Smart Archives - Art of Landscaping

February 27, 2023

Planting native plants in Palm Beach is ‘just smart landscaping’

I’ve discussed the importance of native plants for the survival of our pollinators and birds, but I haven’t really explained why invasives are so damaging to our environment.

For over a century, we’ve imported plants to South Florida from all over the world. Some were thought to be beneficial while others were just ornamental. Many couldn’t adapt and disappeared, while many more grew nicely here and caused no problems. But some found the environment perfect: they went to seed and spread to new territory, choking out the existing native plants that couldn’t compete with their vigorous growth and, in so doing, displaced the associated pollinators, birds and wildlife.

Once established, invasive species adversely affect native-plant communities, outcompeting and killing the existing native species and damaging natural ecosystems. We need to be proactive in addressing this issue to maintain the health, function and long-term productivity of our landscapes.

Because Florida’s climate is so accommodating, invasive species cause more crises here than anywhere else in the United States. All of Florida’s native habitats — marine, freshwater, and terrestrial — are threatened by invasives.

Tegu lizards can grow to 5 feet in length.

The omnivorous Argentine black-and-white tegu lizards can grow to 5 feet in length and feast on the eggs of ground nesting birds.
Burmese pythons have been spotted swimming from the Everglades to the Florida Keys. These invasive constrictors feed on native species and can grow upwards of 20 feet.
Beautiful and exotic lionfish devour smaller species of native fish and have no known predators.
Studies have shown that non-native wood boring insects promote disease and reduce a forest’s ability to capture and store carbon.

The cost of managing Florida’s invasive plants is upwards of $100 million every year. The cost of animal management could easily exceed this.

Lionfish devour smaller species of native fish and have no known predators.

Proper IDs

The first step in controlling invasives is identification: you can’t remove them if you don’t know what they are and you need to identify them so you don’t buy them accidentally. A few to be particularly aware of are: Japanese climbing ferns, melaleuca trees, Brazilian pepper, Australian pine, common lantana (Lantana camara), heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica), Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense), coral ardisia, and tropical or scarlet milkweed (Asclepias curassavica).

Tropical milkweed, Asclepius curassavica, is widely used and often sold as a native. It can cause monarchs to have a deadly parasitic infection called OE. If you have this milkweed, make sure to cut it back to the ground after monarch caterpillars have eaten the leaves.

Milkweed, you say? Isn’t that the essential host plant for the monarch butterfly? Yes, but it is important that you buy the native species, as the non-native can transmit the deadly OE bacterium to the monarch caterpillars, causing wing deformity, an inability to fly and ultimate death. Plant butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) or rose milkweed (Asclepias incarnata): If you have the scarlet milkweed in your garden, as many of us do, make sure you cut it back to the ground after the caterpillars have defoliated it. This will decrease the risk of the OE bacterium.

Unfortunately, many of these invasives are still being sold at nurseries under incorrect names.

Native lantana has yellow flowers and is a low growing, spreading ground cover. It is not poisonous, but the invasive Lantana camara is.

One of the worst offenders is the invasive Lantana camara, often sold as the native Lantana depressa. The best way to avoid the invasive species is to understand the differences between the two.

Lantana camara, native to the West Indies and called shrub verbena, was loved by gardeners for its bright multicolored flowers, but it will dominate understory vegetation and is listed as a category I invasive. It has outcompeted our native Lantana depressa to the point that this is now listed as endangered.

Lantana camara decreases the productivity of citrus groves and pastures, where it’s toxic to cattle and sometimes to people. A member of the Verbenaceae family, it produces pentacyclic toxins that attack the liver; its berries are poisonous and can be very dangerous to small children and pets. Our native Lantana depressa is low and sprawling with bright yellow flowers; native Lantana involucrata is a woody shrub with clusters of white flowers that often appear at the same time as the ornamental purple fruits. Both native species are drought-tolerant and excellent garden plants, especially in coastal areas.

The beautiful silk tree or mimosa (Albizia julibrissin) has naturalized across a wide variety of habitats in Florida and has invaded riparian areas in southern forests, forcing out native understory and hardwood. Its ability to thrive in almost any soil, produce numerous seeds, and to resprout when cut back or damaged makes it a dominant competitor in open areas or along forest edges. A native of China, this deciduous tree with feathery leaflets and fragrant pink powder puff-like flowers has been an ornamental staple in many Florida gardens, but is now listed as a category I invasive, so please think twice before planting it.

