It can be easy to get discouraged these days. Everywhere we look, there are signs of a struggling planet and, often, it’s difficult to see a clear path to an effectual response. 2022 may well eclipse recent years as the hottest on record. Rainfall has alternated between being absent or violent in Pennsylvania, one of
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Sad news from the Reading Terminal Market today: The Fair Food Farmstand will be closing. Fair Food, the nonprofit who has run the beloved Farmstand, will continue its advocacy work, and will still run the Philly Farm and Food Fest, which will take place at the Navy Yard on October 28. (The event had previously
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Spring has finally sprung, but it’s not all sunshine and clean air for Philadelphians. In 2015, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America ranked the city as the number three asthma capital in the United States, beaten only by Richmond and Memphis.According to the Natural Resource Defense Council, “Philly clinched the third spot due to
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A guide to the best sustainable landscapers in the Philadelphia area.
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The life cycle of standard yard maintenance may sound familiar: In March, the winter annuals are ripped out; next up is a huge round of mulching; then the summer annuals are planted; more mulching; constant weeding, fertilizing, trimming and watering; and then as fall and winter approach it all starts to die, and the yard
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These five sustainable landscaping design methods can be done without a contractor.
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Before embarking on any home renovation or landscaping projects, there are some key questions to ask, both of yourself and of the contractors or companies you may consider hiring. Of course there are the issues of budget and timing, keeping in mind that often projects go over budget and over schedule. But beyond those first
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It’s a strange kind of irony: The green spaces that surround our homes often aren’t so “green” at all. While many city dwellers might not have a lawn of plush, green grass, homes on the city’s outskirts do. Rooted in ideas of class and respectability that stretch back hundreds of years, perfectly manicured, weed-free and
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I grew up without a TV. (Insert raised eyebrows here.)My parents decided that, for religious reasons, there would be no television, or even a radio, in our home. They thought the TV would undermine what they were trying to teach us as children. So there was no “Three’s Company,” “MacGyver,” “Jeffersons” or even Saturday morning
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When retired teacher Lynn Robinson learned a natural gas plant was coming to her neighborhood in Germantown, she felt a resounding “No!” jolt through her body.“No, that’s wrong, that can’t be, that’s unacceptable,” she recalled in January in a phone interview with Grid. “You don’t put a power plant in a residential neighborhood, especially not
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Take a closer look at any small portion of the earth and you’ll find detailed ecosystems at work, growing and evolving all on their own, frenzied cycles overlapping each other and building more and more complex systems. Delicate, but balanced. Fragile, but resilient. As humanity develops and expands, it’s all too common to find that
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