When life gives you pine cones ...

The windstorm that swept through the region in mid-March tossed pine cones in prodigious numbers down on many  local lawns.

Starling Childs, a forester in Norfolk, said that the cones are just husks or shells; their seeds were released months ago. They aren’t especially useful to area animals; but they do make good “fat wood†with which to start fires.

Theresa Freund of Freund’s Farm Market in East Canaan said that the cones can be mulched up and used on acid-loving plants such as blueberry bushes. They’re not great to look at, so she suggested running over them first with a mower and crushing them up; laying the debris on the garden bed; and then covering the cones with another, more attractive mulch.

Dutchess County resident Margaret Roach was the editorial director for many years at Martha Stewart Omnimedia and now has her own blog, A Way To Garden, and a show on WHDD-Robinhoodradio.com every Thursday at 8:18 a.m. She said that generally “I prefer to leave them under the conifers they came from. Leaving good wildlife foodstuffs as close to where they came from as possible seems smart to me, rather than thinking of them as debris.â€

She described that as “sort of a self-mulching scheme like nature intended.â€

Sometimes, though, she does “pick up a bowlful to enjoy as a centerpiece — no arranging, just beautiful as is. What’s especially fascinating is watching them dry and open and change shape and color.â€

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