If you already have one in your landscape and don’t want to move it, try to remove the seed pods before they can spread. If you want a beautiful native tree with the same light, airy appearance, try the native wild tamarind (Lysiloma latisiliquum). The flowers look like white powder puffs and this is a host plant for mimosa yellow, orange sulphur, cassius blue and amethyst hairstreak butterflies. It also attracts migrating warblers, gnatcatchers, flycatchers and vireos.

Tuberous sword fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia), is another aggressive spreader that will quickly displace any other ground cover. I can personally attest to this as I purchased several thinking it was our native Nephrolepis exaltata (it was erroneously labeled as such) and it quickly wiped out a whole section of lovely native fog fruit (Phyla nodiflora). It spreads by spores and by sending out linear scales with hairlike tips that immediately take root; the dense crowns of foliage will shade out anything beneath them. Once established, it’s difficult to remove as it seems to pop up everywhere. You can identify the invasive species by the distinctive white nodules on the rhizomes.

The ‘useless swamp’

And then there’s the melaleuca tree (Melaleuca quinquenervia), also known as the tea tree, punk tree or paperbark. This Australian native takes up great quantities of water, so it was originally brought to South Florida in 1909 by citrus and sugar growers to drain marshes and wetlands in order to produce more farmland. Planes dropped vast quantities of melaleuca seeds into the Everglades to help dry out the “useless swamp.”

Melaleucas were also planted as ornamentals and grown commercially for their wood, which is resistant to rot, termites and fungus. This entire event was a disaster. Growing up to 6 feet a year, and with no natural predators, melaleucas quickly took over huge areas of land, forming vast stands of monocultures and reducing critically endangered wetland habitat. Today, melaleucas cover an estimated half million acres of our endangered Everglades. Native birds and mammals cannot eat the seeds and fruit they produce, and the oils in the leaves and bark make them highly flammable.

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) has spent 30 years and millions of dollars systematically clearing these invasives from Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, but there is still much work to be done. This is just one example of how damaging invasive species can be.

Planting native species whenever possible is just smart landscaping. These plants provide the sustenance and habitat for our native pollinators that are essential to keeping our ecosystems intact and thriving, and they never need chemicals of any kind. Then there’s the added joy of seeing butterflies, songbirds, hummingbirds and wildlife return to your gardens.

May 14, 2022

This New Daily Game Is Like Wordle for Art | Smart News

Multiple phones with images of artworks and text — Artle will involve guessing who produced a work of artwork utilizing images from collections housed at the Countrywide Gallery of Artwork.
Nationwide Gallery of Artwork

Is it Gustav Klimt? Probably James McNeill Whistler? Frida Kahlo? You have four attempts to determine it out.

Meet Artle. It is like Wordle—but for art fans. Designed by the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork, the new game was designed to have interaction people’s curiosity and stimulate them to study extra about artwork.

“The emergence of everyday guessing online games in recent months impressed our digital products and expertise group and I to build a daily game utilizing the Nationwide Gallery’s collection,” Steven Garbarino, senior solution manager at the museum, tells Smithsonian journal. He states the game was developed to “[help] the community find art although getting enjoyment.”

There are plenty of prospects to interact with the museum in person—it presents exhibitions and general public programs totally free of charge. But the museum wishes to assistance far more folks access its collection of 150,000 paintings, images, sculptures and other operates of art. Led by main digital officer Nick Sharp, the National Gallery’s electronic division is constructing strategies to do just that.

A phone with an image of a horse and a man lying on a battlefield — At the time the guess is submitted, a pink ‘X’ will appear if the respond to is incorrect.

National Gallery of Art

The new sport includes guessing who established a perform of artwork in the gallery’s collections. You are introduced with the piece, and very first want to enter an current artist’s title in a lookup area. As soon as the guess is submitted, a pink ‘X’ will show up if the solution is incorrect. To aid you out, a diverse perform of art by the similar artist will pop up. Artle will allow you to guess the artist’s identify in 4 tries, and a new puzzle is obtainable every single working day.

This is not the first—or second—time folks have looked ahead to new types of puzzles. In the early 20th century, the globe went wild for what was then a novel style of game. The earliest “cross-word”— known as “word-cross” at the time—was featured in the New York Earth’s Pleasurable Nutritional supplement in December 1913.

