Star Gardener | By Abby Jane Brody
Showy Weed Suppressors
You have only to look at the low, billowing drifts of lavender and dark purple in my woodland garden to understand the transformative power of groundcovers.

Notes From Madoo | By Robert Dash
Obsessives
If ’tis the season to choose, mate, nest, and rear, it is also and not infrequently a moment to make the most hideous blunders in all or some of these endeavors. I moved earlier this year and so was saved from seeing the sad repetitions of a robin making violent love to his reflection in the mirror at the back of the exedra. Up and down he went, claw and feather and beak straining to get a purchase at himself, occasionally darting to the sides seeking to get to the edge of the resistance, to pry apart the glass locks of the prison . . . a most exhausting experience.

On the Water | By Russell Drumm 
Whoa! That Was No Fluke!
Early last week, Peter Spacek put his fishing kayak in at Ditch Plain and paddled offshore for a preseason reconnaissance of the fluke run.

Nature Notes | By Larry Penny
What’s With the Ponds?
­A lot of people have expressed curiosity about the new ponds that have been constructed around the periphery of Lake Montauk, the biggest harbor in the Peconic Estuary. Thus far there are three, with another two on the way.