Articles Written by Julie Hancher

Who loovveeesss your Philly parks? We're in the midst of the 2nd annual Love Your Park Week, designed by the Fairmount Park Conservancy & Philadelphia Parks & Rec to celebrate our city's diverse parks. From May 11 - 18, Philadelphia hosts service projects, events, education programs, family activities & more. Festivities kicked off on Saturday with the Love Your Park Service Day, where hundreds of residents volunteered in their neighborhoods. With over 70 events, there's something for music lovers, art lovers, nature lovers, yogis and more. (I personally love a good ol' glass of wine & several plates of cheese in front of me in Philly parks, which I plan on doing again sooon enough...) How can you Clean, Green & Celebrate Philly Parks? Find out, after the jump!

Have you procrastinated planting your seedlings for your spring and summer garden? If you're looking for some easy shortcuts, check out some starter plants. Don't run to Home Depot or Lowe's - think small and support local farmers. You'll pump money back into the local economy, minimize the risk of pesticides (or god-forbid!) GMO crops. Although the GMO seeds are unlikely, (find out why you should "go small or go home" and see some awesome bonus photos, after the jump!)

"City of Brotherly Love!" "Birth Place of Liberty." "Home of the Cheesesteak." Philadelphia has been crowned with yet another title: America's Garden Capital, which is perfect timing for National Public Gardens Day. Did you know Philadelphia has 30 public gardens within 30 miles? We rock the highest concentration of public gardens (and arboreta) on the CONTINENT. Philly celebrated the announcement on Tuesday at Bartram's Garden. Founder John Bartram brought many of the seeds of the plants at Bartram's back in the 1700's to the area, shaping modern horticulture. Tuesday's celebration was complete with children creating a 'green thumbs' flower planter for First Lady Michelle Obama, tours & more. GPB Green Lady, aka Philadelphia's Office of Sustainability Director Katherine Gajewski presented an official proclamation to raise awareness of our gardens' (Find out more about this honor and how to get FREE park admission on Friday!)

Our Twitter (and offline) Friend & Health Coach Ali Shapiro has a recycling conundrum to address with one of her bathroom essentials: @greenphillyblog Any ideas on how to recycle burnt out electric toothbrushes. It says recycle appropriately but don't know where! — Ali Marie Shapiro (@AliMShapiro) May 6, 2013 Good question Ali! You can't toss those electric toothbrushes in your single-stream recycling bin. We reached out to the Philadelphia recycling powers, who addressed the problem: (Find out how/where to recycle old toothbrushes, after the jump!)

One of my favorite Philly sustainable boutique, Arcadia, announced that it is closing its Rittenhouse location later this month. According to (Find out more, after the jump!)

This guest post comes from Nicole Koedyker, Sierra Club President at Drexel. Are you interested in sustainability? Do you like working alongside people who have similar interests but are a telecommuter or student? In addition to being a senior at Drexel University, I also work for The Sustainability NEXUS, a non-profit organization that is working to bring together this target audience and others to collaborate on sustainability initiatives in the Greater Philadelphia Area. If you’ve ever (Find out more about this group and tomorrow's co-working pop-up, after the jump!)

The weather is warming up, and there's a great reason to be excited. Americans spend 90% of their time indoors. Whether you (Find out more, after the jump!)

The Philly Bike Share Forum at the Academy of Natural Sciences (of Drexel University) brought together four cities to discuss bicycling safety, potential & bike share plans last evening after a day-long Pedestrian & Bicycle Summit at Independence Hall. Ever since Mayor Michael Nutter announced the bike sharing in China back in 2012, word has been buzzing on the street. Philadelphia is joining 42 other US bike sharing cities in this milestone initiative. The evening forum was surprisingly funny, interesting and informative. A few 'tweets' into the meeting, I decided to do an impromptu live-tweeting of the event. (Sorry for the lack of notice, readers - but it was fun to do and I'll give an advanced warning next time. ;-) Many of the tweets are embedded below the summary if you'd like to check out.) Rina Cutler, Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities, (Philadelphia) moderated the event. She

I'll admit it. I wanted to be 'greener' a few years ago, so I cut out dryer sheets from my laundry. Instead, I found those small, spikey "blue balls" at the dollar store that were reusable to soften my clothes. They even claimed to reduce my drying time, saving me dolla' bills for the clothes drying machine. What I didn't know? Those plastic dryer balls are made out of PVC, (Find out more about those 'blue' dryer balls and an amazing sustainable alternative, after the jump!)