While generating the diamond-shaped puzzle for print wasn’t typographers’ favourite work, players have been obsessed. With the help of editor Margaret Petherbridge and columnist Franklin Pierce Adams, “cross-word mania” surged. By the 1920s, the new puzzles were a confirmed craze.

A phone with a photo of a statue of a young ballerina — A new puzzle is offered each individual day.

Countrywide Gallery of Artwork

“Crosswords ended up the Beatles of 1924,” stated Petherbridge, per Zócalo Public Square’s Jackie Mansky. The recreation was so acclaimed that even Queen Mary became a participant in 1925.

About 100 several years later on, a new puzzle has gone viral. Designed by software program engineer Josh Wardle, Wordle was initially designed as a pandemic-period gift to his husband or wife. The purpose of the game is to guess a five-letter word in a utmost of six odds. Despite the fact that the sport only experienced 90 players in November, it achieved above 2 million in January, the New Yorker’s Kyle Chayka reviews. It was obtained by the New York Moments this calendar year.

Despite the fact that Wordle’s fast and available functions have manufactured it a supporter preferred, science could possibly have yet another explanation for why its level of popularity exploded. Psychologists notify Insider’s Sian Bradley that the puzzle qualified prospects to the release of dopamine. The hormone related to emotions of reward, dopamine results in people today to want pleasurable experiences—or puzzles—again and once again.

Artle piggybacks on Wordle’s success, and provides a similar probability to demonstrate off your triumph (or tragedy) on social media. Once you comprehensive the game, you can decide on a “share” button and duplicate your outcomes to share on Twitter, your family members text thread, or any where else.

“Artle is a speedy day-to-day mind teaser. But it is significantly less about the problem and far more about the discovery,” claims Garbarino. “At the conclusion you can click by means of to master much more about the artist and artworks, and keep on discovering to prepare your self for upcoming Artles.”

Encouraged Videos

March 4, 2022

Landscaping is a smart investment – The Tryon Daily Bulletin

Is landscaping a very good financial investment? Does it include worth over time to your dwelling? Does it give instant return if you’re wanting to provide the property? And how considerably, where and why could you want to commit in your residence with intelligent landscaping?

Spending 5{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} of the complete benefit of your residence on landscaping, doing it sensibly, can insert 15{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} or much more to the price of your household, in accordance to Clever Funds journal. A caveat, weak design and style and installation could have the opposite result, so smart use of funds is wanted in purchase to experience such good gains. I am betting a chance to incorporate $30,000 in price to a $200,000 house with a $10,000 expense will stimulate you to study on.

A Clemson College research identified that prospective buyers value landscaping as incorporating up to 11.5{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} to their estimation of a property’s worth as opposed to a identical household that is not landscaped. Regular imagining is that a kitchen or bathtub update or enhance will return from 75{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} to 125{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} on the dollars invested. Although it’s not proposed for another person seeking to current market their property quickly shell out on big landscape updates, small do the job that delivers a positive control enchantment is a super concept. In time, a superior landscape can deliver up to 200{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48} or additional in return.

In the real estate product sales business enterprise they talk a whole lot about “comps” or equivalent homes. Earlier mentioned average landscaping raises pricing 4-5{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48}. Even so, landscaping under community benchmarks can negatively affect rates 8 to 10{6d6906d986cb38e604952ede6d65f3d49470e23f1a526661621333fa74363c48}!

Landscape improvements not only increase price, they can assistance a residence promote 5 to 6 months speedier, in accordance to the American Nursery and Landscaping Association. Once more, we have to qualify this to modest expenditures that make improvements to the appearance of a house. Extravagant or comprehensive new landscaping to a put you are offering is not clever, the two from a expense/return standpoint and also that the far more elaborate tasks will only charm to a lesser portion of future new homeowners searching at your home with the ‘for sale’ signal. Rather basic but tasteful is the important. Enable the next proprietor do the large high priced things.

What about the house owner who programs to preserve his property for quite a few a long time and needs to spend in the landscaping? There is much more flexibility right here to do included initiatives, and those that are on his family’s need or desire listing. A swimming pool or a jungle gymnasium might not return entire value at selling time, but if it implies the kids and grandkids seriously have a good time and it can make for a a great deal improved top quality of lifetime, who is to say it is not dollars properly expended! Not everything can be totaled up with a greenback price.)

