Leaf & Limb

09/04/2026

Praying Mantis might look intimidating, but they are careful, precise, and a little bit fussy.

Only two mantis species are native to North Carolina. The rest are visitors that stuck around.

That rocking motion is not nerves. It is math. Shifting side to side lets a mantis judge distance before it strikes.

And when the meal is over, it grooms. Front legs first, then the antennae, one at a time.

As Nora shows you here, slow down near the tall grass this week and see who is watching you back.

09/02/2026

You can still get tickets!

Easy ways we can help heal Earth in the sub/urban landscape

09/02/2026

We call it a tulip poplar. It is neither.

The flowers look like tulips, but the tree is not related to them. The wood is soft and pale like poplar, but it is not related to that either. Its actual family is Magnolia, which starts to make sense once you look closely at those big cupped blooms high in the canopy.

Hayden explains why this one is worth planting. It grows into one of the tallest hardwoods in the eastern forest, its nectar makes the dark poplar honey local beekeepers prize, and its leaves feed tiger swallowtail caterpillars. Give it room and it will outgrow almost everything around it.

09/01/2026

Before anyone leaves the ground, the tree gets inspected. Cracks in the trunk. Dead branches overhead. Fungus or hollow cavities near the base. Power lines nearby.

Only after the tree passes does the rope go in. Then comes the part in this video: the climber puts full body weight on the system while both feet are still on the ground. If something is going to fail, it fails here, four inches off the grass, not forty feet up.

Cedric walks through what he's checking for and why.

09/01/2026

Why so many trees? It's the question we hear at every Pocket Forest and Thicket install.

It might look like too many at first, but as time goes on, the roots knit together, the canopy closes, and the weeding stops. Watch as Basil explains what's happening in there.

08/30/2026

Want to know how to spot a southern red oak tree? Hayden shows you the unique leaf characteristics and explains why oaks are so important to our ecosystem.

08/30/2026

It is August in the Triangle and nobody wants to mow. It's hot, it's tedious, and the grass grows back before the sweat dries.

An established Piedmont Prairie needs one cut a year. Add a trim around the edges to keep it looking intentional and you're done. No irrigation. No fertilizer. Instead of 25 to 40 mowings a season, you get one.

It takes two or three years of patience to get there. Then the yard starts working for you instead of the other way around.

Watch as Basil explains the maintenance he does on this four-year-old native meadow.

08/28/2026

A swallowtail lives two very different lives. As a caterpillar, it can eat only a short list of host plants — and for some species, that list is remarkably small. As an adult, it drinks nectar from all kinds of blooms. And then there’s the part that surprises people: swallowtails, especially males, often gather at mud puddles in summer to sip up salts and minerals they can’t get from nectar.

Watch to learn more about these graceful pollinators?

08/27/2026

Late August in the Triangle, and this Black Cherry is dropping fruit. Birds get there first, and they should. Hayden is standing under one of our hardest-working native trees. It feeds caterpillars in spring, birds in late summer, and it asks for almost nothing in return.

Watch to find out what byproduct from this tree put Raleigh, NC, on the map.