Milena Khazanavicius lost her sight and was forced to give up her career as a floral designer, but she never gave up her love of plants. Rosmarie Lohnes’ designs are fueled by a passion for reconnecting people to the land and the natural world that they live in. This warm, inspirational and engaging series by… [Read More]
Makin’ Dirt
By: Rosmarie Lohnes BA CoEn, President Helping Nature Heal Inc. Soil is the basis of everything on Earth including food, clean air, and water. When we care for the soil, we care for our own well-being. 2015 has been declared the International Year of Soils by the United Nations. I was thrilled to learn this,… [Read More]
Dormant Pruning
Dormant pruning: the act of managing the size, fruit production, and canopy density through strategic pruning. We perform this task January–March, typically on fruit and nut trees, berry and nut-bearing shrubs. We also prune evergreens and shrubs, the principles are the same: Begin with structural cuts (usually the largest cuts), thinning out old wood and… [Read More]
Seed Freedom
Today, Helping Nature Heal joins the 2012 Global Citizens’ Alliance for Seed Freedom. The organization Navdanya is founded by Dr. Vandana Shiva, who came to Nova Scotia earlier this year. Vandana Shiva fights for Earth Democracy– a combination of nature and human rights. Seed freedom is at the heart of her work because seed patenting… [Read More]
Ongoing Training Ensures Consistent Results
On May 1, the HNH team spent the afternoon completing an assessment of Rosmarie’s garden. During this training session, staff discussed what they look for when caring for your garden and the strategies that they use to ensure the HNH philosophy is consistently used from landscape to landscape. One of the techniques that we focused… [Read More]
What We’re Up to This Fall
by Chris Shaw Sanford October is here, and while most people may be done thinking about their garden for the year, at Helping Nature Heal we are busy again after the late summer lull. Curious about what we are up to? Check out my fall course offerings- they all relate to the fall garden activities… [Read More]
Garden Mentoring
Imagine that you’ve moved to your retirement home, a dreamy piece of property on a hilly cove of the South Shore, and you’ve hired a restorative landscaping company to add greenery, texture, places for the dogs to play, a wildflower meadow, a vegetable garden… The result is a verdant work-in-progress. It’s cut down on a… [Read More]
Books and Cuttings
Last weekend Rosmarie and I manned an HNH booth at the Native Plant Sale at Acadia University. Jodi DeLong was there as well and we picked up a shipment of her book Plants for Atlantic Gardens: Handsome and Hardworking Shrubs, Trees, and Perennials for the HNH shop. Having taken HNH’s sustainable landscape design class this… [Read More]
Making a Plan
Chris Sanford Checks my Design-in-Progess Before I started working at HNH, I took the Sustainable Landscape Design Course with Chris and Rosmarie. It was a great introduction to the educational component of the company. Their second spring session is now full, but keep your eye out for other workshops. Over the years, I’ve fallen… [Read More]
Sustainable Landscape Design Course
With Rosmarie Lohnes, B.A. Helping Nature Heal is happy to offer another session of this popular course. Classes run Wednesday evenings (6:30-9 PM), January 9th – February 13th 2019, and again from March 13th – April 17th. During this 6 week course you will complete the entire landscape design process, from site analysis to final… [Read More]