Long term, some of the greatest return on income invested comes from planting modest but balanced trees and shrubs, and they turn out to be a great deal more beneficial in time. Hardscaping these as patios, decks, terraces, swales, walks, water functions and so on are also crucial to very long time period fulfillment and reward to the householders. The tough portion for the beginning new property owner is visualizing when they plant that shade tree that it should not be planted in a particular spot if a pool or patio or new driveway or a 2nd garage will have to have to go there at some long term date. Using the services of a designer early on in this make any difference may well be significantly more affordable than working with problems as time passes and some factors have to be taken out to make way for a lot more jobs at a later on day. Organizing is useful—so generally I see men and women procuring for trees or shrubs and they have very little concept right until they get household how it is going to match into their in general designs.

Right tree? Not only the proper dimensions, the suitable form requirements to be thought of. What does your proposed tree seem like in each individual of the 4 seasons? Will it bloom? Really should it be an evergreen tree? Will it tolerate sunshine, shade, drought, swampy areas, bad soil, acid or alkaline soils? Will it endure salt vans, salt mist or runoff water from dealt with streets?

Considering just the shade of the leaves, or that it has this sort of a really bloom can guide to lousy choices and followed on by bad performance if planting circumstances and other variables are not in line with the tastes of the tree you desire about. This could lead to detrimental return on your expenditure, or even death of the tree, not to point out the time squandered and the delay in possessing the aspiration tree you want.

The benefit of a great looking garden that also is functional and usable is enormous. Damaged sidewalks, rotten porches, unfenced lawn with pets: these detract from values. A lawn that appeals to the most individuals will be a winner if promoting is in your foreseeable future. Getting all the tiny particulars you want are wonderful if you program on being awhile, your individual comfort and ease and choices may perhaps be a good financial investment for you and your garden.

In conclusion, time is your pal. The right landscaping will obtain steadily in value about the a long time. I believe landscaping, effectively prepared and executed, will produce a optimistic return on your expenditure and will be dollars effectively spent. (And even if investing cash on your assets elevated the worth in an particularly equal amount to what you used, you would nonetheless enjoy the new landscaping, and not for a number of days like you would a trip, or a handful of several hours like a Superbowl, or a couple minutes most likely if you gamble those people bucks absent. Alternatively you accumulate fairness in your house that will endure and expand as time passes.)

The proof is considerable: excellent landscaping is a tremendous investment decision.

Max Phelps is a landscaper. Your feed-back is inspired. www.rockcastles.web

January 23, 2022

Scientists Find the Oldest Evidence of Neanderthals Altering the Natural Landscape | Smart News

An image of archaeologists excavating a site. They stand in a pit near a mound of dirt. The surrounding area has lakes and trees. — Scientists analyzed evidence these as pollen, fossils, instruments and charcoal deposits from Neumark-Nord.
Wil Roebroeks/Leiden College

Experts have long debated when human beings and human ancestors begun to dominate the organic world—a milestone in human background. New research implies Neanderthals’ routines turned a forested area into grasslands nearly 125,000 many years ago, providing the oldest evidence of land-altering behavior in historical human beings yet, New Scientist experiences.

Neanderthals lived along the edges of lakes and forests a site referred to as Neumark-Nord near Halle, Germany. At some stage throughout their home, open spaces commenced to arise within just the forests, in accordance to a press launch.

“The question is, of program, whether or not it grew to become open up because of the arrival of hominins, or regardless of whether hominins came due to the fact it was open up?” lead author Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden College in the Netherlands, says in a press release. “On the other hand, we have discovered ample proof to conclude that hunter-gatherers saved the space open up for at minimum 2,000 yrs.”

Scientists analyzed pollen, fossils, equipment and charcoal deposits from Neumark-Nord, serving to piece with each other what the landscape looked like and how Neanderthals occupied it, Bruce Bower reviews for Science News.

As element of their examination, the group mapped out where Neanderthals lived and as opposed it with pollen and charcoal samples, which exhibit what plants grew there and where by fires had been started off. The information unveiled that grass grew in inhabited locations, in spite of the encompassing area remaining heavily forested, New Scientist experiences.

Moreover, proof these kinds of as stone equipment, bones, wood and seeds ended up quite often charred, suggesting that Neanderthals frequently made use of fireplace in their settlements, Science News experiences.

Even though the proof indicates that Neanderthals manipulated their atmosphere, the team is however not sure how forests turned into grasslands. There was an uptick in the presence of charcoal when Neanderthals moved into Neumark-Nord, so “it’s really tempting to picture that that could possibly have been Neanderthals burning the vegetation,” but specifically matching up the dates is tough business, co-creator Katherine MacDonald, an archaeologist at Leiden University, tells New Scientist.

