Photos of the Long Island Landscape and members of the Northport Native Garden Initiative by Katheryn Laible
Exploring Long Island's Hidden Treasures with John Turner from Seatuck
Dreaming of gardens and nature walks? On February 24th, the Northport Native Garden Initiative hosted Seatuck’s John Turner for an engaging program exploring Long Island’s unique ecological locale. The event took place at The Firefly Artists in Northport.
The Northport Native Garden Initiative (NNGI) described their guest as “An environmental educator and advocate for nearly 50 years, Turner has delivered hundreds of talks and nature walks, written for publications such as Defenders, Bird Watcher’s Digest, and The Conservationist, and authored Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island. He also writes a monthly nature column entitled ‘Nature Matters’ for the Times Beacon Record News Media and hosts a monthly radio show of the same name on WUSB. A co-founder and long-time board member of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, he now serves as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Seatuck Environmental Association.”
The event sold out immediately and had full attendance, despite the recent storm. John gave a wonderful review of Long Island habitats, from the water’s edge to the Pine Barrens’ secluded parks. We learned a great deal about local birds and mammals, horseshoe crabs and varieties of trees, flowers and fireflies.
Let the River Run
Always the advocate, John mentioned an appeal to Suffolk County to let the Nissequogue river keep running freely, and not replace a dam that was recently washed away. This issue is important to many local conservationists. The Nissequogue is the longest and most ecologically significant river on Long Island. He and many others feel strongly the loss of this dam was of great benefit both to the natural environment and in terms of storm resiliency.
Turner observed that Long Island is behind the curve in removing dams from wild areas, noting that many other places have realized it’s better to let waterways flow naturally.
They have a lot to say on the issue. If you’d like to learn more and perhaps reach out to your local legislators, visit The Seatuck Website.
Long Island Natural History Conference
John also spoke of the Long Island History Conference being held Tuesday, February 27th, 8am-4pm in the Charles B. Wang Center of Stony Brook. This is the largest regional forum of it’s kind, bringing leading naturalists together to learn together, share ideas and strategize the best ways we can tend to our natural environment.
The event may be sold out now (they’ve secured overflow space!), but you can still learn an awful lot about the people and programs here on Seatuck’s Website.
Cross Pollination!
We are grateful to our neighbors for this wonderful event. The Firefly will soon welcome back NNGI and anyone they choose to bring as we are now gearing up for a special exhibition entitled “Cross Pollination: A Bi-County, Two-Gallery Celebration of Birds Bees and all That Blooms.”
All artists with a focus on their gardens are invited to apply! This show is organized in partnership with The Hive Market & Gallery in Oyster Bay The deadline for art submissions is March 19. The exhibition will run April 8 to March 5. Last year, NNGI gave great guidance, embracing a theme of gardens as artwork. We even got to take home some plants.
Stay tuned to find out what they’ll do this year!
Northport Native Garden Initiative Founder: Building Community to Restore Our Ecosystem
We’ve written about the Northport Native Garden Initiative (NNGI) before. Bottom line, this little group is doing AMAZING things to help folks think global and act local.
There isn’t much one person can do that is more beneficial to the environment than to tend to their own yards, and to help others tend to bigger plots when they can.
These folks — like increasing numbers of others on Long Island — are ready to help you do just that!
