At Westgate Garden Design, we design beautiful landscapes in harmony with Nature. Using permaculture principles and rainwater harvesting, landscapes become vibrant places that provide enjoyment for the people and wildlife. We specialize in native plants, rain gardens, and bird- and butterfly-attracting gardens. And we love working with homeowners who want to participate in the Tucson Audubon Society’s Habitat at Home program.
Visit my website to download free eBooks: "6 Super Low Maintenance Plants for Arizona" and "7 Great Design Ideas for a Bird-Friendly Yard." And, watch for an upcoming calendar of free gardening workshops.
Attracting pollinators means providing for both nectar and larval plants. Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica), Black Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio spp.) on lantana (Lantana spp.), and Black Swallowtail larvae (aka "Parsley Worm") on parsley plant.
Creating habitat for birds means providing for their need for food, shelter, nesting and water....and skipping the chemicals and leaving the pests to the birds! Broad-billed hummingbird (Cynanthus latirostris) on Pink Fairy Duster (Eriophylla calliandra), Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) building a nest in Engelmann's Prickly Pear (Opuntia engelmannii), a bluebird (Salia spp.) enjoying a birdbath, and a Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) helping with pest control.
Rainwater harvesting basins and native plants are the perfect way to provide beauty for people and habitat for birds and pollinators. Roberta and Rick's backyard includes a water feature for birds and other wildlife. They allow the plants to go to seed to provide for granivorous birds. John and Rose's backyard includes a water harvesting swale that captures rainwater to irrigate the plants.
The Poetry Center is a leading literary institution and a living archive of poetry. As a premier example of a thriving public/private partnership, the Poetry Center connects the University of Arizona with the greater literary community in Tucson and beyond. We have amassed one of the finest and largest print/digital collections of contemporary poetry in America, with an active schedule of acquisitions. We’ve welcomed over one thousand poets to Tucson to read. Our education programs annually serve Arizona school children, college students, and adults with poetry experiences. Our public/private partnership has invested in a permanent landmark home for poetry in the American Southwest, and this underscores our ongoing commitment to the future of poetry, poetics, literary arts, and the ever-growing diverse community that we serve and cherish.
The mission of the Poetry Center is to advance a diverse and robust literary culture that serves a local-to-global spectrum of writers, readers, and new audiences for poetry and the literary arts.
Contemporary American poet Arthur Sze contemplates the shapes of leaves as emblems of human emotion, and invites us to join him on the edge of a new leaf.
Beloved nature poet, Mary Oliver shares with her readers the gladness and saving grace she finds among the trees.
Joy Harjo, Native American poet and current U.S. Poet Laureate, reminds us to embrace our kinship with the earth by listening to and dancing with the trees.
Strangers converge under a fig tree growing improbably in the city of Philadelphia and connect with each other as they enjoy its fruits. Ross Gay read this poem, among others, at the Poetry Center on January 19th, 2017. You can listen to him read it here.
W. S. Merwin, two time Pulitzer Prize winning poet, and former U.S. Poet Laureate, was an environmentalist who understood the indivisible connections between humans and the natural world. His deep relationship with trees is the heart of these two poems. An artist book of the poem Trees (which opens accordion-style) is housed in the rare book collection of The University of Arizona Poetry Center.
Hilda Doolittle used natural themes and rich imagery to create a mood in this poem praising the bright glistening blossoms on a pear tree.
In this carefully crafted poem celebrating life and all things vertical Linda Pastan proposes that leaves conceal the verticality of trees that only becomes obvious to us in winter.
Standing in silence as a solitary wanderer, Juan Ramon Jimenez overhears the trees talking in the lush landscape of this poem.
Standing in silence as a solitary wanderer, Juan Ramon Jimenez overhears the trees talking in the lush landscape of this poem.
Trees stand as metaphors for humans in Maya Angelou’s poem which expresses the loss we feel when an influential person in our lives dies.
In this poem for the young at heart a tree and a rose discuss the differences between them that make each of them unique. Find information about Shel Silverstein and learning resources for teaching poetry to children on his website here.
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