It is really also complicated to explain to the distinction in between a selection of little fires—like campfires—or significant types. But setting fires, looking, building instruments and making shelters all have large environmental impacts, which afflicted the landscape, Science News reports.

“It also provides a little something to the behavioral spectrum of early hunter-gatherers,” Roebroeks says in the push launch. “They weren’t simply ‘primal hippies’ who roamed the landscape buying fruit here and hunting animals there. They aided condition their landscape.”

Some experts suspect that humans started out deforesting land about 10,000 yrs ago to make room for fields, but many others say that this started substantially previously at a smaller scale. This examine is now the oldest evidence of hominids reshaping their environment, and Roebroeks expects scientists to come across even earlier evidence, he states in the press release.

See Prince Charles’ Watercolors of Landscapes Around the World | Smart News

watercolor painting of cloudy day and a gray worn down building overlooking seascape — This watercolor of Huna Mill in Scotland is a single of 79 paintings by Prince Charles on screen at the Garrison Chapel in London.
The Prince’s Basis

The premier-ever exhibition of paintings by Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, is currently on display screen in London. On check out at the Garrison Chapel in the former Chelsea Barracks through February 14, it attributes 79 watercolors of landscapes in England, Scotland, France, Tanzania and much more, studies Laura Elston for the Scotsman.

The Prince’s Basis, an educational charity established by Charles in 1986, structured the showcase, which is explained in a assertion as the to start with “full exhibition” of his artwork. Charles formerly exhibited 50 of his watercolors at Hampton Court docket Palace in 1998 and 30 at the Nationwide Gallery of Australia in 2018.

picture of elderly white man in blue pinstripe suit and purple tie with white flowers — Prince Charles is viewed as just one of the most successful living watercolor artists in the United Kingdom.

Arnaud Bouissou by using Flickr under CC0

In wall textual content composed for the exhibition and quoted in the statement, Charles explains how watercolor portray permits him to refocus his energies:

[Y]ou turn out to be progressively knowledgeable of things that may well have escaped your interest previously—things like the quality of light and shade, of tone and texture and of the form of properties in relation to the landscape. It all necessitates the most powerful focus and, consequently, is just one of the most relaxing and therapeutic physical exercises I know.

According to Theo Farrant of Euronews, the prince started off experimenting with the medium in the 1970s after knowing that photography—a passion of his mom, Elizabeth II—failed to present him that exact same feeling of creative expression.

“Quite simply, I knowledgeable an frustrating urge to specific what I noticed by way of the medium of watercolor and to convey that almost ‘inner’ perception of texture, which is difficult to accomplish by means of pictures,” the royal suggests in the wall textual content.

Robert Waddell, an artwork instructor at the Gordonstoun boarding college in Scotland, launched Charles to portray during his university student yrs in the 1960s. The prince later on reviewed approach with the late British watercolorist Edward Seago and took lessons with notable artists Derek Hill, John Ward and Bryan Organ, as Lucy Davies documented for the Telegraph in 2018.

Nevertheless Charles says he is “appalled” by the quality of his previously will work, he believes his approach has improved over the several years. At the very same time, the prince argues that the therapeutic added benefits available by watercolor portray considerably outweigh any notion that his artwork could possibly be of a higher common of high-quality.

watercolor painting of snowcapped mountains — A landscape by Prince Charles of Haughs in Glen Callater of Scotland.

The Prince’s Foundation

“I am less than no illusion that my sketches depict fantastic artwork or a burgeoning expertise,” he writes in the wall text. “They represent, extra than anything at all else, my unique form of ‘photograph album’ and, as these types of, signify a great offer to me.”

A self-described “enthusiastic novice,” Charles is actually 1 of the most financially successful living artists in the United Kingdom. In between 1997 and 2016, an investigation by the Telegraph’s Robert Mendick observed that prints of the prince’s paintings sold for a whole of a lot more than £6 million (all over $8.9 million currently). All proceeds went to the Prince’s Foundation, which supports a vary of charitable endeavors.

