Where is Your Ecosystem Garden?
You may be surprised to learn that the “garden” in Ecosystem Gardening is about way more than your perennial or vegetable beds. These principles can be applied to almost any space imaginable, any place that can be planted will provide wonderful habitat for wildlife and provide many ecosystem services, which is good for you and for the environment.
Garden areas around your house:
- That narrow strip of grass between your sidewalk and the street
- The front yard, side yard, backyard
- Your roof–install a green roof
- Walls–living walls are becoming more and more common
- Your flower, vegetable, perennial, and shrub beds
Garden areas around your business or college:
- That narrow strip of grass between your sidewalk and the street
- OR that huge lawn out front
- Your roof–install a green roof
- Living Walls
- The permeable paving in your parking lot
Garden areas at your child’s school:
- What if some of that blacktop could be turned into wildlife gardens for your children to experience first-hand the wonders of nature?
- Replace foundation plantings with native gardens
- Reduce lawn
Garden areas in your community:
- All of those narrow strips of grass between the sidewalk and the street
- Vacant lots
- Highway median strips
- Roadside edges
- Public buildings
- City parks
How do we define “gardeners”?
- Homeowners
- Business owners
- Land managers
- Groundskeepers
- YOU!
It is especially important in urban and suburban areas to create more habitat for wildlife. We have many opportunities to do this around our homes, businesses, schools, and community. Each of us has a stake in creating wildlife habitat and healthy ecosystems.
So where do you “garden’? Meeting the needs of wildlife will require the best efforts of individuals, businesses, communities, cities, states, and countries. The good thing is that when we make an effort to help wildlife we are also benefitting ourselves!
© 2010, Carole Brown. All rights reserved.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I would love to turn our front lawn into a wildlife area. Ditto the area between sdwalk and street. Problems: city code (whatever you do that’s visible from curb has to be actual landscaping), ungreen neighbors who want everyone else’s lawns to be as impeccable as theirs, and expense.
I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think b/c we have a drought-tolerant grass (St. Augustine) it would actually be more eco-friendly to leave our lawn as-is. Even if we did come up with an un-lawn idea that both appealed to wildlife as well as was in line with city regulations.
One day, we’ll live somewhere where we feel free to do whatever we want with our land…
Emily´s last post ..Global Warming? Where??!!
Emily, sadly many homeowners associations persist in clinging to the ideal that the Great American Lawn is the ONLY way to landscape. I have many friends who are fighting a continuing battle to have wildflowers and other plants to attract butterflies to their gardens. It’s my goal to help educate these folks that this idea is outdated and unnecessary. Good luck with yours!
We actually don’t have an HOA (thank God!), and we do have some leeway about what to do on our property, but if the city thinks it looks weedy and unkempt, we can look forward to anything from a slap on the wrist to a fine.
Keep up the good work, Carole!
Emily´s last post ..Global Warming? Where??!!
One of my fave places someone gardens ’round here is in flower boxes mounted on the railings of bridges. Very pretty and it’s like a Garden Fairy plants and tends them!
I love Garden Fairies! So many times when walking through the woods I come upon places that look like they were created by fairies. I try to create that sense of wonder in my gardens.
Hi Carole, great post on expanding our “definition” of gardening. I totally agree. I think if people starting seeing gardening as a type of lifestyle and not just an activity, we would have many more yards that did not look like a great green expanse on monoculture.
Kathy Green´s last post ..Can Gardening Neutralize our Technology Crazed Carbon Buzz?
Here, here! Kathy I agree that this is a lifestyle and not an activity. And really simple things can give a big benefit. That’s what I like about gardening this way.
Four flowerbeds for me, plus lots of room for veggies, bushes, and trees for the birdies.
For those in the city or apartments, you can grow anything in one of these: http://www.earthbox.com. And I do mean anything, including sweet corn or tomatoes as long you can let the plants lean on something (as they will be filled with produce). They are 99% weed free. All you have to do is plant, water, pick, eat.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
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