local nature trails. Many hikers brought the iNaturalist app with them. This handy app makes it easy to identify and learn about your local flora and fauna.
When you identify plants and animals with iNaturalist, you can also contribute to citizen science and scientific studies. Since the coronavirus started, iNaturalist has seen a huge uptick in users and their observations. It has 100,000 more active users as of Septem...

Fewer than 10 colleges and universities have achieved carbon neutrality in the United States. This means that their input of energy, water, food, and so forth is equal to or less than their output. In other words, they have a “net-zero” carbon footprint.
Many institutions of higher education have goals of becoming carbon neutral, but most of these goals are 20 or more years in the future.