Other British royals have engaged in creative pursuits in the previous. In 2015, Charles’s niece, Princess Eugenie, joined the Hauser & Wirth gallery as an artwork director. She has shared various watercolors of her personal on her Instagram account, like a portray of a pink flower on Environment Art Working day in 2020, experiences Stephanie Petit for Men and women. Queen Victoria, Charles’ wonderful-terrific-fantastic-grandmother, was also a renowned watercolorist. Past calendar year, the Royal Assortment Have confidence in exhibited a array of watercolors collected and commissioned by the queen and her husband, Prince Albert.

Charlottesville’s Robert E. Lee Statue Will Be Melted Down, Transformed Into New Art | Smart News

Construction crews transport a greenish bronze statue of Lee on horseback past a crowd of onlookers on a truck bed — Crews removed the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from its perch in Charlottesville, Virginia, in July 2021. Controversy over the statue’s fate sparked the violent “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.
Photo by John McDonnell / The Washington Post / Getty Images

Last summer, Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd spurred communities across the globe to remove or dismantle the racist public art decorating their government halls, museums, parks and city squares. Many of these monuments were tucked away in storage facilities. Others, such as the American Museum of Natural History’s Theodore Roosevelt statue and the toppled bronze likeness of an enslaver in Bristol, England, found new homes in museums.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, lawmakers decided to transform one torn-down monument entirely, reports Teo Armus for the Washington Post. Instead of storing a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, officials will melt down the 1,100-pound bronze monument into metal ingots—raw material that can then be used to create new art.

City council members approved the proposal unanimously on Tuesday morning, reports Ginny Bixby for the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Put forth by the local Jefferson School African American Heritage Center (JSAAHC), the plan was one of six considered by lawmakers during months of deliberation.

According to JSAAHC’s proposal, organizers plan to hold community listening sessions in barbershops, places of worship, schools and other businesses throughout Charlottesville. With community input, the “Swords Into Plowshares” team hopes to select an artist or artists to design a new public artwork by 2024.

The museum has already raised more than half of the $1.1 million required to bring its project to fruition and is continuing to fundraise online. Proceeds will be used to donate the transformed statue back to the city, where it will go on display by 2026.

JSAAHC executive director Andrea Douglas tells the Post that the project “will allow Charlottesville to contend with its racist past.”

She adds, “It really is about taking something that had been harmful and transforming it into something that is representative of the city’s values today.”

In a JSAAHC video describing the proposal, the director says, “I think this project offers a road map for communities who are also grappling with what to do with their statues.”

The statue of Lee on horseback has sat in storage since July, when it was removed from Market Street Park by city officials. The work was installed in 1924 as one of hundreds of similar statues commissioned by white authorities across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Particularly in the Jim Crow South, these Confederate monuments paid “homage to a slave-owning society and [served] as blunt assertions of dominance over” Black Americans, wrote Brian Palmer and Seth Freed Wessler for Smithsonian magazine in 2018.

Controversy over the Charlottesville statue reignited in 2017, when it was became a “focal point” of the infamous “Unite the Right” rally, as Armus reported for the Washington Post in July.

Responding to calls for the statue’s removal, white supremacist groups organized a protest that quickly turned violent. A man drove his car through a crowd of counter-protesters during the two-day-long demonstrations, injuring dozens of people and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Council members will likely reconvene on December 20 to decide the fates of two additional statues removed in July. One depicts Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, while the other portrays explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and Lemhi Shoshone interpreter Sacajawea, per the Daily Progress.

According to Monument Lab’s National Monuments Audit, a recent survey of more than 48,000 statues, plaques, parks and obelisks across the country, Lee is the sixth-most represented historical figure in the American commemorative landscape. As a general for the Confederacy, Lee led thousands to their deaths in a war waged in the name of preserving slavery. He personally enslaved multiple people and, as executor of his father-in-law’s estate, oversaw almost 200 enslaved people on three Virginia plantations.

Elsewhere in Virginia, authorities in the state capital of Richmond recently dismantled a separate equestrian statue of Lee. Standing 21 feet tall and weighing nearly 12 tons, the monument was the largest Confederate sculpture in the United States prior to its removal in September.

Historian Jalane Schmidt, director of the University of Virginia’s Memory Project, worked with JSAAHC to develop the proposal. Her organization develops public engagement around issues of public memory as they relate to the Charlottesville rally.

In the JSAAHC video, Schmidt notes that “Swords Into Plowshares” will offer locals the opportunity to heal from or reckon with the events of 2017 and beyond.

“Our community will confront white supremacy with creativity,” the scholar adds. “Beauty will heal the ugliness of the past.”